m. c. de marco

Via a mailing list: BoingBoing reposts a brief excerpt from The Science of Star Wars by Jeanne Cavelos, my teacher from Odyssey.

Thus it seems the lasers we have today would be capable of doing many of the things we see in Star Wars. We could injure or kill people; we could burn structures or melt holes in walls; we could destroy targeted areas of spaceships, assuming we could keep a beam on them for long enough. The main difference between Star Wars lasers and ours is the size.

The application deadline for Odyssey 2007 is approaching:

Odyssey is an intensive six-week workshop for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror held each summer at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH. Developing writers aged 17-65 apply from all over the world. Sixteen are admitted, and over 50% of graduates go on to be published.

I was trying to remember who Greg Donegan really was, and Wikipedia led me to his real self’s co-website with co-author Jennifer Crusie: CruiseMayer.com. Besides a fun overview of their collaboration, the site has a 2007 Online Writing Workshop. This month they’re covering point of view. See the syllabus for future topics.

It’s not too late to register for Michael Burstein’s six-week Fantasy & Science Fiction workshop in Brookline. He’ll be starting next Monday, since this Monday was snowed out. You can find the details and an update in his LiveJournal.

Slashdot reports on the Clarion fundraising auction. By the way, there’s more LotR animated-gif fun at GeekPress.

From CNN Entertainment:

Frank Conroy, the longtime head of the celebrated Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, will step down at the end of the year…

The Iowa Writers’ Workshop is a creative writing MFA program. Their brochure is available on-line.