Science fiction scholars, do you have a great article about SF from around the world? Non-US authors, do you have a fantastic SF story or poem you'd like to share? World Literature Today is publishing a special science fiction issue in May 2010. This is a great opportunity to help introduce the literary reader to our genre! Now in its ninth decade of publication, WLT has been recognized by the Nobel Prize committee as one of the "best edited and most informative literary publications" in the world, and was recently called "an excellent source of writings from around the globe by authors who write as if their lives depend on it" (Utne Reader). WLT has received a dozen national publishing awards in the past ten years. For full information, please visit the call for submissions page. Spread the word, and I look forward to seeing your work! Thanks! Chris

Tags: science fiction

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.

Tags: cancer, renaissance2010

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.

Tags: cupcakes, curiouscupcakes, desserts

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.

Tags: bucket list, mission101

Last week, I went to see the dentist - something that causes me unnecessary grief - and got a long-overdue checkup. The dental hygienist was very thoughtful and kind, and the dentist acted appropriately horrified when I told her about why I was nervous. "That's awful," she said. "Dentistry has come a long way since then," she promised. And it seems she was right.

Nonetheless, tomorrow morning I need to go back for a "very small" filling, and it's tying my stomach up in knots. I'm sure everything will turn out okay. The worst part will be the damned needle and the pressure from the lidocaine under the skin. They're not sadists. They're in this business because they like taking care of people's teeth. Still.

Oh, and I chomped the living hell out of my tongue tonight. Which will be awesome tomorrow morning. *sigh*

Chris

UPDATE: As expected, the hygienist and dentist were kind and professional. They were also quicker than I had expected, and it was nice to watch Mythbusters during the procedure. Unfortunately, they finished before the Rocket Car™ launched, so I don't know if it worked!

I've discovered that nitrous doesn't seem to do anything, though the dentist told me that it relaxes people - because I felt normal, I must have been pretty anxious going in! The cleaning last week was actually much more painful: Those x-ray tabs hurt the mouth! When the lidocaine wears off, I fully expect to be sore, but for now, all's well. See, dental visits can be good.

Tags: life

Hope you and yours are safe today. Photos later! (About a foot of snow here in Lawrence, Kansas - and no snow plows in sight.)

Chris

Tags: weather-porn

Holiday debuggery

We know there were a few kinks with the holiday promotion. We've been working very hard to get them ironed out. If you have a paid/permanent account, keep on sending those coupons. Here's an update:

• If you were unable to send out multiple coupons at a time, please perform a hard refresh, and you should be good to go.
• If you redeemed a coupon to upgrade your account and the balance at checkout was $0 instead of $9.95 or $15, this means your upgrade did not go through (nor were you charged). We've straightened this out, so you can now apply your holiday coupon toward the purchase of an annual paid account.
• If you tried to redeem a holiday coupon and had trouble using a gift certificate to cover the balance of an annual paid account, we identified the root problem. If this happened to you, you can now use your holiday coupon together with your gift certificate.
• If the number of holiday coupons you have available suddenly goes up (instead of down), this might be due to recipients declining the coupons, at which point your pool of available coupons will be replenished and, therefore, increase.
• If you need assistance with holiday coupons or pretty much anything else (well, LiveJournal related), please open a support request and we'll be more than happy to help!

Tweaks

• There were some initial glitches displaying results on My Guests, but we've worked them out. We hope you'll check out who's been checking you out!
• Some of you reported formatting issues using the Rich Text Editor (i.e., line breaks were being removed incorrectly). We've implemented a fix! Thanks so much for your patience.

Give a little extra!

We're pleased to report that we've already sold over 100 virtual red ribbons in honor of National AIDS Awareness month. Remember, for each charitable vgift you purchase for $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to fund the development of an HIV vaccine. Once again, we thank you for your generosity.

Celebrate with holiday vGifts!

Stop by the Virtual Gift Shop and share some holiday magic with your LiveJournal friends.

Photos of the week

We're back with more dazzling pictures from around the world. Congrats to marlenemcc, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our fourth photo contest. We hope you'll click over to LJ_Photophile poll and tell us your picks in pics!

For more fantastic user content, we'll meet you under the cut. ( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for reading. Here's wishing you the very merriest of holidays. We'll see you next year!

Tags: holiday coupons, lj_photophile, ljlimericks, my guests, red ribbon vgift

Interested in Earth-like worlds beyond the Solar System? Then listen to Nate Williams (AboutSF Coordinator at KU), Gregory Rudnick (KU Professor of Physics and Astronomy), and Daniel McIntosh (UMKC Professor of Physics) discuss "The Quest for Other Earths" on KCUR's Walt Bodine Show at 10:00am on Wednesday, December 23. Listen live in the Kansas City area on 89.3 FM or go to KCUR.org and click Listen to hear the show on your computer.

Chris

Tags: astronomy, cssf

I am delighted to announce that in 2010 I will become vice chair on the board of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, taking on the role of chair in 2011. I attended this six-week workshop for writers of speculative fiction in 1987 and it changed my writing and my life in wonderful ways, as it has changed -- and will change -- the work and lives of hundreds of others. It is a great honor to be allowed to contribute to the workshop's future in this fashion.

I still have my work for the Center for the Study of Science Fiction and the novel classes I will teach there this summer, so I will be busy!--But so happy to contribute to the field I love so much.

The search engine that man was not meant to know. The cyclopean tomb where you can search for nameless tomes. Yes it's true. Cthuugle is once again open for business! I plugged the Shoggoth back into the internet, and installed Linux on it, and now we can search again!


Click the image to search tomes that humankind was not meant to read.

Yes, I'm sharing information that is best left alone. Madness will be your reward. Go on, explore, but don't say that I didn't warn you.

Tags: random cool stuff