DASFA

As you may know, it's become custom recently for the folks who have memberships (attending or not) to the upcoming Worldcon to get free copies of most of the nominees, so that they can all be checked out before it's time for voting. Even better this year, however, is that all five of the nominees for the Short Story Hugo are already free on the web, so why not have a look and enjoy?

“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld April 2011)

For the April meeting, we will be welcoming Wil McCarthy, who will read from his latest writing project and perhaps field questions on some of his other endeavors.

The March Dead Dog at our place went fairly well with a good turnout. I unfortunately did not make the April Movie Alternate as I was still recovering from the sprint at work to launch the YSL exhibition... but I trust it was mazing as always!

The Hugo Awards for 2012, which will be given out at Chicon 7, have had their nominations released. I could list the whole thing here, but it seems a bit of a mistake to, when the site for the Hugos will have all the details and will be updated in case of some minor error. But, I did have a few thoughts on them, which I thought I'd share.

Here's an interesting essay by Ursula K. Le Guin about the Death of the Book. In short, she doesn't think the book is going to die at all, and she seems quite optimistic on the future of the written word.

http://blog.bookviewcafe.com/2012/03/26/the-death-of-the-book/

For the March meeting, it’s the return of Name That Sci-Fi Tune! Come to compete, or simply be amazed! Tim Simpson has kindly agreed to MC the program.

The February Dead Dog at Jim’s was a lot of fun and a fair number of people attended. I ended up in the back playing games much of the evening, but things seemed lively all over. I wasn’t able to make the alternate, but hope things went well. This month, Dave and I are hosting the Dead Dog – plan to stop by after the meeting!

And the week after DASFA it’s AnomalyCon 2 (March 23-25; http://anomalycon.com)

For the February meeting, we will have a panel of three authors, moderated by Mario Acevedo. The subject is “Salty Language is In Effect: The Outré in Genre Fiction.” On the panel will be Jesse Bullington (The Enterprise of Death), Jason Heller (Taft 2012) and Stephen Graham Jones (Zombie Bake-Off and MileHiCon 44 Toastmaster). Don’t miss it!

Just what do DASFA members read? DASFA member Angela found out at the Christmas party in December 2011. She asked each of us to give the name of a book or series, and it could either be an all-time favorite or whatever we're reading now. This is her list, sorted by date published. If a story was cited, the link is to a collection containing it.

According to John Scalzi, "Connie Willis has been given the 2011 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America", which he should know because he's currently the president!

There's some rarified company that Connie Willis is joining, which I could list but wikipedia happily lists them all there. Much congratulations to Connie Willis!

Posted by Paul on the DASFA Yahoo Group. Awesome cover of Science Fiction Double Feature from Rocky Horror by Moby, Stephin Merritt, Amanda Palmer & Neil Gaiman.

He also posted this video, Doing the Time Warp, Star Trek style. It includes scenes from TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, and a couple of the movies. (What, no animated series?) Like all fan videos, it has scenes from the Star Trek TOS episode "Plato's Stepchildren". I wouldn't recognize it otherwise.

Ed Bryant, Jr., a Colorado writer and all around great man, has found himself in a bit of a financial predicament brought about by, among other things, medical costs. The "Friends of Ed" organization has decided to showcase a two-pronged auction event to help raise funds for Ed's immediate needs.

A live auction will take place on October 23, 2011 at the Hyatt Regency in the Denver Tech Center during MileHiCon 43. Additionally, an online auction through Ebay will take place in the week prior to MileHiCon 43, ending on both Saturday and Sunday, October 22 and 23, 2011.