Kelly nominated for Hugo

"Aunty Em's man was not doing well at all. He had been droopy and gray ever since the neighbor Mr. Kimura had died, shuffling around the house in nothing but socks and bathrobe..."

So begins James Patrick Kelly's story, "The Best Christmas Ever," published in Sci Fiction in May 2004 and now a finalist for a Hugo Award. Officially the Science Fiction Achievement Awards, the Hugo Awards are the World Science Fiction Society's highest honors for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy, named in honor of writer, publisher and inventor Hugo Gernsback.

Kelly, who lives in Nottingham, is chair of the N.H. State Council on the Arts and sets many of his stories in New Hampshire, has already won the prestigious award twice. He shared another story, "Candy Art," with Wire readers in December 2004. You can read "The Best Christmas Ever" on his Web site, www.jimkelly.net.

Award winners in 14 categories will be announced Aug. 7 in Glasgow at Interaction, the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention.

Writers in the Round on Star Island

Deidre Randall, with assistance from the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program and the Club Passim School of Music, is offering a retreat on Star Island Sept. 11-14. Modeled on Writers in the Round, a live radio program on WSCA-LP, 106.1FM, the four-day retreat will offer daily classes, unstructured time for composition and collaboration, small group workshops and nightly song and poetry swaps.

"It's a time for stretching boundaries, cross-genre inspiration and fresh salt air. We welcome all levels of artistry," Randall says in a press release.

The songwriting instructor is David Francey (www.davidfrancey.com), a Canadian songwriter who has received two Juno awards and has been nominated for a third. The poetry instructor is previous Portsmouth Poet Laureate Maren Tirabassi, author or editor of 11 books and two spoken-word CDs, including her most recent, "A DayBook for New Voices" and "Transgendering Faith." She also teaches writing in a variety of settings, travels widely leading workshops and retreats, contributes to journals, creates curricula and co-hosts the WSCA radio show "Speaking Volumes" with Rebecca Rule.

Conference attendees will be housed in the Oceanic House on Star Island, a longtime artist destination known for attracting poets, musicians, visual artists, historians and wildlife enthusiasts since the 1800s. Visit www.starisland.org to learn more about Star Island; contact Deidre Randall at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or 603-205-0552 to learn more about the conference.

new releases

Just Rye Harbor: The Portsmouth Marine Society's latest publication examines 200 years of history in the 43-square-mile harbor and turns up some remarkable stories, tales of the people who dug out the harbor to make room for coastal vessels, of tide millers and lobstermen, of ocean disasters, shipwrecks and storms. Surely learning the story of the Irish moss harvesting business and the moss cottage that's now part of Saunders restaurant will make you take a second look at the landscape. The book, published by Peter Randall, weighs in at nearly 300 pages and more than 100 photographs, many of which have never been published before. Portsmouth Marine Society is taking prepublication orders of $25 per book until April 15 at Portsmouth Marine Society, Box 147, Portsmouth, N.H. 03802. For more information call 603-431-5667 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

The Handbook of Women, Stress and Trauma: Recent discoveries of the significant differences in how men and women respond to stressful and traumatic events formed the foundation of a new book edited by Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, a health psychologist at the University of New Hampshire.

"The Handbook of Women, Stress and Trauma" compiles research, theory and practice from women's studies, traumatology, counseling and therapy.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that men and women have different sources of stress and trauma in their lives and respond to stressful and traumatic events differently," Kendall-Tackett said in a recent press release. "Some of those differences include that women's sources of stress are often relationally based, they have twice the lifetime rate of depression compared to men, and they appear more vulnerable to posttraumatic stress disorder after exposure to traumatic events."

The book, published by Taylor & Francis, is part of a stress and trauma series edited by trauma researcher Charles Figley.