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Books and Writing:

The European Institute of Astrobiology is launching a Kickstarter to fund an anthology. Some good authors attached to this one.

Publishers Weekly is inaugurating a virtual book conference, the US Book Show, May 25-27. There is a cost to register. This is broad based and not genre specific. (H/T to File 770.)

Clarion West is taking a deep look at the Clarion model of workshopping, with an eye to change. The workshop model had its foundation in academia, which is being scrutinized across the board.

From last week, John Scalzi provides a photo of the pile of ARCS that arrived at his house.

The Big Idea takes a dive into a largely visual book with Logomotive, a historical review of railroad graphics, by Ian Logan and Jonathan Clancey.

Here’s an article on Independent Bookstore Day, which was April 24th this year.

Tor.com is recruiting for essayists and nonfiction writers. Here are the guidelines. I don’t know what the pay is—the rumor is that it’s not great, but it’s a way to get your name out there.

Get your T-shirts and pick your teams. LitHub introduces the Great Punctuation War. (Yes, I did want to separate those two sentences with a semicolon.)

TV, Streaming, Movies:

The latest Marvel commercial… or I guess it’s a trailer? Kinda? It’s three minutes long.

Science:

The FDA plans to approve the Phizer Covid vaccine for youth 12-16 years of age.

Pando, the aspen grove

Pando, the aspen grove

Hydrofluorocarbons are scheduled for removal from air conditioning and refrigerant devices. We old folks remember when HFCs preplaced CFCs in those same devices. While they emit less carbon than CFCs did, they are still potent greenhouse cases. With their reduction, the EPA projects we can reduce the heating of the planet by one degree.

In Scientific American, Suzanne Simard talks about the intelligence of trees. Her new book is Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.