Best General Literary Work Story collections, comic collections, graphic novels, non-fiction works, and serialized online stories.
• Gnoll Tales, by NightEyes DaySpring. (Dancing Jackal Books – short story collection – June)
Best Non-Fiction Work
• Furscience, by Dr. Courtney N. Plante. (International Anthropomorphic Research Project – research on furry fandom – December)
Best Graphic Story Includes comic books, and serialized online stories.
• Tamberlane, by Caytlin Vilbrandt and Ari Noble. (Internet – January 11 to December 27)
Best Comic Strip Newspaper-style strips, including those with ongoing arcs.
• Foxes in Love, by Toivo Kaartinen. (Twitter – Jan 1 to December 21)
Best Magazine Edited collections of creative and/or informational works by various people, professional or amateur, published in print or online in written, pictorial or audio-visual form.
• Dogpatch Press, edited by Patch O’Furr. (Internet – February to December)
Best Visual Art Illustrations for books, magazines, convention program books, cover art for such, coffee-table portfolios.
Best Game Computer or console games, role-playing games, board games.
• Laika: Aged Through Blood (Developer:Brainwash Gang – Publisher:Thunderful Publishing – October 19)
Best Website Online collections of art, stories, and other creative and/or informational works. Includes galleries, story archives, directories, blogs, and personal sites.
Minnesota Book Award finalist Andrew DeYoung (2023) moderated a discussion between all four 2024 finalists in contention for the Minnesota Book Award for Genre Fiction: C.M. Alongi, author of Citadel (Blackstone Publishing); Tashia Hart, author of Native Love Jams (self-published); Naomi Kritzer, author of Liberty’s Daughter (Fairwood Press); Emma Törzs, author of Ink Blood Sister Scribe (William Morrow/HarperCollins Publishers). The Minnesota Book Awards are sponsored by Education Minnesota; Macalester College is the 2024 category sponsor for the Genre Fiction category.
…This relatability is part of what has made The Murderbot Diaries so beloved. Golden Voice Kevin R. Free, who has narrated all of the unabridged audiobooks in the series, says that fans regularly reach out to him to tell him that they’ve listened over and over again. “When people say, ‘It’s comforting to me when I listen to this,’ I just feel so happy that I’m bringing people comfort.” Free stresses that he’s also a fan of the books, and he’s quick to give full credit to Wells….
(3) APPLY FOR SLF OLDER WRITERS GRANT. The Speculative Literature Foundation will accept applications for the 2024 Older Writers Grant from May1 through May 31. The complete guidelines are here.
Since 2004, the $1,000 Older Writers Grant has been awarded annually to writers who are at least fifty years of age at the time of application to assist such writers who are just starting to work at a professional level. These funds may be used as each writer determines will best assist their work. This grant, as with all SLF grants, is intended to help writers working with speculative literature.
Grant applications are open to all: you do not need to be a member of SLF to apply for or receive a grant. Launched in January 2004 to promote literary quality in speculative fiction, the Speculative Literature Foundation addresses historical inequities in access to literary opportunities for marginalized writers. Our staff and board are committed to representing racial, gender, and class diversity at all levels of our organization. This commitment is at the heart of what the Speculative Literature Foundation stands for: equal access to create and advance science fiction, fantasy, and horror literature. We strive to enable writers at any stage of their career and of any age, any ethnicity, any gender expression, from any location and of any economic or social status, who want to learn about, or create within, the speculative arts. The SLF is a 501(c)3 non-profit.
(4) NEW VOLUME IN THE TAFF LIBRARY. Sue Mason’s Into the Wide Purple Yonder: A Fan Artist in America, a report of her westbound TAFF trip to the USA and the 2000 Chicago Worldcon (Chicon 2000), was published in 2023 by Alison Scott, illustrated with many photographs and artwork by Sue herself. David Langford says it now has been “Added to the TAFF site with the kind permission of Sue and Alison on 24 April 2024.” Cover artwork by Sue Mason.
Science fiction has been warning us about fascism for decades — so why haven’t we listened? How did Nazis become just another monster in our stories, like werewolves or cyborgs? Plus we talk about the new wave of book censorship with Maggie Tokuda-Hall, co-founder of the new organization Authors Against Book Bans.
First Appearance: Thor (Vol. 1) #346, by writer/penciler Walt Simonson, inker Terry Austin, colorist Christie Scheele, and letterer John Workman Jr.
Created by the frost giants, this ancient weapon has limitless power stored within it. The Casket of Ancient Winters can unleash a devastating icy wind that can consume entire worlds. It often gets forgotten because it has been stored in Odin‘s treasure room safely for years.
The Casket of Ancient Winters briefly appeared in the MCU. Loki used it to help the frost giants take over Asgard. His plan was unsuccessful, and the artifact remained locked in Odin’s vault, but it is an endlessly powerful tool that has been seemingly forgotten by Marvel fans.
…Geisler was known for her snark and humor, from her cherished pocket constitution to her in-class commentary. In her beloved 1980s Mazda GLC, Geisler was a vibrant presence on campus, one that worked to push her students just as much as she worked to foster their passion for journalism.
Edwards, who had a class with Geisler in the spring of 2020 at the start of the coronavirus in 2020, said her spirit was pivotal to maintaining community and morale throughout Zoom classes.
“Through the transition to virtual learning, Deb made it so all about the students. She put her students before herself, she again always found time to make us laugh. She was very, very flexible. She really was just great,” said Edwards.
Geisler was heavily involved in the Suffolk and Boston communities. At Suffolk, she was the adviser to The Suffolk Voice. Her passion for all things science fiction led her to chair Noreascon 4, the 2004 World Science Fiction Convention, along with her involvement in conventions through the years….
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 24, 1930 — Richard Donner. (Died 2021.) Tonight we have Richard Donner who has entered the Twilight Zone, errr, the Birthday spotlight. As a genre producer, he’s responsible for some of our most recognizable productions.
His first such works was on The Twilight Zone (hence my joke above in case you didn’t get it) as he produced six episodes there including “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”. He’d go on to work in The Sixties on The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart!, and The Wild Wild West. He closed out this period by producing Danger Island (which I’ve never heard of) where, and I quote IMDB, “Archaeologists are being pursued by pirates around an island in the South Pacific. On this island, various adventures await them.” It’s at least genre adjacent, isn’t it?
Richard Donner in 1979. Photo by Alan Light.
So forty-eight years ago and then two years later, he directs not one but two now considered classic films in two very different genres. First out was The Omen with an impressive cast far too long to list here that got mixed reviews but had an audience that loved and which birthed (that’s deliberate) a franchise and garnered two Oscar’s nominations.
Next out was, oh guess, go ahead guess, Superman. Yes, it would win a much-deserved Hugo at Seacon ’79. DC being DC the film had a very, very difficult time coming to be and that was true of who directed the film with several sources noting that Donner may have been much as the fourth or fifth choice to do so. Or more.
So what did he do post-Superman? Well something happened during the production of Superman II and he was replaced as director by Richard Lester during principal photography was Lester receiving sole directorial credit. That being most likely tensions, and that was the polite word, which he had with all of the producers concerning the escalating production budget and production schedule. Mind you both films were being shot simultaneously.
If you’re so inclined, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut was released oddly enough when the film came out so I’m assume he had the legal right to do so which I find damn odd.
He did go on to direct The Goonies. Now I really don’t think it’s genre, but I will say that the treasure map and the premise of treasure make it a strong candidate for genre adjacent, wouldn’t you say? Truly a great film!
He went on to direct one of my favorite Bill Murray films, Scrooged. The Suck Fairy says she still likes that film and will agree to watch it every Christmas as long as there’s lots of hot chocolate to drink
His last work was a genre one, Timeline, about a group of archaeologists who travel back to fourteenth century France, based on a Michael Crichton thriller.
(10) SUN-RELATED SFF ON LEARNEDLEAGUE. [Item by David Goldfarb.] There was a One-Day Special quiz about the Sun recently. Most of it isn’t relevant to our interests, but there were two questions involving SFF:
4. In the Marvel Universe, Brazilian mutant Roberto da Costa draws powers from the Sun that include super strength, flight, and the ability to generate blasts of energy. What superhero name does da Costa use as a member of both the X-Men and the New Mutants?
Only 17% of players knew this was “Sunspot”.
7. The 1953 science fiction story “The Golden Apples of the Sun” follows a spaceship tasked with approaching the Sun and trying to literally capture a sample of its material within a giant metal cup operated by a robot hand. The title of the story was taken from a line in the 1899 poem “The Song of Wandering Aengus.” Name either the author of the sci-fi story (who is American) or the writer of the namesake poem (who is Irish).
45% of players got this one. The poet was William Butler Yeats; I won’t insult Filers by giving the name of the SF author.
In the original version of the popular board game Settlers of Catan, players start on an undeveloped island and are encouraged to “fulfill your manifest destiny.” To win you have to collect resources and develop, claiming land by building settlements, cities, and roads.
A new version of the board game, Catan: New Energies, introduces a 21st-century twist — pollution. Expand responsibly or lose. In the new version, modern Catan needs energy. To get that energy players have to build power plants, and those plants can run on renewable energy or fossil fuels. Power plants operated on fossil fuels allow you to build faster but also create more pollution. Too much pollution causes catastrophes….
…This week, 38North published an article revealing that a North Korean animation studio was believed to have worked on the upcoming anime Dahlia in Bloom. This is despite sanctions currently being observed forbidding businesses from working with state-owned North Korean companies. An analysis of leaked files shows that the North Korean studio was likely April 26 Animation Studio, also known as SEK Studio. 38North adds that the studio is North Korea’s leading animation studio, producing many series for domestic TV.
Analysis of the files has also revealed that instructions in Chinese were provided to the North Korean studio, with 38North adding that a Chinese company likely acted as an intermediary between the North Korean studio, Dahlia in Bloom‘s animation studio and others. Other animated series the studio is believed to have worked on are HBO’s Iyanu, Child of Wonder and Invincible Season 3. Files have also been identified that may suggest a relationship with the Japanese animation studio Ekachi Epilka (Demon Lord, Retry!).
Despite its many risks, outsourcing in the Japanese anime industry is often done due to significantly lower labor costs.…
Shane White is an artist, and a mighty good one. I've hired him to ink stuff before (see illo), and now he's posted an entire video about inking. It is very educational. The next time I see him, I will ask for his autograph. (https://t.co/weIx1hhKBl) pic.twitter.com/Lhx7iQC6Gx
[Thanks to Steven French, Teddy Harvia, Kathy Sullivan, Michael J. Walsh, David Goldfarb, Daniel Dern, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day OGH.]
(1) SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS HOF CLASS OF 2024. Muddy Colors announces the Greg Manchess and Yuko Shimizu are among the “2024 Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame” inductees. See examples of all the artists’ work at the link.
The Society of Illustrators has announced the 2024 inductees into their prestigious Hall of Fame. In recognition for their “distinguished achievement in the art of illustration” the artists are chosen based on their body of work and the significant impact it has made on the field of illustration as a whole. This year’s honorees are:
Virginia Frances Sterrett [1900 – 1931]
Robert Grossman [1940 – 2018]
Gustave Doré [1832 – 1883]
Yuko Shimizu [b. 1946]
Gregory Manchess [b. 1955]
Steve Brodner [b. 1954].
(2) LE GUIN PRIZE NOMINATION DEADLINE 4/30. There’s just one week left in the nomination period for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. This $25,000 cash prize is awarded to a writer whose book reflects concepts and ideas central to Ursula’s work.
The recipient of this year’s prize will be chosen by authors Margaret Atwood, Omar El Akkad, Megan Giddings, Ken Liu, and Carmen Maria Machado.
Through April 30th, everyone is welcome to nominate books. Learn more about the prize, eligibility requirements, and the 2024 selection panel here.
China Miéville refuses to take up DAAD residency in Germany in protest of the institution’s willingness to be part of a “shameful program of repression and anti-Palestinian racism” pic.twitter.com/1Y8xOBvdgr
(4) A LITTLE TOO ON THE NOSE? [Item by Scott Edelman.] This year’s Met Gala theme will be “The Garden of Time,” a 1962 short story by J.G. Ballard. “Met Gala 2024: A Guide to the Theme, Hosts and How to Watch”. (Read the New York Times gift article courtesy of Scott Edelman.)
OK, what is the dress code?
It’s as potentially confusing as the exhibit. Guests have been instructed to dress for “The Garden of Time,” so named after a 1962 short story by J.G. Ballard about an aristocratic couple living in a walled estate with a magical garden while an encroaching mob threatens to end their peaceful existence. To keep the crowd at bay, the husband tries to turn back time by breaking off flower after flower, until there are no more blooms left. The mob arrives and ransacks the estate, and the two aristocrats turn to stone.
Just what comes to mind when you think “fashion,” right?
(5) BUTLER IS THEME OF LITFEST OPENING. LitFest in the Dena will hold its main program on May 4-5 at the Mt. View Mausoleum, 2300 N. Marengo Ave, in Altadena, CA. The opening event will be on May 3 – “Introduction and Keynote Presentation: In Conversation with Nikki High”, founder of Octavia’s Bookshelf.
Founder of Octavia’s Bookshelf, Nikki High will tell us about her discovery of books as an early reader and how authors of color helped her discover herself and what could become of her life. Featured in conversation with her friend Natalie Daily, librarian and literacy advocate at the Octavia E. Butler Magnet in Pasadena, Nikki talks about her bookstore as a community gathering place for book lovers who will find a treasure trove of BIPOC literature.
Around the country, growing numbers of independent booksellers are finding themselves the targets of anti-LGBT harassment, with bomb threats proving to be an increasingly common tactic.
In recent weeks, Loyalty Bookstores in Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, Md., Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, N.Y., and Mosaics in Provo, Utah, have all been targets of bomb threats related to drag storytime programming. Sadly, they are not alone, and the numbers only continue to rise.
Per the nonprofit Drag Story Hour, there were nine documented incidents of bomb threats targeting official DSH events in 2023. In 2024, there have already been at least 12 such incidents, with the number growing almost every weekend.
DSH executive director Jonathan Hamilt noted that bomb threats represent only a small fraction of the harassment directed at LGBT communities and LGBT-inclusive gatherings. In 2023, there were more than 60 documented cases of harassment targeting DSH or adjacent programming; the figure more than doubles when including anti-drag incidents in general.
Hamilt called it “deeply disturbing” that adults are choosing to incite violence and intimidate children, parents, and storytellers at family-oriented events while claiming to want to protect children.
Despite what the public perception may be, Hamilt continued, Drag Story Hour is “not scrambling.” The organization is nearly 10 years old and its efforts are “very organized.” Anti-LGBT harassment is nothing new, though sometimes it takes different forms, and the organization is “working on getting through this.”
(8) ELLISON BACK IN PRINT. Inverse interviews J. Michael Straczynski for a piece titled “The Unexpected Resurrection of Harlan Ellison “. The interviewer’s portion is largely a rehearsal of decades-old Ellison controversies. (But by no means all of them.)
…As the title suggests, Greatest Hits is a kind of historical document. These are stories that don’t necessarily reflect where science fiction and fantasy are going but where the genre has been, as seen through the dark lenses of Harlan Ellison. Some of the stories (like “Shatterday”) hold up beautifully. Some, as Cassandra Khaw points out in her introduction, have problematic elements.
But unlike recent reissues of books by Roald Dahl or Ian Fleming, these stories remain uncensored. The fight against censorship was one of Ellison’s lifelong passions, and so, other than a few content warning labels in the book, the sex, sci-fi, and rock ’n’ roll of this writer’s vision remains intact and raucous. Like the punk rock of genre fiction, Ellison’s stories are as jarring and blistering as ever.
“No, no, you don’t touch Harlan’s stuff, man,” Straczynski says. “Even if he’s dead, he’ll come after you.”
(9) SPEAKING OUT. The New Mexico Press Women presented George R.R. Martin with its “Courageous Communicator Award” last month, which Martin found thought-provoking as he explains in “Women of the Press” at Not A Blog.
“On the Occasion of its 75th Anniversary Bestows its COURAGEOUS COMMUNICATOR AWARD on March 15-16, 2024 to George R.R. Martin for building new worlds and creating strong, yet nuanced, women characters in his books and television shows.”
…Our world needs courageous communicators more than ever in these dark divided days, when so many people would rather silence those they disagree with than engage them in debate and discussion. I deplore that… but had I really done enough, myself, to be recognized for courageous speech?
I am not sure I have, truth be told. Yes, I’ve spoken up from time to time, on issues both large and small… but not always. It is always easier to remain silent, to stay on the sidelines and let the storms wash over you. The more I pondered, the more convinced I became that I need to do more. That we all need to do more.
I started by delivering a 45 minute keynote address, on the subject of free speech and censorship. Which, I am happy to say, was very well received (I was not entirely sure it would be)….
(10) 2024 ROMCON AWARDS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Best Translation goes to an old Ian Watson title from 1973…
The Best Novella winner Silviu Genescu is noted for back in the 1990s winning the Romanian equivalent of “D is for End” (that’s the English translation but the play on words works in English as it does in the original Romanian). I remember staying with Silviu’s family back in the late 1990s when doing an Anglo-Romanian SF & Science Cultural Exchange, and their son came back from school to say that they had been learning about his father’s oeuvre that day in class….
The upcoming Mad Max prequel film Furiosa includes a 15-minute action scene that took 78 days to film, it has been revealed.
Speaking to Total Film Magazine, the film’s star Anya Taylor-Joy and George Miller’s production partner Doug Mitchell spoke about the scene, which Taylor-Joy says is “very important for understanding” the character of Furiosa better.
Mitchell revealed that the film includes a “has one 15-minute sequence which took us 78 days to shoot” and required close to 200 stunt workers on set daily. While little else has been revealed about the scene, it has been described as a “turning point” for Furiosa…
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 23, 1973 — Naomi Kritzer, 51. Naomi Kritzer’s CatNet at this point consists of “Cat Pictures Please” which won a Hugo at MidAmeriCon II, Chaos on CatNet and Catfishing on CatNet. As one who likes this series enough that I had her personally autograph the Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories collection, I wanted to know the origin of CatNet, so I asked. Well, I also gifted her with a birthday chocolate treat, sea salt dark chocolate truffles. Here’s her answers:
Naomi Kritzer in 2020 after winning the Lodestar Award.
Naomi Kritzer: The original short story was basically the collision of two things:
1. The line, “the Internet loves cat pictures,” which made me imagine a central internet-based intelligence that wanted pictures of cats.
2. Getting myself a smartphone for the first time (I was a late adopter), and discovering some of its quirks, and coming up with anthropomorphic explanations for things like bad directions.
I mean, the Internet clearly does love cat pictures — although “the Internet” is “the billions of people who use the Internet,” not a secret sentient AI, though!
Cat Eldridge: I went on to ask her how CatNet came to be…
Naomi Kritzer: Do you mean in the story, how it got created? I was very vague about it in the short story but sort of heavily implied it was the result of something someone did at Google. In the novel CatNet was an experimental project from a company that was again, heavily implied to be Google.
Way, way cool in my opinion.
While putting this Birthday together, I noticed that she had two other series from when she was starting out as a writer, so I asked her to talk about them. Both are available on Kindle.
Cat Eldridge: Let’s talk about your first series, Eliana’s Song.
Naomi Kritzer: Eliana’s Song is my first novel, split into two pieces. I rewrote it really heavily multiple times, and each time I tried to make it shorter and it got longer. When Bantam bought it, they suggested that I split it into two books and expand each, which is what I did.
The book actually started out as a short story I wrote while in college. It garnered a number of rejections that said something like, “this isn’t bad, but it kind of reads like chapters 1 and 36 of a novel.” I eventually decided to write the novel, and struggled for a while before realizing I could not literally use the short story as Chapter 1, I had to start over writing from scratch.
Cat Eldridge: And your second series, Dead Rivers.
Naomi Kritzer: Sometime around 2010 I picked up the Scott Westerfield Uglies series and really loved it. Uglies in particular followed a plotline that I really loved, in which someone is sent to infiltrate the enemy side, only to realize once she’s there that these are her people, far more than her bosses are. But she came among them under false pretenses, and she’d have to come clean! And she almost comes clean, doesn’t, of course is discovered and cast out, and and then has to spend the next book (maybe the next two) demonstrating her worthiness to be allowed to come back. I read this series and thought, “dang, I love this plot — I loved this plot as a kid, and reading it now is like re-visiting an amusement park ride you loved when you were 10 and finding out that even when you know where all the turns and drops are, it’s still super fun.” Like two days after that I suddenly remembered that I had literally written that plotline. It’s the plotline of the Dead Rivers trilogy. I really really love this plot, it turns out! So much that I’ve written it!
I’m not sure how well it’s aged. We were not doing trigger warnings on books yet when it came out, and the fact that the book has an explicit and fairly vivid rape scene took a lot of readers by surprise. It’s also a story that’s very much about whether someone can start out a bad guy and work their way to redemption.
Cat Eldridge: Now unto your short stories. I obviously believe everyone should read “Cat Pictures Please” and Little Free Library”, both of which I enjoyed immensely. So what of your short story writing do you think is essential for readers to start with?
Naomi Kritzer: That is a good question but one I find very hard to answer about my own work! It’s a “can’t see the forest because of all the trees” problem, I think.
“So Much Cooking” would probably be at the top, though (with the explanatory note that I always attach these days — I wrote this in 2015.) And then probably “Scrap Dragon” and “The Thing About Ghost Stories.”
To date, she has two short story collections, Gift of the Winter King and Other Stories which is only available as an epub, and of course Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories which is also available in trade paper edition.
Reality Check introduces the superhero nobody wants.
(14) A MONOPOLY OF WHAT? Ellie Griffin concludes “No one buys books” at The Elysian.
In 2022, Penguin Random House wanted to buy Simon & Schuster. The two publishing houses made up 37 percent and 11 percent of the market share, according to the filing, and combined they would have condensed the Big Five publishing houses into the Big Four. But the government intervened and brought an antitrust case against Penguin to determine whether that would create a monopoly.
The judge ultimately ruled that the merger would create a monopoly and blocked the $2.2 billion purchase. But during the trial, the head of every major publishing house and literary agency got up on the stand to speak about the publishing industry and give numbers, giving us an eye-opening account of the industry from the inside. All of the transcripts from the trial were compiled into a book called The Trial. It took me a year to read, but I’ve finally summarized my findings and pulled out all the compelling highlights.
I think I can sum up what I’ve learned like this: The Big Five publishing houses spend most of their money on book advances for big celebrities like Brittany Spears and franchise authors like James Patterson and this is the bulk of their business. They also sell a lot of Bibles, repeat best sellers like Lord of the Rings, and children’s books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar. These two market categories (celebrity books and repeat bestsellers from the backlist) make up the entirety of the publishing industry and even fund their vanity project: publishing all the rest of the books we think about when we think about book publishing (which make no money at all and typically sell less than 1,000 copies).
But let’s dig into everything they said in detail….
…While Translyvania, Romania, brings to mind images of Dracula and his imposing castle, the Hoia Baciu Forest might be more reliably scary. Known as the “Bermuda Triangle of Romania,” the forest has been home to UFO sightings, glowing eyes, strange disappearances, in addition to trees that look like they were plucked from the Upside Down. In the busy residential section of Ichikawa, Japan, is a small, seemingly out-of-place wooded area. It’s been said that those who choose to enter the Yawata no Yabushirazu are whisked away, never to be seen again. Entrance is strictly forbidden. From a woodland in the shadows of England’s “most haunted village” to a tree in a Michigan forest said to be possessed by spirits, here are our favorite spine-tingling forests…
…Environmental enrichment (although without a single, agreed-upon, definition) generally refers to the addition of activities, objects or companionship to optimize physical and psychological states and improve an animal’s welfare.1–3 Appropriate enrichment encourages species-typical behaviors,1 and may improve welfare by providing an individual a greater perception of control and choice in their environment,4 and reducing their perception of threat.5 Because all non-domesticated animals must forage for food, whether by hunting, scavenging or searching, interventions that encourage foraging behavior are commonly implemented for zoo and laboratory animals.
Previous studies of companion animals have demonstrated positive effects of foraging toys on behavior. Shelter dogs that were provided with a Kong toy stuffed with frozen food in addition to reinforcement-based training were calmer, quieter and showed less jumping behavior when meeting potential adopters.6 Shelter parrots that engaged in feather-picking spent more time foraging and showed improved feather condition when provided with a food puzzle.7 Case studies suggest positive effects of food puzzles on the behavior of cats such as weight loss and resolution of inter-cat aggression and other behavioral concerns,8 even though a recent study found that food puzzles may not increase overall activity levels in house cats.9 Despite potential benefits, a recent survey found that less than 5% of Portuguese cat owners attending a veterinary practice provided food puzzles for their cats or hid food around the home to stimulate foraging behavior.10…
TEDDY HARVIA CARTOON.
[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Teddy Harvia, Hampus Eckerman, Arnie Fenner, Kathy Sullivan, Scott Edelman, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Dan’l.]
NECA Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy 2: Body Knocker Groot
Review by Cat Eldridge: Unlike the first film with its very adult Groot, Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume II features a much smaller Groot, say about a foot in height. Whereas the adult Groot came across, at least to me, as a bit somber, this one’s a hyperkinetic creature about as disciplined as a kitten in what it should do and not do. And that’s why I decided I wanted an action figure of him that I’d be placing – naturally — among my houseplants.
There are lots of baby Groots on the market, no surprise there, with a very nice life-sized one from Hot Toys that’ll set you back just under two hundred dollars. Errr… no thanks as even if I could afford it playing in the houseplants simply wouldn’t do.
Mine was a mere seventeen dollars and does just fine even if I’ll never use the shake and shimmy feature. Yeah the one I like and purchased at Newbury Comics is called NECA Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy 2: Body Knocker Groot.
He’s not big, I’d say just about four inches on a boom box as you can see from the image here. He’s cute, very much a plant creature sitting among my house plants. Theoretically he’s solar powered but I’m betting he’s not waterproof so that’ll short out if you put him where I have.
He’s got the right face as even the eyes are superb for such a small figure, and the smile is just right. Even the Boom Box that he’s sitting on is nicely detailed and looks like it could actually play music. On the other hand adult Groot looks too much like an Ent in Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings movies, but this looks utterly original. Did I say he’s cute? Well he is. Utterly cute.
(1) CLARKE AWARD SUBMISSION LIST. The complete list of eligible books received by Arthur C. Clarke Award judges has been posted in “Carbon-Based Bipeds: Apr 22nd”. This year the judges received 117 eligible titles from 50 UK publishing imprints and independent authors.
PEN America has canceled its 2024 Literary Awards ceremony, which was previously scheduled to be held at the Town Hall in New York City on April 29, although some awards will still be conferred. The move follows months of steadily mounting criticism of the organization over its response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which culminated last week in 28 authors withdrawing books from consideration for the awards, including nine of the 10 authors nominated for the organization’s top prize, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award.
“We greatly respect that writers have followed their consciences, whether they chose to remain as nominees in their respective categories or not,” PEN America literary programming chief officer Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf said in a statement. “We regret that this unprecedented situation has taken away the spotlight from the extraordinary work selected by esteemed, insightful and hard-working judges across all categories. As an organization dedicated to freedom of expression and writers, our commitment to recognizing and honoring outstanding authors and the literary community is steadfast.”
The $75,000 prize accompanying the PEN/Stein award will be donated, this year, to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund at the direction of the Literary Estate of Jean Stein….
The five finalists and winning titles for each of the more than 20 awards conferred by PEN America had already been selected by judges during deliberations held before the mass withdrawals, the organization said in a statement. As a result, the organization continued, the two winners who remained under consideration for their awards will receive their cash prizes. Those include Countries of Origin by Javier Fuentes (Pantheon), which was chosen to win the $10,000 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, and The Blue House: Collected Works of Tomas Tranströmer by the late Tomas Tranströmer, translated from the Swedish by Patty Crane (Copper Canyon Press), which was chosen to win the $3,000 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.
No winners will be announced if the winning title was withdrawn from consideration for the award,…
Last summer we saw enormous success in our Indiegogo fundraising campaign, but we also missed joining in writerly solidarity with the larger Clarion community. That’s why we’re returning to our roots–but we’re also hoping to shake things up a little (more news on this soon!)
As always, this year’s Thon will run concurrently with the workshop (June 23 to Aug 3) to help Clarion raise scholarship money to support future students. The Write-a-Thon also helps participants commit to writing goals for the summer.
We’ll include more details for how to participate and contribute in our next newsletter. In the meantime, it’s time to start thinking about your writing goals for the summer. We can’t wait to hear more about them!
(4) THE X-MAN AND THE WHY-MAN. Deadline shares “’Deadpool and Wolverine’ Trailer”. Deadpool & Wolverine is set to arrive in theaters on July 26. Ryan Reynolds is Deadpool, and Hugh Jackman reprises his role of Wolverine in the Marvel film.
(5) READERS TAKE DENVER, AUTHORS GIVE IT BACK. [Item by Anne Marble.] On Threads, there are a lot of upset posts about Readers Take Denver — an event for authors and readers. If you see “RTD” trending, that’s why. This weekend, it was one of the top trending items on Threads. On Twitter, the Readers Take Denver posts were mostly positive — until later on Sunday. (On Twitter, if you search for RTD, you get mainly posts about Russell T Davies of Dr. Who, so I had a hard time finding information at first.) Here are some newer Twitter posts taking on the event:
Everything I hear about Readers Take Denver gets worse and worse… and apparently now there's MULTIPLE reports for people being sexually assaulted/harassed in the masquerade by military personnel from another conference at the hotel who snuck into RTD.
— Torrance ? here but not here (@torrancesene) April 21, 2024
On Threads, there are so many posts that “RTD” got its own tag on Threads: tag on Threads (registration required).
It’s mostly a romance event, but it included romantasy authors — including big names such as Rebecca Yarros (“Fourth Wing”). There was also a day for thriller authors, including Jason Pinter and Mark Greaney. It sounds as if the organizers got way in over their heads. They had something like 3,000 attendees. And a huge list of authors (“Attending Authors / Narrators – Readers Take Denver”). Many think they aimed too high and ended up with a logistical nightmare.
There are allegations that the registration line took 3 hours — Also, signing lines took a very long time as well — too many authors in a small space without enough time allotted for the event. Authors are alleging that items were stolen from them (such as boxes of books). I’ve read about at least one case where an author’s books were accidentally given away as “swag.”
Also, the organizers apparently ran out of lanyards (!) and swag bags. And they didn’t have enough bottled water for the authors. Many readers enjoyed the event and had no issues, but other readers felt that they were ripped off.
It sounds like they needed better security, too. Later on Sunday, sexual assault allegations emerged. Several men attending another event entered RTD (despite having no badges) and groped women at RTD.
(6) SOFANAUTS LAUNCHES. Tony Smith hosts a new podcast — Sofanauts. He says the podcast mixes science fiction and technology. Two episodes are already available.
…Each week I’ll be joined by futurist, educator, speaker and writer Bryan Alexander (Thursdays) to talk about science fiction and technology. We’ll be discussing our favourite books, movies, and TV shows, as well as the latest technological developments that are shaping the future from the the very books, films and TV shows we’ve watched and read over the years….
(7) RAY GARTON (1962-2024). [Item by Anne Marble.] Horror author Ray Garton passed away on April 21. The announcement came from Dawn Garton on his Facebook page:
On April 9, 2024, he had posted on Facebook that he was in the hospital with stage 4 lung cancer.
Garton was named a World Horror Convention Grand Master in 2006.
Among others, Stephen King posted about his death:
I’m hearing that Ray Garton, horror novelist and friend, died yesterday. This is sad news, and a loss to those who enjoyed his amusing, often surreal, posts on Twitter.
Born April 22, 1937 — Jack Nicholson, 87. My all-time must watch again performance by Jack Nicholson is that of him playing Daryl Van Horne in The Witches of Eastwick. I’ve refused to watch any of the later versions of The Witches of Eastwick simply because I can’t picture anyone else being that character.
Bill Murray had been cast in the role had dropped out before even preliminary filming began. Jack Nicholson expressed interest in playing the role of Daryl to the producers through his then-girlfriend Anjelica Huston who was then being seriously considered for a role there. (Apparently the role Susan Sarandon got according to several sites.) So thus we got The Devil in the form of him. Brilliant role.
Jack Nicholson, center, Murray Close, right.
Now his first role in the genre was in The Little Shop of Horrors, the true one of course, not the latter one, as Wilbur Force, The Dentist. Because Corman did not believe that The Little Shop of Horrors had any chance of making money at all after its first run, he did not bother to copyright it, resulting in the film entering public domain immediately, so I can show you this scene with him in that role.
His next film, another Roger Corman affair, The Raven, was better known forc who he was performing with than for him being in it, those performers being Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff. He played Lorre’s son, Rexford Bedlo. Poe’s “The Raven” poem was very, very faintly the basis of this film. Think a drop of blood in a gallon of water.
He’s Andre Duvalier in The Terror. Here he’s a French officer who is seduced by a woman who is also a shapeshifting devil.
Now we come to what critics consider his best performance of all time, that of Jack Torrance in The Shining based off King’s novel which was produced and directed by Kubrick who co-wrote it with Diane Johnson. Look I can’t judge his role there as I do not do horror of that sort, so it’s up to the collective wisdom here to tell me how he was there. Go ahead, tell me.
Now I did see Batman. Several times. And yes, I like it a lot. And yes, I thought he made a most excellent Joker. And one of the best Jack Napiers as well, a role that is even harder to get right. (The animated B:TAS series did so by showing him smartly dressed and grinning evilly but not speaking after committing a cold blooded murder. They’d refer to him several times over the series and in The Mark of The Phantasm film which I highly recommend.) So it was a very good role for him.
In Wolf, he was Will Randall. A middle-aged chief editor who hits a wolf with his car who is actually a werewolf who bites him. A Very Bad Idea Indeed. He chews a lot of scenery here. A lot. And he can, as we saw in Batman, chew scenery really, really well. Actually he did so in The Witches of Eastwick brilliantly as well.
Finally there’s Tim Burton’s LoneStarCon 2 Hugo-nominated Mars Attacks! where he plays two roles, President James Dale and Art Land. I’ll be damn if I remember the latter role now nearly thirty years on after seeing it. One moment… Oh I see, he was the Galaxy Casino owner. No, that still didn’t help. The President James Dale character was fascinating if only as for being a much less in your face role than some of his other genre roles such as those of The Shining, Batman, and Wolf.
(10) TEDDY HARVIA CARTOON. Another of Teddy’s Belphegor cartoons. “I must have sold my soul to the Devil to come up with such funny stuff.”
(11) X MARKS A LOT OF SPOTS. Check out the first half of Scott Koblish’s connecting cover that run across four upcoming X-Men titles: X-Men #35 (Legacy #700), X-Men #1, Uncanny X-Men #1, and Exceptional X-Men #1. (Click for larger image – though still might not see a lot of detail.)
It’s a great time to be an X-Men fan! In addition to their animated resurgence in Marvel Studios’ X-Men ’97, the X-Men’s comic book line is closing out its’ revolutionary Krakoan age of storytelling AND gearing up for the exciting all-new From the Ashes era this summer! To celebrate this iconic franchise’s recent milestone, acclaimed artist Scott Koblish has crafted an insanely epic connecting cover that will grace some of the most highly-anticipated upcoming X-Men comic releases….
Showcasing the entirety of the X-Men’s 60-year publication history, including core X-Men series as well as spinoffs and limited series, this breathtaking group shot spotlights A-List X-Men, obscure mutants, super villains, allies, super hero guest stars, and much more. Test your knowledge of the mutant mythos by finding your favorites and identifying as many characters as you can! For more information, visit Marvel.com.
(12) ASTEROIDS QUIZ. Brick Barrientos’ “Asteroids One-Day Special” went live on April 15. He says “Rich Horton was among my playtesters.” Here is the link to the quiz: https://www.learnedleague.com/oneday.php?5701.
The first question has audio which can only be heard by Learned League members – but you can eavesdrop on the copy hosted at Brick’s Google Drive:
1. What astronomer and composer of this piece first suggested the term “asteroid”, just after the discovery of Pallas, the next body discovered after Ceres? Although at that time, the term was intended to apply also to the moons; objects with a star-like point appearance.
…For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars)….
…The team discovered that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory — including some of the FDS computer’s software code — isn’t working. The loss of that code rendered the science and engineering data unusable. Unable to repair the chip, the team decided to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety.
So they devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole….
Great power comes with… a painful costumes. Today, it’s about the unavoidable pain of being a superhero.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, JJ, Anne Marble, Kathy Sullivan, Brick Barrientos, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]
[Introduction: Melanie Stormm continues her humorous series of posts about the misdirected emails she’s been getting. Stormm is a multiracial writer who writes fiction, poetry, and audio theatre. Her novella, Last Poet of Wyrld’s End is available through Candlemark & Gleam. She is currently the editor at the SPECk, a monthly publication on speculative poetry by the SFPA.]
THE PROCRASTINATE-A-THON
Hello, All! Melanie here.
Last week, Writer X was met with some strange behavior from her boyfriend and fellow writer, Tod Boadkins. In previous weeks, Tod had promised X a “romantic gift” if she could refrain from defending her BFF’s feelings with violence.
Surprise, surprise! X did this. She was rewarded with a gift and a comment that the gift had been made possible by the money Tod had saved on bail money. It was a pair of hot pink boxing gloves.
X immediately put these to use in settling the score between her and an unpleasant visitor from Massachusetts. That’s when Tod started acting strangely anxious. It turns out the pair of boxing gloves weren’t the present, but served as a sort of “wrapper” for the real present…
Which was a ring.
In the meanwhile, Tryxy the Demon and #bestkitten were flush with excitement from their latest gig. They’re supposed to be writing music and launching a website for their band, but sometimes we don’t do what we’re supposed to do.
Without further ado…
Subject: PROCRASTINATE-A-THON
Dear Gladys,
As you know, the town has announced at the very last possible minute that it’s holding a procrastinate-a-thon to raise money to purchase an extra large wall calendar for the town council so that they can see what they should be working on and when it should be done by.
Previously the town would prioritize tasks by rushing off to whatever thing had caught on fire at the moment, but after the grease fire in the kitchen of the parks department, it was clear that new approaches had to be put in place!!!
The extra large wall calendar should fix this, but they have a stretch goal that would allow them to get a large monkey to periodically set fire to the extra large wall calendar as a means of encouraging them to not ignore the calendar in the ways that calendars are obviously designed to be ignored.
I have come up with an incredibly genius plan to beat EVERYONE and raise the MOST money!!!!
The way it works is that participants select a task that they’re going to procrastinate about and get pledges from friends and family. For every hour the participant procrastinates on their task, the pledgers agree to pay whatever amount to the Extra Large Wall Calendar Fund. There are also bonus pledges allowed if the task that is being procrastinated is something you really have no business procrastinating about.
Now Gladys, you can bet that most participants are going to be uncreative. They’re going to procrastinate on all the usual things. Things like cleaning your gutters, or exercising, or doing your taxes, or seeing your doctor about the peculiar smell of pickled mangos that keeps wafting from your feet after you go running which is why you keep putting off exercising. BUT MY PLAN IS AMAZING!!!!!
Oh, and all of my friends at the Ink Black Coffee Club Critique Group have decided that since we’ve all been procrastinating about our latest writing projects, that it made sense to keep doing it for a good cause. Every single one of them has filled out their pledge sheet with the name of their latest work-in-progress. And they’re ALL gloating because everyone knows that writers are professional procrastinators so CLEARLY NO ONE IN TOWN KNOWS WHAT THEY’RE IN FOR!!!!!!!
Taxes??? They’re procrastinating on something as easy as taxes???? No one wants to do their taxes, it’s EASY to procrastinate on doing your taxes. BUT WRITING. Oh, YES, WRITING!!!!! Writing is something literally no one cares if you do and may suddenly get a glazed over expression if you bring it up at parties so the only reason to write IS BECAUSE YOU REALLY REALLY REALLY LOVE IT!!!!!!
And who procrastinates doing stuff they really really love????? WRITERS!!!!!!1
We’re AMAZING.
BUT WITH THIS PLAN I’M GOING TO BEAT ALL THE WRITERS, TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just need to borrow your dishwasher. If you could just throw it in your car and bring it to me now, that’d be perfect.
Anyhoo, I’m sure you’re dying to know how my love life is going.
The ring that my meta fiancé, award nominated fantasy writer Tod Boadkins gave me FITS PERFECTLY!!!!!! And of course I said yes to whatever it was he was asking. Which it turns out is to be meta-engaged!!!!! I’m META ENGAGED, GLAYDS!!!!!!!!!
I’m going to be married eventually!!!!!
Of course you probably don’t know what meta engaged means because you’re behind the times and we’re very progressive so I guess I’ll explain. My meta fiancé has had several long talks with his therapist who’s pointed out that he’s afraid to “seriously commit to anything else but writing” and “why does he have such a hard time trusting others enough to express commitment” and “isn’t it time he face this tendency head on?”
That’s when he had the brilliant idea of proposing because we already mostly live together and, according to him, the thought of me marrying him makes him “incredibly happy” about sixty percent of the time and “incredibly panicked” the other forty percent.
And that when he came up with the idea of a meta-engagement. This means that it is probably going to take years for us to actually get married because our engagement is more “abstract” than “concrete.” A meta-engagement is to engagements what metaphilosophy is to philosophy which basically means that you can’t earn a college degree on the topic but you can use it to make people feel like you MIGHT be smarter than them.
In the meanwhile, Tryxy and #bestkitten are in a slump. They were so giddy last week about making a website and writing new music, but now they have what Tryxy is calling the No Upcoming Gig Blues. They SHOULD be working on planning their website and writing new music, but neither of them has the motivation since their festival gig isn’t until late May when New England can be very-nearly-but-not-quite safe from having four feet of snow suddenly dumped on us.
Instead, Tryxy is trudging around the house in his favorite velour tracksuit and matching house slippers, doomscrolling, and drinking coffeemate directly from the bottle with no chaser. The more he drinks, the more sluggish he gets because apparently he needs the stimulation of a weekly gig to plan websites and work on new songs. And #bestkitten is a cat.
Anyhoo, what else was I saying???? Oh yes!!!!
This is how I’m going to win the Procrastinate-a-thon.
I’m not just procrastinating on writing my latest work-in-progress, I’M PROCRASTINATING EVEN THINKING ABOUT WHAT MY LATEST WORK IN PROGReSS WILL Be!!!!!!!
But that’s not all.
The most ingenius part of what I’m doing to win is that the Procrastinate-a-thon OFFICIALLY ENDeD thIS MORNING!!!!!
Yes, Gladys, you’ve read that right. I’m TURNING IN MY PLEDGE SHEET AFTER THE EVENT HAS ENDED!!!!!
I just need you to loan me your dishwasher. It has nothing to do with the Procrastinate-a-thon. It’s just that there’s been a pile of dishes in our kitchen sink that has been there so long, no one can remember who’s turn it was to do the dishes and I’m pretty sure it was Tryxy’s so I need to give him YOUR dishwasher so he can stop putting it off. I DON’t NEED ANY MORE COMPETITION IN THE PROCRASTINATE-A-THON.
As I think of it Gladys, WHAT IF EVERYONE IN MY HOUSE IS COMPETING AGAINST ME??? WHAT IF META-ENGAGEMENT IS Just a way to procrastinate about marriage????
We could be engaged for years!!!! Possibly Even FOREVER!!!!1 This man is truly a genius. And what about Tryxy and #bestkitten putting off making website plans?????
Gladys, do you think they’re participating in the fundraiser too???? I don’t know who to trust!!!! Don’t tell anybody my secret!!!!! And also please don’t put off bringing me your dishwasher, I don’t need YET ANOTHER COMPETITOR!!!!
Pages next week, Gladys!
xox,
X
P.S. Please sign up and pledge to support me as I procrastinate. I’m accepting contributions of $20 an hour or more. THANDK YOU!!!!!
The award was established in 1997 to preserve the memory of Zsoldos Péter, the most prominent Hungarian science fiction writer of the last century. It was reformed in 2020, and now it awards other speculative works also, not just science fiction.
BEST NOVEL – JURY AWARD
Rusvai Mónika: Kígyók országa (Country of Snakes) (GABO Könyvkiadó)
