Robert J. Sawyer has been named a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. The Medal was established to mark the 2012 celebrations of the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession. Recipients must have been alive on the Queen’s jubilee date, be a Canadian citizen, and have made a significant contribution to a particular province, territory, region or community within Canada, or an achievement abroad that brings credit to Canada.
Author and comic book writer Peter David has suffered a stroke while on vacation in Florida. He is still waiting for analysis of the severity of the stroke, but reports blurred vision and an inability to move his right arm and leg.
Thirty years after beginning his Riftwar Saga with the publication of Magician, Raymond E. Feist has announced that the saga will be coming to a close with its thirtieth volume, Magician’s End, scheduled for a March 2013 publication. According to Feist, he had only planned to write a trilogy, but the story kept growing. In addition to the various volumes, published in ten sub-series, including books co-written with Janny Wurts, Joel Rosenberg, William Forstchen, and S.M. Stirling, the series also spawned video games and comics.
SFWA has announced that Gene Wolfe will be named the Damon Knight Grandmaster, with his induction occurring at the Nebula Award Weekend in San Jose, California the weekend of May 16-19, 2013. Wolfe is the author of The Book of the New Sun, The Wizard Knight, and numerous other novels and short stories.
The 2013 Odyssey Writers Workshop, run by Jeanne Cavelos, is scheduled to take place June 10 to July 19 at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. This year’s writer in residence is Nancy Holder. Other instructors include Holly Black, Patricia Bray, Adam-Troy Castro, Jack Ketchum, and Sheila Williams. Applications for early action are due on January 31, with regular applications due April 8.
Astronomer Patrick Moore (b.1923) died at his home on December 9. Moore collaborated with artist David A. Hardy on the Hugo Award-nominated Futures: 50 Years in Space: The Challenge of the Stars. He served as the President of the British Astronomical Association and was the co-founder of the Society for Popular Astronomy. Moore was invited to run an observatory in East Grinstead when he was only 14.
The 2012 Sunburst Award winners have been announced. The Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is a juried award given to a Canadian writer for a book length work of SF. The prize comes with a hand-crafted medallion and Can$1,000.
Author Michael Alexander died on December 4 from cancer. A Clarion graduate, Alexander published his first story, “Advances in Modern Chemotherapy” in F&SF in 2010. He followed that with five more stories in F&SF, two in Analog, and an anthology appearance. Prior to finding success as a writer, Alexander had been an engineer.
Jo Walton and Lesley Livingstone have received the first Copper Cylinder Awards from the Sunburst Award Society. The Copper Cylinder Award is a member’s choice award selected by members of the Sunburst Award Society for books published during the previous year. The title comes from the first Canadian speculative fiction story, “A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder,” by James De Mille and the prize includes a trophy shaped like a copper cylinder.
Jim C. Hines will raise money in support of research into Aicardi Syndrome by doing follow-up poses based on book covers. If Hines raises more than $1,000, John Scalzi will do a pose with him as well (and a second if the $2,500 goal is met). Aicardi Syndrome causes brain malformation, visual problems, seizures, developmental delays, and other medical complications. Most research puts the life expectancy for people with Aicardi between 8 and 16 years. Hines’s fund-raising effort will run through the end of 2012.