The 23rd Annual PARSEC SF/Fantasy/Horror Short Story Contest opened for submissions on January 1, 2019. The theme this year is NOIR. This can be conveyed in the setting, plot, characters, dialogue…the only limit is your imagination. Submit here: http://parsecink.com/contest/
Closes April 15, maximum 3500 words. No entry fee.
The Parsec Holiday Party will be this Saturday, December 8, 2018 from 4pm-10pm at Greg’s house [2966 Voelkel Avenue, Dormont PA 15216].
So come one and come all, to enjoy fine conversation and games, look over the books, and taste the food. (People usually bring a dish or snack to share.)
Voelkel Avenue is parallel to the Red Line trolley. If you take that, get off at Potomac, walk away from Molly’s Pizza and the gas station, then turn right onto Voelkel. 2966 is at the far end of the block, near Hillsdale Ave. Look for the 10 foot dragon wearing a Santa hat.
A new and unique outreach initiative will be a partnership with local literary non-profit Parsec. Aiming to facilitate the cultural shift through storytelling, the upcoming edition of Parsec’s annual fiction anthology Triangulation will consist of short stories centered around the theme Dark Skies.
Excerpts from the Tartan (CMU paper):
Roughly half of the stars visible in the 1990s can no longer be seen in Pittsburgh’s night sky. The stars aren’t going anywhere — so why can’t we see the Milky Way? Light pollution — the presence of artificial light that interferes with the natural darkness of nighttime — is on the rise in Pittsburgh.
…Stephen Quick of the School of Architecture’s Remaking Cities Institute and Diane Turnshek of the physics department will lead a project using quadcopter drones to create a high-resolution light pollution map of Pittsburgh, as the city seeks to evaluate the light pollution impact of new street lamps. In addition to the International Dark Sky Association, Quick and Turnshek will be working with the City of Pittsburgh and the Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh to implement the project and raise awareness for issues of light pollution within the city. …
Aiming to facilitate the cultural shift through storytelling, the upcoming edition of Parsec’s annual fiction anthology Triangulation will consist of short stories centered around the theme Dark Skies. Additional information about dark sky initiatives in Pittsburgh can be found at pghconstellation.com and idapgh.org.
Date: Saturday, September 8
1:00 – 3:00 pm: Writing Workshop
3:00 – 4:00 pm: Book Signing
4:00 – 5:00 pm: Author Talk
Location:
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
McConomy Auditorium
University Center
Campus map: Map
Free parking in the East Campus Garage next to the University Center.
(Push button for ticket and use it when you leave, no charge on weekends.)
The Partners in Speculative Fiction student club and Parsec will sponsor NY fantasy author Lara Elena Donnelly (Amberlough, Armistice), hosting a two-hour, genre writing workshop for the public from 1 – 3 pm, a book signing from 3 – 4 pm, then one more author talk from 4 – 5 pm. Amberlough is a 1920’s European burlesque spy novel, a politically charged thriller and a love story between two very different kinds of men. Ms. Donnelly is a graduate of Clarion and Alpha, the SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers and currently resides in Harlem, in a tower named after Ella Fitzgerald.
On Sunday, July 29, 2018 and Wednesday, August 1, 2018 at the Greensburg Barnes & Noble, there will be two Alpha book signings:
[The Calculating Stars, the Fated Sky, Tor Books 7.3.18]
Date: Sunday, July 29, 2018
Time: 2:00 – 4:00 pm
Book synopsis: A meteor decimates the U.S. government and paves the way for a climate cataclysm that will eventually render the earth inhospitable to humanity. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated timeline in the earth’s efforts to colonize space”
Link to store event: Mary Robinette Kowal
[Scorpio Races]
[[The Stone Sky, The Killing Moon, The Shadowed Sun]
Date: Wednesday, Aug 1, 2018
Time: 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Link to store event: Maggie Stiefvater & N.K. Jemisin
Greensburg Barnes & Noble
5155 Route 30
Greensburg, PA 15601
724-832-0622
Also reading will be staff and students from Alpha, the SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers.
Facebook event page: Facebook Event Page
Date: Thursday, May 31, 2018
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Location: 7316 Wean Hall, CMU, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Free parking in the East Campus Garage
Sponsored by the CMU student club, Partners in Speculative Fiction
Free, no registration necessary, open to the public.
Michael A. Arnzen is a horror author and writer of the Bram Stoker Award-winning novel, Grave Markings. He won his second Bram Stoker Award for his newsletter and his third for his poetry collection, Freakcidents. He currently holds four Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award for his disturbing (and often funny) fiction, poetry and literary experiments. He has been teaching as a Professor of English in the MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University since 1999. gorelets.com
Jill Yeomans earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and Creative Writing at the University of Michigan, where she received the prestigious Arthur Miller Award for Fiction in the Avery Hopwood Awards. She was a children’s book editor at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers—working with authors including Stephenie Meyer, Jerry Pinkney, and Patrick Carman—before embarking on a writing career. She has ghostwritten nearly a dozen books for teens and adults and co-wrote the bestselling Witch & Wizard series with James Patterson. Under the pseudonym Devon Hughes, she wrote Unnaturals, a middle grade fantasy series, for HarperCollins. She also co-owns White Whale, an independent bookstore in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The May 20, 2018 Parsec meeting will be held at the Marriott City-Center, Downtown, at 112 Washington Pl, Pittsburgh, PA 15219 after the Nebula Book Signing that goes from 1-3 pm. Thanks to the Science Fiction Writers of America who are providing us a room for our Parsec meeting (3 to 5 pm) right down the hall from the Grand Ballroom where the signing will be held. The book signing and the Parsec Meeting are free and open to the public. Directional signs will show how to perambulate between the two events.
See you there!
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Lecture: CMU McConomy Auditorium, 10am-11am
Workshop: CMU Connan Room, 1:30-3:30pm, Carrie Ann DiRisio
Join us for the Parsec-CMU Speculative Fiction Lecture Series to be held in McConomy Auditorium in the University Center at CMU on Saturday, March 31st. The lecture by a national author will be 10 to 11 am with a book signing following. The 2-hour writing workshop will be held at 1:30 in the Connan Room and run by Carrie Ann DiRisio (BROODING YA HERO: Becoming a Main Character). These events are free and open to the public, including free parking in the East Campus Garage next door. The series is sponsored by the CMU student club Partners in Speculative Fiction (PSF) and Parsec.
Carrie DiRisio runs multiple popular social media accounts including @BroodingYAHero, and is the social media intern for Serial Box Publishing. Her speaking engagements include talks at the Carnegie Library System of Pittsburgh, Western PA SCBWI workshops, and the upcoming YALSA national symposium. She proudly considers herself a Slytherin and aspiring Disney villainess, who also loves the color pink and making people laugh with funny GIFs. She resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she is currently pursuing her MBA in Digital Marketing.
Jessica Cluess is a writer, a graduate of Northwestern University, and an unapologetic nerd. After college, she moved to Los Angeles, where she served coffee to the rich and famous while working on her first novel. When she’s not writing books, she’s an instructor at Writopia Lab, helping kids and teens tell their own stories. She is the author of the KINGDOM ON FIRE series, which features magic, monsters, and mayhem in Victorian London.
Parking: The East Campus Garage, at the corner of Beeler and Forbes Ave at CMU, is free on weekends.
For more info, contact: Joe Coluccio / president@parsec-sff.org
If you would like to be on a mailing list for further announcements, please Contact Us.
To volunteer to help with the lecture series, please send Diane Turnshek a message using the Contact Us form.
The Parsec meeting date has changed to the third Sunday of the Month 12:00 Noon to 4:30 PM at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill Branch, starting this month, March 18, 2018, and moving forward.
At this month meeting, we will discuss possible topics for the Parsec annual science fiction conference, Confluence. https://parsec-sff.org/confluence/
Please come to meet, discuss, and propose topics for consideration on Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror in all guises and forms. Yes, even haiku, board games, and pop-up books are fair game.
The hard copy mailed edition of Sigma will no longer be produced or mailed after the April 2018 issue. The cost of reproduction and postage has not been covered by the Parsec budget for many years. To keep costs manageable it is necessary to keep the mailing edition size to five pages double-sided. The amount of ink required for the print Sigma requires that images must be desaturated and reduced, or in many cases eliminated entirely. Further, the workload to collate and send the monthly mailing falls to the same small group of people which is a monthly scheduling and financial burden. We thank them so much for their dedication and work for all these years.
If you do not receive a copy of the Digital Edition of Sigma and wish to receive one, please send your email address and name to Sigma@parsec-sff.org. Thanks for your understanding and we are working to make Sigma a great publication to represent the ongoing mission of Parsec.
