Mary Turzillo to Attend Arisia 2008 in Cambridge

Science fiction author Mary Turzillo is scheduled to participate in Arisia 2008, a science fiction and fantasy convention to be held next weekend, January 18th to 21st, at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge, MA. She’ll start her weekend with a book signing on Friday evening, January 18th, at Cambridge's Pandemonium Books.

A former professor of English at Kent State University, Turzillo won a Nebula Award in 2000 for her novelette “Mars is No Place for Children,” which was originally published in the May 1999 issue of Science Fiction Age magazine. The novelette, written as the diary of a young Martian girl, reminded one reviewer of “the Heinlein juveniles” and left another reviewer “cold.” A detailed description of the novelette and an excerpt are available at Fictionwise.

Turzillo’s first novel, An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl, was serialized in Analog magazine from July to November 2004 and the first six chapters are available at Analog's website.

More recently, Turzillo’s short story “Zora and the Land Ethic Nomads” was published in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction (2007). According to the blog Visions of Paradise, the story “is about the difficulties of settling Mars. It is a strong adventure about how a radical Land Ethic Nomad tries to drive off-planet all settlers by seemingly sabotaging their nuclear plants. In some ways it reminded me of Cyril M. Kornbluth & Judith Merrill’s 1951 serial Mars Child,” which was printed in book form as Outpost Mars (1952). Both SF Signal and SCI FI Weekly reviewed “Zora and the Land Ethic Nomads" and the other Solaris stories.

As of 2008, Turzillo is working on a new novel, Heart’s Journey, Mars Quest, “a novel about the adventures of Marcus and Zora Smithe (parents of her plucky Martian girl hero Kapera).”

Mary A. Turzillo is married to Martian scientist and science fiction author Geoffrey A. Landis, who is also scheduled to participate in Arisia 2008.

(Addendum: Pandemonium Books has "Pandemonium Erupts in Central Square!" T-shirts, with "Martian War Machines trashing City Hall, and generally tearing up Central Square." The T-shirts sell for about $20.)