Today, Cat Rambo talks about a stellar opportunity (sorry, not sorry); one that I would be partaking in if it weren’t for the small problem of me being in Canada at the time of the next Wayward Wormhole workshop. In all cases, I really want to experience a Dark Sky reserve at least once in my life.
Last year while in the inaugural Wayward Wormhole workshop, which took place in a castle in Spain, we used a telescope a lot, particularly to look at the moon as well as the surrounding mountaintops. This year, the skies will be even more telescope-worthy in our latest location.
One reason (among the many) I’m excited about this year’s Wayward Wormhole workshops (one for novels, one for short stories) happening in New Mexico, is that the area is part of a New Mexico Dark Skies reserve, where people are encouraged to use flashlights rather than larger lights. The elevation plus clear skies plus an absence of light means that the star-watching will be exceptional. (If you’d like to know more about the International Dark Sky Places program, here’s some details: https://darksky.org/what-we-do/international-dark-sky-places/)
* The succession of celestial events starts with a new moon on November 1. Surely a good omen for the Wormholers arriving to attend the novel workshop with Don Maass and C.C. Finlay.
- November 4-5 is the South Taurid meteor shower. A minor shower, so maybe 5-10 per hour, but always fun to try to spot one. The North Taurids will peak a week or so later on November 12. Both are known for fireballs – extremely bright meteors and are not produced by a single comet but a group of asteroids called the Encke Complex.
- November 15 is a Supermoon, and also the Beaver Moon, aka the Frosty Moon and the Dark Moon. We’ll be changing over from the novel workshop to the short story one, taught by Minister Faust and Arley Sorg.
- November 17 Uranus will be its closest to Earth, and fully visible as the Earth transits in front of it.
- November 17-18 is also another meteor shower, this time the Leonids, a slightly larger shower than the Taurids, with perhaps 10-15 meteors per hour at their peak. They will be competing with a waning gibbous (between half and full) moon that will make them harder to see. Their parent comet is Comet Tempel-Tuttle (named after its discoverers).
I know we will definitely get some star watching in, and a little sight-seeing as well, since Tombstone’s in driving distance. And imagine what kind of words one can write under a sky so bright you can see the Milky Way in all its glory! I can hardly wait.
If you’re curious about the workshop, the deadline for applying for the short story workshop is at the end of this month! Find more details here: https://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/the-wayward-wormhole-new-mexico-2024/
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Cat Rambo’s 300+ fiction publications include stories in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. In 2020 they won the Nebula Award for fantasy novelette Carpe Glitter. They are a former two-term President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). Their most recent works are space opera Devil’s Gun (Tor Macmillan, 2023) and anthology The Reinvented Detective (Arc Manor, 2023), co-edited with Jennifer Brozek.
For more about Cat, as well as links to fiction and popular online school, The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, see their website.
