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Sept 2023 Monthly Meeting

Saturday, Sept 16, 2023 via ZOOM and IN PERSON at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh – Squirrel Hill, Meeting Room B.

2:15 pm to 4:30 pm — Note time change due to room availability!

We’ll open the ZOOM room for chat at 1:30 pm. To Register for the meeting use the direct Registration link

Our guest this month is Rick Lewis

Rick is a literary agent with Martin Literary Management. He represents authors of speculative fiction titles in the Adult and YA categories, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, and magical realism. 

You can find more information about Rick at ForGoodBooks.com and about the agency at MartinLit.com.

Rick will explain the mysteries of getting an agent, working with an agent, and what exactly an agent does.

Martin Literary Management, founded in 2003, is a full service literary and media management agency. They focus on representing authors of adult nonfiction, fiction, and books for children and young adults. MLM clients’ titles have appeared on the New York Times bestseller and other national bestseller lists, earned strong reviews, received many awards, and garnered national media attention. Many MLM clients’ works have been optioned and developed for film and television projects and have helped promote speaking engagements.

MLM prides itself on providing thoughtful and considerate management of their clients and on being a modern literary agency capable of developing the many potential ancillary opportunities that exist outside of the book world. 

Register for our Zoom meetings

Next Month – October 21st 2023.

Our guest in October will be Bret Nelson. Bret is an Emmy Award-winning creator. When he’s not writing stories, he directs TV shows and makes games. Over the years, he’s worked with Kermit the Frog, Buzz Lightyear, and Conan the Cimmerian. Right now, he’s working on things he can’t talk about (that’s what the contracts say).

Did you miss the June Parsec meeting? Catch our guest speaker, Somto Ihezue, on our YouTube channel.

August 2023 Monthly Meeting

It’s the PARSEC PICNIC!

Location: Dormont Park Large Pavilion. 1801 Dormont Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15216. The large pavilion is Wheelchair accessible and has plenty of room for social distancing! This is a potluck event.

Date: Saturday Aug 19, 2023
Location: Dormont Park large pavilion, 1801 Dormont Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15216.

All the information can be found on the:

Parsec picnic page

Parsec Short Story Contest Winners

Parsec is pleased to announce the winners of the 2023 Parsec Short Story Contest!
Theme: “Preserve or Purge”

1st place, “Revenge of the Antmen” by Joseph Sidari
2nd place, “Violet Crystal in the Sky” by William Jones
3rd place, “Almost like home” by Taria Karillion
Youth Story: “Memorial” by Teresa Curry

Judges: Andrea Stewart, Jim Horlock & Lindz McLeod.
First Readers: Penelope Smith and Ivy Speight.

Thank you to our contest sponsors!
Timmons Esaias & Mary Fletcher.
Their donations to Parsec made this contest possible.
Read about the contest: https://parsec-sff.org/short-story-contest/

Our contest coordinator, Alfred (AJ) Smith is a father and a rowing coach recently of Erie PA who is trying to spin writing into a full time career. He’s had works published in Deep Magic Ezine, with Air and Nothingness Press, and many other speculative venues. This is his third year running the PARSEC short story contest.

AJ is looking for someone to take over coordinating the contest for 2024. Support will be provided.
If you are interested, please contact us!

July 2023 Parsec Monthly Meeting

Saturday, July 15th, 2023 via ZOOM and IN PERSON at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh – Squirrel Hill, Meeting Room B.

Please note time change due to room availability!
In-person meeting at Squirrel Hill Library: 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm.
ZOOM will open at 1:30 pm. Register for the Zoom meeting: https://bit.ly/Parsec-Meeting

This month we’re going to talk about the Confluence Conference, which takes place July 21, 22, and 23, 2023 at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel.

Why is Confluence a great place to experience your first SciFi Con?

Come hear from our guest speakers, Susan Kaye Quinn, Timons Esaias, and Susan Dexter (and maybe more!) talk about the Confluence experience.

If you’re an SF/F/H fan, you won’t want to miss Confluence!
https://confluence-sff.org/

Next Month – Parsec Picnic August 19th 2023

Location: Dormont Park Large Pavilion. 1801 Dormont Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15216. The large pavilion is Wheelchair accessible and has plenty of room for social distancing! This is a potluck event.

Date: Saturday Aug 19th, 2023
Time: Noon to Dusk

Please RSVP

June 2023 Parsec Monthly Meeting

Saturday, June 17th, 2023 our meeting is ZOOM only.

The ZOOM opens at 12:30 pm for chatting and our Program begins at 1:00 pm.

Our special guest, Somto Ihezue (He/Him) is a Nigerian–Igbo writer, joining us from overseas.

Somto was awarded the 2021 African Youth Network Movement Fiction Prize. A Nommo Award-nominee and a finalist for the 2022 Afritondo Prize, his works have appeared in Tordotcom: Africa Risen Anthology, Fireside Magazine, POETRY Magazine, Cossmass Infinities, Flash Fiction Online, Africa In Dialogue, OnSpec, Omenana Magazine, and others.

He is a member of SFWA, BSFA, BFS, ASFS, and CODEX. He is an associate editor with Android Press, Apex Magazine, and Cast of Wonders. He tweets @somto_Ihezue. His story “Like Stars Daring to Shine” can be found in DreamForge, Issue 11 at https://bit.ly/like-stars and you can read a poem by Somto at Poetry Foundation.org: All the Stones That Built Me

You can read a poem by Somto at Poetry Foundation.org: All the Stones That Built Me, and a story by Somto at DreamForge Anvil: Like Stars Daring to Shine.

Register for our Zoom meetings

If you missed the April Parsec meeting, watch it now on our YouTube Channel!

May 2023 Parsec meeting

In May we return to Meeting Room B at the Squirrel Hill Carnegie Library.
We will also have ZOOM meeting set up for those that cannot attend in person.
Meeting Date: Saturday, May 20th
Meeting room opens for in-person attendees at: 1:30 pm.
Zoom will be set up by 1:45 pm.

ZOOM MEETING REGISTRATION: HTTPS://BIT.LY/PARSEC-MEETING

Let’s take advantage of some in-person time to discuss and possibly trade our favorite science fiction and fantasy books.

Bring books you’re willing to trade or give away and books you just want to enthusiastically promote.
(We’re thinking small quantities; we’re not setting up a flea market.)

We’d like you to share your personal history with one or more of your favorite tomes.

In June:

We’re going to have a ZOOM only meeting, where our guest will be Somto Ihezue (He/Him), a Nigerian–Igbo writer, joining us from overseas.

April 2023 Parsec Monthly meeting

In April our guest is Robert E. Harpold.

Robert E. Harpold is an engineer working for ERC, Inc., a subcontractor for NASA, designing trajectories for the Artemis missions. His article “Flybys, Launch Windows, and Selfies with the Earth and Moon” appeared in the March issue of DreamForge Anvil.  

On November 16th, 2022, the uncrewed Artemis I mission was launched to the moon. As the first major spaceflight of NASA’s Artemis program, Artemis I marked the return of the agency to human lunar exploration originally begun with the Apollo program. Artemis I was the first integrated flight test of the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS).

Courtesy of NASA
Courtesy of NASA

Robert Harpold’s presentation this month takes us behind the scenes of the Artemis I flight and gives us an idea of the amount of work that went into the entire Artemis I mission by focusing on the work of one team: the trajectory design team, responsible for creating the path the spacecraft would take from the Earth to the Moon and back again. We get to go behind the scenes where, after so many years, we’ve sent a human-rated spacecraft back to the Moon!

Robert E. Harpold has operated a weather satellite and a space-weather spacecraft for NOAA and, for a different NASA project, has flown over Greenland and Antarctica to collect data on their elevation changes. He is married to his amazing and accomplished wife Julie and has a young and very smart daughter named Isabelle.

Courtesy of NASA

PARSEC, Pittsburgh’s premier Science Fiction & Fantasy Organization
Meeting Date: Saturday, April 15 via ZOOM.
Program begins: 1:00 pm.

ZOOM MEETING REGISTRATION: HTTPS://BIT.LY/PARSEC-MEETING

COMING IN MAY:

We’re planning a return to Meeting Room B at the Squirrel Hill
Carnegie Library and joint ZOOM meeting.
Let’s take advantage of some in-person time to discuss and possibly trade
our favorite science fiction and fantasy books. Bring books you’re willing to
trade or give away and books you just want to enthusiastically promote.
(We’re thinking small quantities; we’re not setting up a flea market. And
we’d like you to share your personal history with one or more of your
favorite tomes.)

Did you miss the February Parsec Monthly meeting with Bruce Boston?
Catch the zoom recording on our YouTube channel!

Pittsburgh Novel Project

The Pittsburgh Novel: Western Pennsylvania in Fiction and Drama, 1792-2022

Compiled by Peter Oresick and Jake Oresick

The Pittsburgh Novel: Western Pennsylvania in Fiction and Drama, 1792-2022, a Penn State Libraries Open Publishing publication, is an annotated bibliography of all known fiction with a significant geographical setting in any of Pennsylvania’s 26 westernmost counties between 1792 and 2022. 

March 2023 Parsec Monthly meeting

PARSEC, Pittsburgh’s premier Science Fiction & Fantasy Organization meets on Saturday, March18th via ZOOM. (The Squirrel Hill Library will not be available to us in the First Quarter of 2023.)
Program begins 1:00 pm.

Zoom Meeting Registration: https://bit.ly/Parsec-Meeting

Our Program:

This month we’ll discuss and exchange ideas for programming for the 2023 Confluence Conference. The Conference takes place July 21, 22, and 23.

We’ll discuss, among other things, panel topics for the conference. Things like:

• A.I. in Art and Writing, the Controversy of These Emerging Technologies.

• The Drake Equation and the Fermi Paradox. If there are alien civilizations all around us, why are they invisible and silent?

• Speculative Fiction as a Literature of Hope or Despair? Should writers point out all the ways humanity is failing, or our opportunities to transcend?

These examples are just to generate ideas and discussion. We want to hear your ideas!

Learn more about the Confluence conference: www.confluence-sff.org

This year’s guest of honor is Ada Palmer. Ada’s Terra Ignota series (Tor Books) explores a future of borderless nations and globally commixing populations. The first volume Too Like the Lightning was a Best Novel Hugo finalist and won the Compton Crook Award. She composes close harmony folk music with mythological, science fiction and fantasy themes, and performs with the a cappella group Sassafrass.

Our featured music guest is Sassafrass. Sassafrass is a singing group performing original a cappella folk music, mostly with fantasy, mythology and science fiction themes.

Writing Workshops with Timons Esaias. Timons Esaias is a satirist, writer and poet living in Pittsburgh. His works, ranging from literary to genre, have been published in twenty-two languages. He taught writing in Seton Hill’s Writing Popular Fiction graduate program for twenty years.
Workshops open March 15th.

Featured Artist is Susan Dexter.

Featured Entertainers are The Confused Greenies.

Rhiannon’s Lark will lead the singing of “Three Days Away from the Ratrace” at the Opening Ceremonies.

Zoom Meeting Registration: https://bit.ly/Parsec-Meeting

Coming in April!

Robert E. Harpold Flybys, Launch Windows, and Selfies with the Earth and Moon: The Artemis I Flight from the Perspective of a Member of the Trajectory-Design Team

In April our guest speaker will be Robert E. Harpold.

Robert E. Harpold is an engineer working for ERC, Inc., a subcontractor for NASA, designing trajectories for the Artemis missions.

More information coming soon!

Feb 2023 Parsec meeting

February is poetry month at Parsec!

Love is in the air so show your love for SF/F/H by bringing your original poem to the Feb Parsec meeting. Attendees are encouraged to bring short and effective pieces to read.

Bruce Boston will be our our guest!
Bruce is an accomplished SF Poet and the author of sixty books and chapbooks, including the dystopian novel The Guardener’s Tale and the psychedelic coming-of-age novel Stained Glass Rain.

Bruce will read for us “Interstellar Tract,” and some other poems from his latest collection, Spacers Snarled in the Hair of Comets, which is entirely SF poetry.

His fiction and poetry have appeared in hundreds of publications, especially Asimov’s SF Magazine, Amazing Stories, Analog, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, The Nebula Awards Showcase, and DreamForge Magazine. Boston has received the Bram Stoker Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Asimov’s Readers Award, the Gothic Readers Choice Award, and the Rhysling and Grand Master Awards of the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

Meeting Information:

Date: Saturday, February 18, 2023

Program begins: 1:00 pm (ET)

Register for Zoom: https://bit.ly/Parsec-Meeting
The Squirrel Hill Library will not be available to us in the First Quarter of 2023.

Did you miss the January Parsec meeting?

You can now catch a recap of Crystal Crawford talking about her Kindle Vella experience on our YouTube channel!