Author: Kate Lechler

On this day in 1992, Super Mario Kart was released in Japan, launching the entire Mario Kart series.

Writing, Editing, and Publishing:

The nominees for the 2014 Endeavor Awards, for a distinguished SF/F novel published by an author from the Pacific Northwest, have been announced; the winner will be announced at the next OryCon, held in Portland, OR.

The European Science Fiction Society presented awards this past weekend at the 36th Eurocon, Shamrokon in Dublin.

Finally, the Sidewise Awards (for best alternate history) and the Chesley Awards (for best science fiction or fantasy art) were awarded last week at LonCon.

On this day in 1962, the NS Savannah sailed on her maiden voyage. Savannah was the first nuclear powered passenger ship and she was commissioned as part of Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative, which sought to rebrand nuclear power after the use of atomic force in WWII. Savannah ended up visiting 45 foreign ports and taking 848 passengers, before being decommissioned and moored in Baltimore, Maryland.

Writing, Editing, and Publishing:

Perhaps the biggest news in SFF publishing this week comes to us from LonCon 3, the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention in London this past weekend.

On this day in 1913, Otto Witte, an acrobat, was purportedly crowned king of Albania. Read his story here: it’s hilarious.

Writing, Editing, and Publishing:

Jack Heckel wrote a beautiful article for Tor.com about why we keep retelling fairytales, as he promotes his soon-to-be-released book, Once Upon a Rhyme, which follows the exploits of Prince Charming. I’m glad this gap will be filled; we need some more masculinity studies of fairy tales to complement the study of fairy tale’s female gender roles!

Recently Star Trek author David Mack received a letter from a reader claiming that they wouldn’t read him anymore since he wrote about same-sex relationships.

Today, we’re featuring two events on this date in history. First, in 1991, Tim Berners-Lee made public his idea for the World Wide Web. Here at WWWednesday, we salute Berners-Lee!

It is also the date, in 1996, that NASA announced that the meteorite ALH 84001 contained evidence of primitive life-forms. While the existence of non-terrestrial life has never been proven, this meteorite presents some fascinating evidence. Read about it here.

Writing, Editing, and Publishing:

Lev Grossman has been publishing all over the place this week to coincide with the release of his latest novel,

On this day in 1932, Disney released Flowers and Trees, their first cartoon short to use Technicolor and the first animated short to win an Academy Award. It’s about dancing flowers and trees—pretty much what you’d expect. Also, today is author Cherie Priest’s birthday!

Writing, Editing, and Publishing:

On her blog, Terri Windling writes “In Praise of Re-Reading,” a fascinating piece on how, as we change, our perceptions of our favorite books change with us.

Maybe you guys knew about this already.