The major piece of writing-related news this month is a rather big one. As you can tell from the headline, I've been nominated for a Hugo Award (my second) for "Broken Symmetry," my novelette from the February 1997 ANALOG which is about the Superconducting Supercollider. This particularly pleases me, as I'm working on turning this same novelette into a novel.
My thanks to any and all on this list who were among those nominating the story.
In other news, my story "The Spider in the Hairdo," which had made it to the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Horror, did not make it to the final ballot.
There is one recent sale that I am very pleased about, and I thought I'd share the story of the story with everyone.
One of my oldest friends (meaning we've known each other for a long time) is Charles Ardai, who made a name for himself as a mystery writer in the late 1980's and early 1990's, even earning a Shamus nomination. Since then, he hasn't had a chance to write much, as other pursuits got in the way.
Last year, at our high school reunion, he was bemoaning this fact, and I asked him if he had any unfinished science fiction stories in his computer. He did have one that he liked, he told me, an Asimovian Three Laws of Robotics story, but one he was never quite able to finish. I asked him to send me a copy of what he had.
He sent me about twelve pages, I added another twelve pages. He rewrote that, I rewrote it again, we discussed it on the phone...
I am pleased to announce that my first collaboration, "Nor Through Inaction" by Charles Ardai and Michael A. Burstein, will be appearing in ANALOG sometime in the future.
For those of you looking for Nomi and me, we'll be at the following convention:
* Bucconeer (Baltimore, MD, August 5-9)
For those of you interested in this Worldcon specifically, and Worldcons in general, you can check out their webpage at http://bucconeer.worldcon.org .
It turns out that I have to miss Readercon this year for a friend's wedding, so please be aware that I will not be able to attend.
Also, although this is kind of short notice, remember that I'll be speaking at MIT along with Nancy Kress on the night of April 15th as part of the Media in Transition series (check out http://media-in-transition.mit.edu for more information). From 3 PM to 5 PM beforehand, I'll be autographing copies of URBAN NIGHTMARES (which contains my story "The Spider in the Hairdo") at Pandemonium, the SF bookstore in Harvard Square.
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-- Michael A. Burstein