storySouth has announced the ten finalists for their Million Writers Award for 2011. Multiple genre stories appear on this year’s ballot, which is open to voting by anyone with an e-mail address. Voting is open through July 6.
- “Hell Dogs,” by Daphne Buter
- “Arvies,” by Adam-Troy Castro
- “The Green Book,” by Amal El-Mohtar
- “Do You Have a Place for Me,” by Roxane Gay
- “Here is David, the Greatest of Descendants,” by Spencer Kealamakia
- “The Incorrupt Body of Carlo Busso,” by Eric Maroney
- “Cancer Party,” by Nicola Mason
- “Arthur Arellano,” by Viet Thanh Nguyen
- “Elegy for a Young Elk,” by Hannu Rajaniemi
- “Most of Them Would Follow Wandering Fires,” by Amber Sparks
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The Larry Ashmead Award, named for the late editor, has been created to honor Ashmead by helping to nurture the career of a promising young editor in the field of book publishing. Nominees should be working in publishing for a few years and show great promise. The winner of the award will receive tuition to the Yale Publishing Course, to be held July 24-29 in New Haven. Ashmead worked for several publishers and his authors included Isaac Asimov, Susan Isaacs, Tony Hillerman, and Simon Winchester.
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The Parsec Awards, given for excellence in science fiction podcasting, are open for nominations. The award was founded in 2005 and is presented annually at Dragon*Con. Nominations in 15 categories are open until June 1.
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A new bookstore, Ed’s Martian Book, has opened in New York at 547 Hudson Street in the West Village. Owned by Andrew Kessler, the store only sells copies of Kessler’s book Martian Summer: Robot Arms, Cowboy Spacemen, and My 90 Days with the Phoenix Mars Mission, which is based on three months he spent embedded with NASA’s mission control with unprecedented access to the Phoenix Expedition in 2008. The bookstore is divided into sections such as “Staff Favorite” and “Best Seller.”
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Dave Truesdale has announced that both on-line fiction Managing Editor Kevin Tipple and Assistant Managing Editor Steve Fahnestalk have stepped down from their positions at Tangent Online, which reviews short SF/F. Joseph Giddings has been named the new Assistant Managing Editor. Fahnestalk has stepped down to focus on his writing career and Tipple is stepping down for health reasons. Both editors stayed in their positions until Truesdale returned to the on-line world to ensure the smooth continuation of Tangent Online.
SFX has announced the winners for its first SFX Blog Awards, presented to the best fan-driven and developed internet activity. The winners were determined by popular vote of fans on the SFX website.
- Best SF Podcast: Doctor Who Podshock
- Best Fan Community: Whedonesque
- Best SF News Blog: The Doctor Who News Page
- Best Literary Blog: SF Signal
- Best Franchise Specific Site: Supernatural Wiki
- Best Celebrity Blog: John Scalzi
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CZP has announced it will be relaunching their online speculative fiction ‘zine, The Chiaroscuro/ChiZine.com. The ‘zine began publishing in 1997 and in 2008, the publisher branched out to print as well. The April-June 2011 issue of the zine will be a massive issue with more than 200 short stories and poems by previous contributors including Elizabeth Bear, Bruce Boston, Gary Braunbeck, Mike Carey, Neil Gaiman, Jay Lake, Sarah Langan,Tim Lebbon, Stewart O’Nan, and Tom Piccirilli.
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Judge Denny Chin has rejected the Google Books Settlement, saying that the search engine’s agreement was too broad and “would arguably give Google control over the search market” for books. The agreement between Google and the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers was dismissed without prejudice, which means that Google and the organizations can revise the agreement and resubmit it in a way that gives better protection to copyright owners.
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SFX has announced the finalists for its first SFX Blog Awards, presented to the best fan-driven and developed internet activity. The nominations were taken from SFX Form, team members, and bloggers. Anyone can vote at their website.
Best SF Podcast
- The Geek Syndicate
- Small Press Big Mouth
- Escape Pod
- Doctor Who Podshock
Best Fan Community
- Gallifrey Base
- The Trek BBS
- Whedonesque
- GateWorld
Best SF News Blog
- Bid Dumb Object
- Down the Tubes
- The Doctor Who News Page
- SFcrowsnest
Best Literary Blog
- The Wertzone
- Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review
- Ansible
- SF Signal
Best Franchise Specific Site
- Supernatural Wiki
- ChuckTV
- The One Ring
- The Leaky Cauldron
- Life, Doctor Who and Combom
- Who Fix
Best Celebrity Blog
- Paul Cornell
- James Moran
- Neil Gaiman
- Wil Wheaton
- Jane Espenson
- Warren Ellis
- John Scalzi
- Kate Griffin
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Buzzy Multimedia, a publisher of audio book and specialty t-shirts, has announced plans to launch Buzzy Mag, an online zine of fiction by new and established sf authors. The magazine has announced a rate of 5 cents/word for stories up to 10,000 words. Buzzy Mag is also instituting a beta reading system which requires authors who submit to agree to read and critique at least two other submissions.
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