WWWednesday: May 29, 2019

Golden Gate Bridge, image from Pixabay.

The Golden Gate bridge had a birthday this week. It wasn’t a milestone one. The bridge opened to traffic on May 27, 1937.

Awards:

Selmaa Ahmad was awarded the first A.C. Bose Grant from the Speculative Fiction Foundation. The award is presented to a South Asian diaspora writer developing speculative fiction. Ahmad’s stories sound wonderful.

The Ursa Major awards, for excellence in the furry arts, were awarded on May 26, at AnthroOhio.

Also honoring the anthropomorphic, the Coyotl awards, presented in Portland, Oregon. (I’m tempted to write something with a nonhuman-mammal MC, just to try to win one, because the award is sooooooo cute!)

Coyotl Awards. Image from File 770.

NASA crowns a winner in its Martian habitat contest. (Thanks to File 770.)

This is an older press release about William Gibson being announced as the latest SWFA Grand master.

Altered Book by Brian Demmett. Image from Demilked.

Books and Writing:

After 43 years, Gollancz editor and publishing consultant Malcom Edwards is stepping down. As the article points out, one month in 1984 Edwards published J.G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun, Willian Gibson’s Neuromancer and Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood. He worked with writers like LeGuin and Butler.

Kat provided this press release; Grim Oak Press will now distribute Michael J. Sullivan books.

Nature Magazine is hosting a contest for its 150^th anniversary. Writers age 18-25 can submit a 1,000 word essay on which scientific advance they would most like to see in their lifetime. The deadline is August 9, 2019, and the prize is five hundred pounds or equivalent in the winner’s currency.

Nothing enlivens a summer barbeque like a ghost, and over at Tor.com, Jeremy Shipp introduces five ghosts he thinks are perfect barbeque guests. I confess, Catherine Earnshaw Linton would never have occurred to me.

Publishers Weekly reviewed Alix E. Harrow’s debut novel The Ten Thousand Doors of January.  You can pre-order it.

Another Best Of List, another chance for heated debate. Discuss! (Thanks to File 770.)

New Releases:

Anything catch your eye?

Altered books by Brain Dettmer. Image from Demilked.

TV and Movies:

Here’s some information on the CW’s upcoming new show Batwoman. I’m disappointed to see that the show will go for Arrow-style dark and gritty (sigh) although that is the Bat aesthetic.

Is it really summer if there isn’t a kids-at-summer-camp-must-learn-to-work-together movie? Netflicks thinks not, so it’s releasing The Rim of the World. Every good game-trope is on deck (“Kids, you must bring the flashdrive with the location of the alien mothership to JPL, and—Grrk,”[dies]), and the movie looks like fun.

Here, the creators of Godzilla: King of the Monsters explain how they made Ghidorah different from all those run of the mill dragons.

Images:

Several of the images in today’s column come from sculptor Brian Dettmer, who carves book sculptures. Some of his work is so fine he uses surgical tools. Here is his site.