…a.k.a. Coffeyville, Kansas: at least, according to Google.
Curling: inspirational to scientists
We all have interests which seem odd to those who don’t share them. Maybe it’s stamp collecting. Maybe it’s science fiction. Maybe it’s watching NASCAR races. Whatever our interest, when we are called upon to defend it, we’re usually reluctant to give the real reason, which is generally no more complicated than, “Because I enjoy …
Margaret Atwood, "of Canadian Sci-Fi author fame"
Margaret Atwood will unveil her invention, the LongPen, which will purportedly allow authors to sign books for fans long-distance via a robotic hand that emulates the movement of the author’s real hand, at the London Book Fair in a couple of weeks. I seriously doubt it will catch on, but whether it does or not, …
Aurora Award nominations now open!
The Aurora Award nominations are now open. The Auroras honor the best Canadian science fiction and fantasy of the year. Anyone who is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident may nominate; you can find the nomination form here (in PDF format). It’s unseemly of me to mention it, perhaps, but may I point out that …
Writing tips for non-writers
Author John Scalzi at Whatever offers some excellent “Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don’t Want to Work at Writing”–which also happen to be pretty good writing tips for pro writers, too. In particular, Scalzi’s tip about making sentences shorter struck home; just like Scalzi confesses to, I often use semi-colons to create long sentences that …

