Peter Watts Found Guilty

SF writer Peter Watts was found guilty of resisting a US Customs and Border Protection officer today. He will be sentenced on April 26, 2010, and could face up to two years in prison for the felony conviction.

Watts, a Canadian citizen, was stopped at the border crossing at Port Huron, Michigan in December 2009 for a search of his rental car. Border officials claim he resisted and physically assaulted a guard, while Watts says he merely questioned the reason for the search and was subsequently beaten and maced.

Watts wrote about the trial on his website, where he says in part, "While I think they made the wrong decision I’m obviously not the most impartial attendee at this party. I still maintain I did nothing wrong; but as far as I can tell the trial was fair, and I will abide by its outcome."

Scribe Award Nominees

The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (IAMTW) has announced nominees for the fourth annual Scribe Awards, honoring excellence in licensed tie-in writing for books published in 2009.

Best Novel (Speculative Fiction)

• Enemies & Allies, Kevin J. Anderson (Morrow)
  

• Terminator Salvation: Cold War, Greg Cox (Titan)

• Star Trek: A Singular Destiny, Keith R.A. DeCandido (Pocket)
  

• Warhammer: Shamanslayer: A Gotrek and Felix Novel, Nathan Long (Black Library)

• Star Trek: Vanguard: Open Secrets, Dayton Ward (Pocket)

Best Novel (General Fiction)

• As the World Turns: The Man from Oakldale, "Henry Coleman" & Alina Adams (Pocket)
  

• CSI: Brass in Pocket, Jeff Mariotte (Pocket Star)

• Psych: A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read, William Rabkin (Signet)

Best Adaptation (General and Speculative)

• GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Max Allan Collins (Titan)
  

• Countdown, Greg Cox (Ace)

• The Tudors: Thy Will Be Done, Elizabeth Massie (Gallery)

Best Young Adult (Original and Adapted)

• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Stacia Deutsch & Rhody Cohon (Simon Spotlight)
  

• Bandslam: The Novel, Aaron Rosenberg (Price Stern Sloan)

• Thunderbirds: Deadly Danger, Joan Marie Verba (FTL)

William Johnston received the Grandmaster Award. Other winners will be announced at a ceremony July 2010 at Comic-Con International in San Diego CA. Find out more at the IAMTW website.

The Orange Wins Short Film Award

The Orange, a short film directed by Nick Fox-Gieg and based on Benjamin Rosenbaum's short story "The Orange" (2002), won a SXSW Film Award in the Animated Shorts category at the SXSW 2010 festival. Watch it below:

Gilman and Yoshinaga Win Tiptree

Greer Gilman's Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter's Tales (Small Beer) and Fumi Yoshinaga's Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Volumes 1 & 2 (VIZ Media) are co-winners of the 2009 James Tiptree, Jr. Award, given annually to works of science fiction or fantasy that explore and expand gender roles. Ooku is the first manga to be chosen as a Tiptree winner. The awards ceremony will be held at WisCon 34 in Madison WI, May 27-31, 2010.

The Tiptree jury released an "honor list" that recognizes other works considered worthy of note: "Beautiful White Bodies", Alice Sola Kim (Strange Horizons 12/7-12/14/09); Distances, Vandana Singh (Aqueduct); "Galapagos", Caitlín R. Kiernan (Eclipse Three); Lifelode, Jo Walton (NESFA); "Useless Things", Maureen F. McHugh (Eclipse Three); and "Wives", Paul Haines (X6). The jury also "wishes to extend a special honor" to L. Timmel Duchamp's five-volume Marq'ssan Cycle (Aqueduct, 2005-2008).

Full story in the April 2010 issue of Locus.

SLF Offers Older Writers Grant

The Speculative Literature Foundation's 2010 Grant for Older Authors is now open for submissions. The deadline is March 31, 2010. The grant, which offers $750 to authors fifty years or older, is intended to help older writers who are beginning to work at a professional level. For full application details, visit the Speculative Literature Foundation website.

Cheryl Morgan Refused Entry to US

SF critic, editor, and convention organizer Cheryl Morgan, a British citizen, landed at San Francisco International Airport on March 11, only to be put on a plane back to the UK. She will not be attending the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts as originally planned. See her blog for further details.

McIntyre, Stokes Win 2010 SFWA Service Awards

Vonda McIntyre and Keith Stokes will receive 2010 SFWA Service Awards, to be presented during the Nebula Awards Weekend, May 13-16, 2010 in Coco Beach, FL.

The award will honor McIntyre for her volunteer work on SFWA member websites and other sections of the original SFWA website, and for her numerous other volunteer activities. Stokes will be honored for his service on SFWA committees and management of SFWA news alerts, keeping organization members up-to-date on developments in SFWA and the publishing industry. This is the tenth time the awards have been presented.