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Still more items having to do (however indirectly) with authors and/or authorship:

• R. I. P. Will Eisner. I suspect everyone who cares will have seen the SFWA obituary and Neil Gaiman's appreciation of Eisner by now, not to mention Gaiman's article about Eisner's influence on him.
• Michael Moorcock's year's best list for 2004.
• The 2005 Hugo nomination ballot is now available online; you can either print out the PDF and papermail it to them, or follow their link to the online ballot form. Ballots must be received by 11 March 2005. Everyone who was a member of Noreascon (2004 WorldCon) or is a member of Interaction (2005 WorldCon) can nominate. If you have questions, see the Hugo FAQ, partly derived from Cheryl's Hugo pages. For those who missed earlier discussion, note that this year's ballot includes a Best Web Site category; even if you're not nominating a site I'm associated with, I hope y'all who nominate will nominate websites, 'cause I suspect that more people nominating and voting in this category will make it more likely to become a permanent category. If you're really stuck for nominees, you might take a quick skim through the list of sf sites on the web we put together for WorldCon 2002, even though it's now a bit outdated. You might also look at sites that did well in the Wooden Rocket Awards, and at the Locus Online links portal.
• Speaking of awards, there were at least three items on the preliminary Nebula ballot that I should've mentioned in my entry the other day. First, I'm embarrassed to admit that the reason I didn't mention Christopher Rowe's "The Voluntary State," which has appeared on just about every year's-best list I've seen, is simply that I hadn't gotten around to reading it yet. I've finally, long-belatedly, rectified that, and it's as good as everyone says. Go, Rowe! Second and third, I ought also to have mentioned Ellen Klages's "Basement Magic" and Lois Tilton's "The Gladiator's War" as other stories on the preliminary ballot that I liked.
• Farah Mendlesohn now has a blog. She's talking about science fiction, YA fiction, child development, and other assorted stuff. (Thanks, Cheryl!)
• I know there was something else. What was it? . . . Oh, yes: Ms. H. L. Shaw, the fine fiction editor of the fine online erotica magazine Fishnet, has just accepted a reprint of J. Hartman's story "The Flood," which originally appeared in Wet: More Aqua Erotica a couple years ago. I'll provide a link when it's published. Needless to say, I am very pleased. Thanks, H!

Seriously, I think there was something else, but I have no idea what it might've been. I'm sure it'll come to me in the middle of the night.