Not much serious here, just some stuff to enhance your day!

First up, "El Martillo de Thor se queda Pendejo." While taking a little break from grading final projects, I stumbled across this insane video about a cultural phenomenon I was not aware of, but now must learn EVERYTHING about. Whoah. You gotta respect Mjölnir, else it tries to launch you into space. Seriously, though, what kind of festivals do they celebrate south of the border?


(Okay, I'd go watch this. Wearing eye protection. And a helmet. And body armor.)

Next, OMG am I charmed half-to-death by "Star Trek: The Middle School Musical":



Finally, if you're local, here are a few upcoming area SF events you don't want to miss:

Spectrum Fantastic Art Live, the most amazing SF art show anywhere, THIS weekend. In its second year.

ConQuesT, the Kansas City SF convention, on Memorial Day weekend.

And of course in a month is the Campbell Conference. Newly confirmed guest authors include Kevin J. Anderson and Robert J. Sawyer, plus we'll host a screening of Destination Planet Negro, among other things:



This year's theme is "To the Stars," an SFnal play on the Kansas state motto. June 13-16.

Okay, I'm either diving back into grading or else going out to the garage to install the fuel pump for the Hot Rod Newport's new fuel-injection rig... decisions, decisions....

Best,
Chris

For immediate release Also available in .doc or .pdf version Earlier this year, Frederik Pohl announced his intentions to step down from his long-time service to the Award. New Sturgeon Award juror Andy Duncan talks about being honored with the Award by Pohl: One of the highlights of my life was being handed my Sturgeon Award trophy by Frederik Pohl, at the 2002 ceremony, as he's been one of my heroes since I was a kid. His stories, novels, and nonfiction, and the magazines and anthologies he has edited, have not only shaped the field of science fiction for me and everyone else, but have shaped my conception of what it means to be a professional writer. On the Sturgeon jury, in particular, his firsthand knowledge of the science-fiction short story is simply irreplaceable; the jury will have a Fred-shaped hole in it forever.

Pohl presents the Sturgeon Award to Duncan.

Chris McKitterick recalls how Pohl changed his life:

I first came to the University of Kansas to take James Gunn's SF Writing Workshop in the summer of 1992, and was both astounded and incredibly pleased to discover that we had the opportunity to work with not only Gunn but another master of the art - completely to ourselves! - Frederik Pohl. I first read his work in the form of Gateway, which still holds a central place in my heart and deeply influenced how I write. That workshop truly changed my life. I felt that I must do my absolute best to become a real SF writer so I could retroactively deserve such access and professional attention. Fred returned to the Workshop and Campbell Conference just about every year for the following two decades, sharing his time, intelligence, and gentle wisdom with other summer-program attendees. Fred is one of the reasons I fell in love with the Center. No one can be Fred, but he inspires us to be our absolute best.

James Gunn shares an excerpt of his essay, "Fred and Me," from the Gateways collection:

Pohl at the 2002 Campbell Conference.

Fred told me once, "Conventions never end; they just adjourn to another venue." That’s the way it was for Fred and me. We met at a convention, the World Science Fiction Convention of 1952, held in the old Morrison Hotel in Chicago. It was my first convention, my first meeting with SF writers and editors, and even readers, of any kind, and it was a wonderful beginning. I’d been writing science fiction since the spring of 1948 and having my stories published since the fall of 1949. During those two years I kept writing, among other things a novella, "Breaking Point," that I adapted from a three-act play I wrote as an Investigation and Conference project. I sent it to Horace Gold, editor of Galaxy, and one day I got a telephone call from this clipped New York voice saying he liked "Breaking Point," but it was too long and would I let Ted Sturgeon cut it down. Horace also suggested my name to Fred Pohl, who was running a literary agency called Dirk Wylie and, I later discovered, was close to Horace, and Fred became my agent. He was a good agent, and he sold a lot of stories for me—some to Horace (though not "Breaking Point," which he sold to Lester del Rey at the new Space Science Fiction), some to John Campbell, some to lesser markets, and one wondrous sale to Argosy—and a couple of novels. When Orson Scott Card got too busy to organize the Sturgeon Award decision process, I asked Fred if we could do it. Together we recruited Judy Merril and later, after her resignation the year before her death, we got Kij Johnson, a previous winner, as a replacement. I haven’t even mentioned Fred’s distinguished service as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America (or the irony of his having criticized its value in earlier days), or as president of World SF, or his many invitations to speak as a futurist, or his lecturing on science fiction in Europe for the US Information Agency (he paved the way for my three later trips), or his Grand Master Award from SFWA, or his awards from other groups such as the Science Fiction Research Association, or the trends his stories and novels have anticipated. You can look it up. We’ve all grown old together, Fred and me and science fiction, too. Conventions are not what they used to be (neither is the future). I wasn’t there at the beginning of the conventions, as Fred was, or of the Futurians, who were banned from the first World Convention but got their revenge by taking over a good part of science fiction in their day. But we’ve seen a lot of it—Fred for more than seventy years, me for only sixty. Maybe the next convention will convene in an alternate universe.

We will truly miss Fred's contributions to the Center and the Award.

We all have the time, suggests Cory Doctorow.

(By the way, we now have the hard drive containing the videos of his talk from last week, and I'll be editing and posting it soon.)

While he was here, we talked about how he finds time to write while whirling around the world more days than he's at home. Yet he gets more written than most people (besides Asimov, but who could?).

This is a big issue for me. At the start of this semester, with one of my courses now an online course, I thought I would make Mondays and possibly part of Tuesdays my "Writing-Only Days" (I even put those into my Google Calendar). I have a novel well under way and outlined, and I'm enthusiastic about writing it. Wow, I was going to get this sucker done before finals were in!

Not so fast.

I discovered that a new course requires a lot of focus. Not only is it a new course, but it's an online course, which requires TONS of regular interaction. Plus spring is when I do most of the reading for the Campbell Award; I was responsible for planning, promoting, organizing, and participating in the Doctorow talk; I've had to write a couple short pieces that have actual due dates; I'm planning talks at WorldCon, the Eaton Conference, and ConQuest; we're working on the upcoming Sturgeon Award Anthology; I have a million duties as CSSF Director; I have two other courses that require regular attention and classtime; and even I occasionally need a break from the keyboard. Heck, I'd even like to have a personal life - when the snow blanketed town, I really wanted to work on the Chevelle! But those days required EXTRA teaching time to make up online for missing in-class time.

Goodbye, "Writing-Only Days." I deleted those from my calendar a couple of weeks ago. That was discouraging and a little depressing.

I've just been unable to find the big blocks of time that I feel I need to get writing done. Momentum, focus, all that. I've always written that way, sometimes planning so well in advance that I can write entire short stories, novel chapters, and even the occasional novella in one sitting! Not so anymore.

Well, Doctorow says that we can train ourselves otherwise. He always tries to write at least a couple hundred words a day; other days he writes more, some days less. The point is that he writes whenever he finds the time, and gets done as much as he can. A few hundred words a day equals a novel a year. When I asked how he maintains momentum with such short, separated bursts, he answered, "With practice."

Later, as if to demonstrate, I witnessed this in action: While he was sitting in my office at work between events, he pulled out his laptop and wrote part of an article that was due soon. Just like that, during a 15-minute lull. What a role-model!

Fellow Lawrence spec-fic author Kij Johnson has been forced to use this same writing process since starting her career in academia, and now she writes first thing every morning before anything else. She has a novel due soon, and must continue to publish or order to make tenure, so she had just enough outside pressure to help her create a new habit.

These are two very different authors, each with very different writing, but it works for them both, with practice.

Time to start practicing.



I know that the hardest part for me is going to be letting go of checking in with my students first thing each morning, because there will always be emergencies to deal with, and there goes my focus. I need to start putting my writing career first: I have yet to encounter an emergency that was more important for an hour or two than my writing career as a whole. I can check in later.

(This is a challenge; it's hard just to write that publicly. But it's not as difficult as seeing another week go by during which my writing adds up to only some more notes.)

Tomorrow I start this! I'll report back from time to time to keep myself honest and to let y'all know how it's going. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks he needs big blocks of time to write... and then ends up not writing nearly as much as he needs or wants to. I hope to serve as yet another good example of creating good writing (or whatever your art is) habits!

Chris

Author, journalist, technology activist, and Boing Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow presents this year's Richard W. Gunn Memorial Lecture:

"The Coming War on General Purpose Computing:
Every single political issue will end up rehashing the stupid Internet copyright fight."

For immediate release (.doc version here)

When: Thursday, February 28, 2013 7:30pm - 9:30pm Where: Alderson Auditorium University of Kansas Student Union Lawrence, KS 66045 Cost: Free! Seating is limited, so arrive early to ensure a spot. Jayhawk Ink bookstore will have copies of several of Doctorow's books available to purchase in Alderson Auditorium (as well as the bookstore on Level 2) and get signed by the author after the talk. This is Doctorow's third visit to KU: first in 1999 when his story "Craphound" (his first published story) was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and next in 2009 when his novel Little Brother won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Don't miss hearing one of the most interesting thinkers of our time talk about some of our most-relevant issues!

---

Bio:

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist, and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing, and a contributor to The Guardian, the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Wired, and many other newspapers, magazines, and websites. He was formerly Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit civil-liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards, and treaties. He holds an honorary doctorate in computer science from the Open University (UK), where he is a Visiting Senior Lecturer; in 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.

Doctorow's novels have been translated into dozens of languages and are published by Tor Books and simultaneously released on the Internet under Creative Commons licenses that encourage their re-use and sharing, a move that increases his sales by enlisting his readers to help promote his work. His work has won the Locus, Sunburst, Ontario Library White Pine, Prometheus, Indienet, and John W. Campbell Memorial awards, and been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial (for "Craphound"), and British Science Fiction Awards. His latest young-adult novel is Pirate Cinema, a story of mashup guerillas who declare war on the entertainment industry. His latest novel for adults is Rapture of the Nerds, written with Charles Stross and published in 2012. His New York Times Bestseller Little Brother was published in 2008. A sequel, Homeland, was just published. His latest short story collection is With a Little Help, available in paperback, ebook, audiobook and limited edition hardcover. In 2011, Tachyon Books published a collection of his essays, called Context: Further Selected Essays on Productivity, Creativity, Parenting, and Politics in the 21st Century (with an introduction by Tim O'Reilly) and IDW published a collection of comic books inspired by his short fiction called Cory Doctorow's Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now. The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow, a PM Press Outspoken Authors chapbook, was also published in 2011.

He co-founded the open source peer-to-peer software company OpenCola, sold to OpenText, Inc in 2003, and presently serves on the boards and advisory boards of the Participatory Culture Foundation, the Clarion Foundation, The Glenn Gould Foundation, and the Chabot Space & Science Center's SpaceTime project.

In 2007, Entertainment Weekly called him, "The William Gibson of his generation." He was also named one of Forbes Magazine's 2007/8/9/10 Web Celebrities, and one of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders for 2007.

Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in London.

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The Lecture Series:

The Gunn Lecture, endowed by Dr. Richard W. Gunn, James Gunn's brother, has featured several science-fiction scholars. Although it has also sponsored speakers on Shakespeare and Ralph Ellison, it often brings distinguished science-fiction scholars to the campus beginning with scholar Fredric Jameson, William A. Lane Professor at Duke University; and continuing with Bill Brown, Edgar Carson Waller Professor at the University of Chicago; China Miéville, British author of what has become known as the New Weird; and Nöel Sturgeon, Theodore Sturgeon's daughter and trustee of his literary estate, Professor of Critical Cultures, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University, and juror on the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. The Center also recently co-sponsored a visit from Michael Chabon, prize-winning author and editor.

KU Calendar news item here.

Facebook Event page here.

If you love science fiction and fantasy of any length, now's your chance to make your favorite works known! For the next few days (through the end of November), Locus Online is operating a survey of the best SF/F of the past 112 years on their website.

List what you consider the best novels in two separate categories - SF and fantasy - and combined SF/F in the novella, novelette, and short-story length. (Lots of horror in there, too; you pick where you think it best fits.) The 20th century gets 10 ranked positions for each category, and 21st century fiction gets five; I assume this heavier weight-per-year (100 gets 10 slots, 12 gets 5 slots) is because we better remember recent work?

Anyhow, GO DO IT! Here are a ton of resources to refresh your memory (I certainly needed them):

• The Center for the Study of Science Fiction's Basic Science Fiction Library: Mostly lists novels, but also contains some short fiction. This list is ordered by author, spanning all time. Includes publication dates and even links where we could find them! If you see any glaring omissions, please let me know and we'll consult about adding those works.


• The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best SF novel winners list: Goes back to 1972 novels (that is, the first Campbell Award-winning novel in 1973 was for a novel published in 1972).


• The John W. Campbell Memorial Award finalist list: Goes back to 2003. I recommend looking through the finalist lists of the major awards, because what you might consider the best works don't always win! True for me, anyway.


• Locus put together this fantastic list of 20th century SF/F novels: They mix SF and fantasy, so you'll have to decide on some of these where a novel belongs. How did they get on this list? "The lists include, first, every title that's won a Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus, British Fantasy, British SF, Campbell, Sturgeon, Clarke, International Fantasy, Shirley Jackson, or Bram Stoker award [except for first novels categories]. Second, every title that has been a nominee or runner-up for any two of these awards is included. Third, for 20th century novels, every title included in four or more reference works or polls, such as David Pringle's Science Fiction: 100 Best Novels, Neil Barron's Anatomy of Wonder, NPR's recent poll, and some 50 other works and polls compiled as part of the sfadb.com project, is included. For 21st century novels, since relatively few such references are recent enough to cover that period, the bar is lowered to inclusion in any one such work. The bars are set so that the number of titles added to the lists from such references is about the same as the number of titles included due to award standings."


• The Locus list of 21st century SF/F novels: See above notes for details.


• NPR's crowd-sourced Your Picks: Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books of all time.


• The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short SF: Goes back to 1986 stories of all length shorter than the novel (that is, the first Sturgeon Award-winner in 1987 was for a short work published in 1986).


• The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award finalist list: Goes back to 2003.


• The Locus list of 20th century short SF/F. How did they get on this list? "For short fiction, the supplement to awards data is the number of anthology and collection reprints a story has accumulated, based on data compiled in the Locus Index to Science Fiction by William Contento. For 20th century stories, the bar is more than 8; for 21st century stories, the bar is more than 2, though the Index is not complete through 2010 and some recent titles have been added based on manual inspection of various year's-best anthologies. Again, the bars are set so that the final lists are roughly divided between titles via award references and titles via reprint references. For works not on the short fiction lists, there are word-count guidelines on the 20th century short fiction page."


• The Locus list of 21st century short SF/F: See above for details. Also note that the letters in the publication-date info for suggestions of which category to use: ss is for short story, nvt is for novelette, nva is for novella.


• The Nebula Award for best SF/F of the year list: This is Wikipedia's novel list, but also links to all the other lengths. (The official SFWA Nebula Award site only goes back to 2000.)


• Hugo Award for best SF/F of the year list: Links to all the winners, of all lengths, and finalists, too.

Whew, that there's a lot of reading references! I hope you find it useful not just for voting on the Locus survey, but for future reading, too.

Best,
Chris

The second week of the Science Fiction Writers Workshop begins today, and tonight the inimitable Andy Duncan joins us as this year's guest author.

Last night, our dinner out was Mexican, where we drank margaritas and ate deliciousness on the outdoor patio in 100-degree heat. Why? Well, icy beverages help, as does shade - the building blocked the sun - and a lovely breeze. But mostly it was so we could watch the Tour of Lawrence bicycle race's final round, which passed the patio just feet away. The riders even decided to participate in a major crash right across from us - no one seemed hurt, though a couple of bikes were out of the race... and it was almost the last lap of 50 (yes, FIFTY, on a day of 100 degrees).

Afterward, the neighbors across the street from this year's Workshop building (a gorgeous scholarship hall that we have all to ourselves - that's it across the street from the grandstand in this photo) invited us to their block party. This included a zip-line terminating in an inflatable pool, a claw-foot tub hooked up to a garden hose, dozens of chairs, food, beer, and live music on a stage built in a parking spot in front of the house. The band we saw is Rob Gillespie's new group, Pale Hearts, and it was their first show. They rocked the block! So hard, in fact, that The Law showed up and had a conversation with the home-owner. You probably already noticed the interesting array of attire adorning some of the concert attendees. One of the Workshoppers speculated that the party was holding a "worst costume contest." Ah, the charms of youth.

Sometimes people ask me, "Why Lawrence, Kansas?" Well, right there's one reason.

Oh, and in case you missed it:

Campbell Award and Sturgeon Award winners announced.

This coming weekend is the Campbell Conference! If you haven't yet registered, now's the time - especially if you want to register for the Awards Banquet on Friday night, as today's the deadline for guaranteeing we can get you dinner. (You can always attend the Awards after dinner, but you still need to register so we can have enough seating.)

Now I'm back to it.

Best,
Chris

Hi folks!

The Campbell Conference begins in just over a week, so if you haven't yet registered, now is the time! If you haven't attended before, it's a wonderful opportunity to spend a weekend with a number of SF authors, editors, and other enthusiasts in an intimate and fun-yet-scholarly setting. You can read all about it here.

A few author and editor attractions for this year include:

Robin Wayne Bailey, who is not just and author and editor but also a past president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and a key player in the creation of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Andy Duncan, whose story "The Pottawatomie Giant" won the World Fantasy Award in 2001, as did his collection Beluthahatchie and Other Stories in the same year. His novella "The Chief Designer" won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award in 2002. He's also this year's guest author for the SF Writing Workshop.

Sheila Finch, whose work has won several awards, including the Nebula Award for Best Novella, the San Diego Book Award for Juvenile Fiction, and the Compton-Crook Award.

James Gunn, who is CSSF founder, SF author and historian, SFWA Grand Master, and past president of SFWA.

Kij Johnson, whose fantasy and SF novels and short stories have won the Sturgeon Award, World Fantasy Award, Nebula Award three times, and IAFA Award.

Eric T. Reynolds, who is an author as well as publisher/editor of Hadley Rille Books.

Joan Slonczewski, whose YASF/adult SF novel The Highest Frontier is a finalist (and possibly more...) for this year's Campbell Award. Dr. Slonczewski is a biologist, and her novel, A Door into Ocean, won the Campbell Award in 1986.

Sheila Williams, who is editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine.

...and more! If you're a writer, consider arriving early so you can attend the 1:00pm - 4:00pm talk about "The Secrets of Successful Writing." And if you enjoy intelligent conversation in a museum-like setting, be sure to stay through Sunday afternoon, when local paleontologist Larry Martin hosts "Science Fiction Sunday" at his home.

We have decided to keep the early-bird (pre-June-14) pricing in place, so it's still just $45, even at the wonderful new Oread location just down the road from the usual Union setting.

Hope to see you there, and help spread the word!

Best,
Chris

Check out the wonderful new poster that Marie DeMars made for this year's Campbell Conference (click the pic to see it bigger on the Conference page). Thanks, M! It looks FANTASTIC!

Also check out the growing guest list and new programming information. Hope to see you there!

In case you missed the news this week and last, the finalists for both the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best SF novel of the year and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short-SF are now posted. Check out the great reading!

Finally, word-count tracking for The Adventures of Jack and Stella:
3200 in the manuscript (about 30,000 in notes, scene snippets, and so forth). Loving it so far!

Speaking of which, my day-job day is now officially over, and back I go to plunge Jack and Stella into ever-greater peril.

Chris

The Sturgeon Award honors the best short science fiction of the year. Congrats to all those on the short-list!

(The finalists for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best SF novel of the year were announced last week.)

Looking for some good stuff to read? These lists are a great place to start!

Best,
Chris

Just dipping out of grading finals for a few updates:

First up, interested in being part of this year's Science Fiction Writing Workshop with special guest author Andy Duncan? Well, we still have a few slots left, so apply ASAP to ensure consideration!

Last weekend, Hastings Bookstore in Lawrence held a big event for local SFnal types. Here we are:


Here's the whole gang (left to right): Lane Robins, James Gunn, K.d. McEntire, Mary Chambers, Robin Wayne Bailey, Chris McKitterick, and Kij Johnson who dropped in on her way out of town. Check out the photos on The Gathering Facebook photo page.

Speaking of finals, grades are complete for my "Science, Technology, and Society: Examining the Future Through a Science-Fiction Lens" course (ENGL507). As usual, those who participated most in class, turned in all the projects, and did extra-credit got the best grades on their finals, as well. Surprise! Hoping to wrap up my vast assortment of technical-writing courses tomorrow. Yes, early. Because:

I'm going to be mostly offline starting later this week, WRITING MY OWN STUFF. You heard that right: I'm going to be selfish with my time and try to get down the first three chapters of my next novel (The True-Life Space Adventures of Jack and Stella) in time to read from it at the upcoming ConQuest SF convention in Kansas City over Memorial Day weekend.

The Sinus Infection of Enduring Suffering has sidelined my CrossFit shenanigans, but I've kept up the movements at home, anyway, getting up from my desk every hour or two to do push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and so forth. Helps not only keep me from feeling like I'm losing ground but also helps keep up the energy.

Speaking of which, I'm back to it!

Best,
Chrs