Vancouver’s annual writers and readers festival opens Oct. 21 and runs until Oct. 26, 2008.  I just bought a ticket for an Oct. 25 event, Femmes Fatales with Lisa Lutz, Leonie Swann, and Linda L. Richards talking about their murder mystery novels. I enjoyed both of Lutz’s books about the Spellman family, haven’t had a chance to read Richards’ book about a secretary (who’s the real brains of the operation) to a Depression era private investigator; and am not sure about Swann’s use of a herd of sheep as the detectives in her novel (still reading it). For more about about the festival and its events, go here.

There’s also a writer’s conference coming up in Surrey, BC, Oct. 24 – 26, 2008. This is for people who are serious about writing so a lot of it is shop talk. There are workshops, a trade show, book fair, editor/agent interviews (where you can sign up for a brief individual session), and more. For details, go here.

M. Fatih Yegul’s ( and co-authors M. Yavuz and P. Guild) paper analyzing the Canadian nanotechnology scene by examining the record of public scientific literature has been published. Publication details are avaialable at the IEEE Explore site. Information about the research is in my blog postings of June 17, 19, and 20, 2008. I recently heard from Martha Cook Piper’s assistant that Dr. Piper will be able to answer a few questions about her appointment (which occurred in April 2008) to the National Institute of Nanotechnology’s board  in early 2009.