I have a confession to make: although born in the United States, I’m lousy at that country’s national pastime. I hit not, neither do I catch. If I had a dollar for every fly ball I dropped as kid, I could buy…well, a baseball glove, probably, but what would be the point? So this week …
Foresight: Speculative Fiction in Canada
That’s the name of a Canada Council-funded reading and discussion series starting up soon at the Toronto Public Library–and I’ll be one of the 26 featured authors. Here’s how my two events are described: Candas Jane Dorsey and Edward Willett Two of Canadian SF’s most fearless explorers of big ideas, Candas Jane Dorsey (A Paradigm …
The Guardian arts blog says nice things about science fiction fans
To whit: Few in our contemporary culture spend as much time as the readers – and writers – of SF regularly considering the repercussions of technological and social change, or environmental transformation, or the ideological inflection in popular cultural products – no matter how frequently the press and politicians comment on such matters. Thank you …
Photo of the (Yester)day: Me reading in Saskatoon
I made the trek up to Saskatoon yesterday, killing two birds with one stone: I met with two of the girls I’m mentoring through the Saskatchewan Writers Guild’s Youth Mentorship Program, and then read from Marseguro at McNally Robinson bookstore. Both events were successful, although you have to wonder if it’s worth it when you’re …
Milestones in musical technology
I’ve always had an interest in the myriad ways art and science intersect: not surprisingly, Leonardo da Vinci is a hero of mine. Few arts have been altered more by advances in science and technology than music, a point made by New Scientist’s Technology Blog recently when it listed five milestones in music technology (and …
Top search words bringing people to my site
I haven’t done this for a while, but here are the top search terms currently bringing people to my main site, with links to what these terms find you at edwardwillett.com. As you can see, our old friends the spider goats continue to be high on the list. time perceptionanimal emotionsgolf technologyanimal intelligenceplant communicationspider goatscobalt …
Another three weeks’ worth of Futurismic posts…
…which should actually be a longer list than this, but I’ve been too busy to post as often as I’d like. Still, it’s not a bad crop: UCLA researchers design nanomachine that kills cancer cells It’s not molecular manufacturing, but you can see it from here: To sleep, perchance to dream (suspended animation) A world …
Just the flax, ma’am
Download the audio version.Get my science column weekly as a podcast. Last week I wrote about converting agricultural residue such as wheat straw into bio-fuels. But there are other uses for some crop residue. Take flax straw, for example. For most flax growers that phrase immediately provokes the Henny Youngmanish riposte, “Please!” That’s because flax …

