Various & Sundry 3/27/07

Posted on March 27, 2007    Posted by John Scalzi

Various things:

* I meant to pimp Justine Larbalestier’s Magic’s Child last week, when it hit the stores, but then collapsed into my own belly button. Let me rectify that now by saying that Justine has written not only a terrific book here — this should not be a surprise, given that she’s up for the Norton Award this year — but also managed to stick the landing with her “Magic or Madness” trilogy, which is very cool. Justine and I did our trilogies more or less at the same pace, and it was great to be able to have someone out there who was going through the same crap I was, pretty much in step with me. It was helpful, you know?

But that’s all backstage stuff. Up front, as I mention, Justine’s got a great book and an excellent conclusion to her series. You must go out and buy copies right now.

* If you’ve been following the SFWA elections in the ElectionBlog (actually a newsgroup), you’ll know that Will Shetterly has been asking interesting questions of the candidates and making some cogent observations. Now he has some questions about electronic piracy (and SFWA’s engagment with the issue) and about SFWA’s current “newsgroup”-style online discussions. If you’re a SFWA member (or are thinking about becoming one, ever), head over to Will’s blog, read the questions, and leave your answers to the questions there.

* If you’re in the Dayton, Ohio area and you’ve thought to yourself, “gee, I wonder what Scalzi would be like, lecturing on how to write fiction,” you’re in some luck, since I will be lecturing on that very same topic on Friday, April 13, as part of Sinclair College’s 33rd Annual Writers’ Workshop. There will be two 90-minute sessions, and there will also be other instructors, schooling participants on poetry, non-fiction and screenwriting. The cost of the workshop is $25, unless you’re a Sinclair student, in which case it’s just $15. Anyone who’s ever seen me live knows I’ll have no problems talking for an hour and a half solid, but I do also plan on answering questions as well.

* Athena just wrote a four page, single-spaced ghost story. She is made of awesome.