Friday, January 3, 2014: As usual, as soon as I click “publish” and “send” on the newsletter all manner of books and events and news come flying in or are finally finalized. Finally. Ish.
First, the North Carolina Speculative Fiction Foundation is proud to announce the prospective eligibility list for the 2014 Manly Wade Wellman Award for North Carolina Science Fiction and Fantasy, adding more than 10 novels to the preliminary list announced in December. Thank you very much to those who wrote in with additions and corrections. There’s still a (very) little amount of time to get additional corrections ahead of publishing the final list, so please do send those corrections ASAP.
Meanwhile, The Guardian‘s top 10 sf books to read in 2014 include Durham author Monica Byrne’s forthcoming debut novel The Girl in the Road, with Damien Walter calling it “a work harvested from the author’s true experience of our radically changing world. And congrats to Durham author Mur Lafferty as The Shambling Guide to New York City made Cory Doctorow’s list of best debuts of 2013 on Boing Boing.
Lastly, those new events:
NEW-NEW: 5 (Sunday) — Mike Acosta wrote with a call for extras for a local film. “Just wanted to let you know that I’m shooting a film locally. It is a social commentary on the devaluation of artists & creatives in our society. Very artsy. We are presenting local artists, writers etc… to play extras in the film. Our first extra call is Sunday 1/5 at 4:00 – 12:00. Location is Hillsborough, NC. Let me know if you have any that may be interested and I’ll send you the address. The project’s e-mail address is devolvemovie@gmail.com. They can contact us through there for any further info.” There’s also a Facebook page with info on the casting call.
NEW-NEW: 30 (Thursday) 7 pm — Urban Fantasy/paranormal romance author Jeaniene Frost (who lives in the Asheville area) has two NC tour stops of note for Up From The Grave‘s release on January 28th. The first is January 29th at Malaprops Book Store in Asheville, NC at 7pm and the second is January 30th at the Barnes and Noble of Cary, NC at 7pm. The Cary event also includes VA author Pamela Palmer. More info: http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/82525