The Sunburst Award Society is pleased to announce the winners of the second annual Copper Cylinder Awards, an annual member’s choice award selected by members of the Sunburst Award Society for books published during the previous year.
I have always thought that it’s a little strange that fantasy tends to concentrate on what’s really a very small slice of history (basically 13th or 14th century England) when there’s so much available to use as an archetype. So I was really excited about the idea of basing a fantasy world on something else, and when I started reading about Napoleon I thought, “Okay, this is it!”
I had this post ready to go on Friday, but it was pre-empted by news of Ann Crispin’s death. I was considering letting the blog sit silent for a week–but in light of the fools and trolls who are dreaming of Writer Beware’s demise, I’ve decided to carry on as usual. It’s what Ann would have wanted.
Author A. C. Crispin (b.1950) died on September 6 after a year-long battle with cancer. Crispin began publishing in 1983 with
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware
Ann Crispin, best-selling author, Writer Beware co-founder, fearless fighter in the scam wars, beloved wife and mother, my friend, died this morning after a two-year struggle with cancer.
I’ll write a mem…
I’ve been hesitant to make this post, but it’s time. I want to thank you all for your good wishes and prayers. I fear my condition is deteriorating. I am doing the best I can to be positive but I probably don’t have an awful lot of time left.
Polymath and former SFWA President Frederik Pohl (b.1919) died on September 2 after entering the hospital in repiratory distress earlier in the day. Pohl joined science fiction fandom in the 1930s and quickly became an integral part of the New York science fiction scene. He was denied entry to the first Worldcon in 1939 as part of the “Exclusion Act.” By that time, he had begun to publish, with his poem “Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna,” appearing in 1937 and his first story, the collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth “Before the Universe” in 1940 (as S.D. Gottesman, one of several pseudonyms Pohl used, either singularly or in collaboration).
Early in their careers, writers sometimes sign away valuable rights under less than favorable terms. This article discusses the important right of termination under US copyright law, which allows writers to reclaim such rights in their works and to try to make a better deal.
While many SFWA members are at WorldCon in San Antonio this weekend, some of us are bucking the trend and going to Dragon*Con.
A roundup of recent publisher troubles and closures that have come across my desk…
