WWWednesday: March 9, 2022

Elizabeth Freeman, an enslaved Black woman in Massachusetts, won her freedom in court, 80 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. She effectively ended slavery in the state. She’s finally getting a statue.

Just want to get away? You can buy this picturesque Canadian town, which is completely abandoned. It’s on top of a mountain, hard to get supplies or emergency vehicles to, but so picturesque. What could possibly go wrong?

Brandon Sanderson has made Kickstarter history. As of this writing, I think the amount pledged has exceeded $20 million. This looks more like direct marketing than the original purpose of Kickstarter, but it’s an interesting story that has lots of angle to discuss.

The deadline to nominate for the Hugos is March 15, 2022.

The Nebula nominees have been announced.

A group of 80 SFF writers from various nations have written an open letter protesting the Chengdu award for WorldCon, because of the Uyghur genocide by the Chinese government. File 770 has an excellent article on this and provided the link to the letter.

In spite of all the drama of political extremists fighting to repress and control children’s books, what are kids actually reading? Rennaissance.com offers a 52-page report (their annual one) on just this question. Read the media release here. It contains a link to the report.

Tor.com provides a list of its March releases. Baen Books offers six new releases on its site. Here’s Orbit’s list too.

From last month, Publishers Weekly offers an optimistic look at the future of children’s books.

While Russian oligarchs use cryptocurrency to hide their assets (since the country is now banned from SWFT, the international money-transfer system), some crypto companies are trying to assist Ukraine. This Forbes article may be behind a paywall.

Before Yu Lu, most people didn’t drink tea, they ate it. Lu Yu despised tea soup, but I’m thinking anything with green tea, scallions and ginger can’t be all bad.

Nerds of a Feather reviews Adrian Tchaikovsky’s The Elder Race.

HAIS  is one charity you can donate to that is providing help to people in Ukraine and those trying to leave and get to a safe place. Another choice is CARE.

Let’s wrap up with a song from everyone’s favorite Prince of Hell, Tom Ellis’s Lucifer, in a duet  with Skyler Christian Townsend, singing “I Will survive.” The song is from Season 3, Episode 17.