Sheila's LiveJournal

renaissance2010
Turning to photography as a creative outlet during a valiant fight with breast cancer at age 34, renaissance10 survived and set up a photo contest to help raise funds for the Lavender Trust, a nonprofit that provides information and support to younger women with breast cancer. In the first two years, the competition brought in over £65,000 (that's $107,260.73 U.S.!), with entries from 130 countries last year. Renaissance10 recently joined LiveJournal to meet other passionate photographers and find supportive friends.

curiouscupcakes
Holy buttercream frosting! If you have a sweet tooth for sugary goodness or a wandering eye for whimsical confection, this is pure ecstasy iced in deliciousness. Hailing the beloved cupcake as the artisinal canvas of choice, you'll enjoy recipes, photos, and bountiful tips to bake up a batch, whether your taste leans toward French classics or funky and flavorful.

mission101
With New Years in the offing, it's an ideal time to reflect on past accomplishments, make peace with disappointments, and refocus the lens on future goals. This community welcomes you to create a bucket list of 101 things you plan to accomplish in the next 1,001 days. Offering support, guidance, and inspiration, this is a great way to jumpstart those pesky resolutions.

Member News

• Welcome to SFWA’s 1200th Active member Charlene Teglia author of “Wicked Hot!”
• SFWA member David D. Levine has been selected for Crew 88 of the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah.

Industry News

• World Fantasy Awards 2010 Judges Named!

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How the dystopian apocalypse really begins…

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tinsel on the floor
of the subway car --
Merry Christmas

snaky_poet moves
And my left knee's killing me.
That's Christmas for you.

Everyone: enjoy
(As we say in Old English)
'Christas meniscnysse'.

Member News

• Victoria Strauss: From the Electronic Frontier Foundation: Which companies respect ebook readers' privacy
• Congratulations to SFWA member Caren Gussoff, winner of the SLF's 2009 Gulliver Travel Research Grant
• We have 1199 Active members. Who will be number 1200?

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On December 18th, Ursula K. Le Guin posted an open letter on her website, resigning from the Authors Guild in protest about its role in the Google Book Settlement. She has been a member since 1972.

In part, the letter says:

I am not going to rehearse any arguments pro and anti the “Google settlement.” You decided to deal with the devil, as it were, and have presented your arguments for doing so. I wish I could accept them. I can’t. There are principles involved, above all the whole concept of copyright; and these you have seen fit to abandon to a corporation, on their terms, without a struggle.

So, after being a loyal if invisible member for so long, I am resigning from the Guild. I am, however, retaining membership in the National Writers Union and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, both of which opposed the “Google settlement.” They don’t have your clout, but their judgment, I think, is sounder, and their courage greater.

Today, the Guild responded to her letter, arguing that the deal was good for authors and ultimately protected copyrights.

Litigation, particularly litigation over the bounds of fair use, involves risk. Some critics of the settlement wrongly dismiss that risk, but the fact is that we certainly could have lost the case. Losing would have meant that anyone, not just Google, could have digitized copyright protected books and made them available through search engines. Since creating a search engine is rather simple, anyone with a website — Civil War buffs, science fiction fans, medical information providers — would then have been empowered to start the uncontrolled scanning of books and the display of “snippets.” Authors would have no say in those uses and no control over the security of those scans. The damage to copyright protection would have been incalculable.

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The Speculative Literature Foundation announced today that its 2009 Gulliver Travel Research Grant has been awarded to SFWA member Caren Gussoff. The $800 grant will be used to help Gussoff to travel to western Washington State in order to research the setting of her near-future novel The King of Seattle.

Gussoff’s stories have appeared in Abyss & Apex, PodCastle and Fantasy Magazine, and in several Seal Press anthologies. Her novel explores a post-pandemic Puget Sound, in which mental illness is a communicable disease.

An excerpt:
—–

Pills? I asked.

Yes, the majordomo answered. He held his hands still, and said, SSRIs, SSDIs, neuroleptics, anticonvulsant mood stabilizers, anxiolytics, hypnotics. Trans-dermal, sub-lingual, prophylactic. Peach, pink, blue. Then he looked at me.

I was holding my hand up against my mouth.

You’re about my age, he said. You’ll get used to the naked faces.Then he looked down at his rubbing hands like they had nothing to do with him. Do you remember before we knew you could catch crazy?

Yeah, I said, nodding. I remember.

——

This year the competition was especially fierce, with many excellent entries. Five Honourable Mentions were given:

Nisi Shawl
Jeremy Smith
Livia Llewellyn
Emily Jiang
Nadia Kalman

The Gulliver Travel Research Grant is awarded to assist a writer of speculative fiction in his or her research. As in previous years, the 2009 grant of $800 is to be used to cover airfare, lodging, and/or other expenses relating to the research for a project of speculative fiction. The grant is awarded by a committee of Speculative Literature Foundation members on the basis of interest and merit.

The grant is named after Gulliver, a character in the 1726 story “Gulliver’s Travels” written by Jonathan Swift. The story represents one of the earliest examples of fantasy travel.

Applications for the seventh annual Gulliver Travel Research Grant will open on July 1, 2010.

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Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Last August, I received several emails from writers who’d had a very strange experience.

They’d submitted to a literary agent in Boston called Sara Levine, only to be informed by Levine’s assistant, a few weeks later, that Levine had died suddenly of a heart attack. The regretful assistant suggested they contact Levine’s colleague, Julia Levin of the Florida-based Julia Levin Literary Agency, who was taking over Levine’s business. Other writers who’d submitted to Sara Levine were approached by Julia Levin herself, with much the same story.

No one had ever heard of Julia Levin before. Her profiles on MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook (the only info that could be found on her, online or off) indicated that she’d been in business since 2005, both on her own and as a co-agent with Sara Levine. In emails to prospective clients, as well as in a September Open House on Facebook, through which she hoped to add to her agency roster, she reported a number of recent book sales to major publishers.

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i_hope_that
For many of us, the holidays can be kind of rough. If you're searching for a network of understanding friends, this ultra-nurturing community encourages you to express your heartfelt wishes and offer other members encouragement and acceptance. Not for the terminally snarky or emotionally-challenged, this is a good-spirited place to lend comfort and support.

diygifts
Feeling crafty? If you've got a few last folks on your holiday gift list, this is a great place to seed your creativity and generosity. You'll also discover wonderful DIY tips to decorate your home and entertain guests. Offering a no-frills-no-skills attitude that welcomes the cash-challenged and arts-phobic, you're sure to get ideas and make friends in the process.

cooking_club
A fun and friendly community dedicated to those who love to cook, whether you're a meat-and-potatoes type, an aspiring gourmand, and/or a vegan. In search of a brilliant dish to use up those weekly leftovers? Post your ingredients and you'll be whipping up a feast by dinner. You can also share favorite recipes. For Type A chefs, you can spice up your culinary repertoire with exciting cooking challenges.

Resources

• Three links from Victoria Strauss: 1) Thoughtful article from author Jason Pinter on social networking & the authorial mystique, 2) American Library Assn urges Justice Dept to "actively supervise" Google Book Settlement, 3) French court finds Google guilty of copyright violation, orders it to pay damages.

Member News

• Welcome to SFWA's newest Associate member, Lou Berger!
• Welcome to SFWA's newest Affiliate member Allen Lewis!
• Welcome to SFWA's newest Affiliate member Joseph Adegboyega-Edun!

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early light
through palm fronds
a few more days

Post Office line...
above the counter
cobwebs

beyond this snowlight new moon



                        --- Ann K. Schwader

Resources

• Looking for a reprint market? SFWA member Jason Sanford talks to Russian SF magazine ESLI.
• And in summary: Writers, responding to negative reviews will never End Well. So just Don’t Do It.

Member News

• The Seattle Examiner interviews SFWA member Jennifer Brozek.

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For some strange reason
This prediction of blindness
Has not bothered me.

I don't feel nothing.
What I thought would happen was
Tides of depression.

I gaze through this haze
Treating matter of factly
Life's vicissitudes.

There is still some hope
Of fending off this blindness.
Stay tuned for updates.