Combat engineer
A combat engineer is a soldier who performs a variety of construction and demolition tasks under combat conditions. The combat engineer's goals involve facilitating movement and support of friendly forces while impeding those of the enemy. Combat engineers build fighting positions and roads, they conduct clear minefields using specialized vehicles. Typical combat engineer missions include construction and breaching of trenches, tank traps and other fortifications. A combat engineer is trained as an infantryman, combat engineer units have a secondary role fighting as infantry. A general combat engineer is called a pioneer or sapper, terms derived from the French and British armies. In some armies and sapper indicate specific military ranks and levels of combat engineers, who work under fire in all seasons, may be allocated to different corps, as they were in the former Soviet Army, or they may be organized in the same corps. Geomatics is another area of military engineering but is performed by the combat engineers of some nations and in other cases is a separate responsibility, as was the case in the Australian Army.
While the officers of a combat engineering unit may be professionally certified civil or mechanical engineers, the non-commissioned members are not. Sapper: In the U. S. British, Canadian and New Zealand armies, is a soldier who has specialized combat engineer training. In the Israeli Defence Forces, Sapper is a military profession code denoting a combat engineer who has graduated from various levels of combat engineering training. Sapper 05 is the basic level, Sapper 06 is the general level, Sapper 08 is the combat engineer commander's level and Sapper 11 is the combat engineer officer level. All IDF sappers are trained as Rifleman 07, matching infantry. In the Canadian Army, is a term for soldiers that have completed the basic Combat Engineer training. In the Portuguese Army, a sapador de engenharia is a soldier of the engineering branch that has specialized combat engineer training. A sapador de infantaria is a soldier of the infantry branch that has a similar training and that serves in the combat support sapper platoon of an infantry battalion.
The Italian Army uses the term "Guastatori" for their combat engineers. Pioneer: In the Finnish army, pioneeri is the private equivalent rank in the army for a soldier who has completed the basic combat engineering training. Naval engineers bear the pioneeri insignia on their sleeves; the German Bundeswehr uses the term "Pionier" for their combat engineers and other specialized units, who are associated with Special Forces to clear obstacles and perform engineering duties. The combat engineers in the Austro-Hungarian k.u.k. Forces were called "Pioniere". Assault pioneer: In the British and Australian armies, an assault pioneer is an infantry soldier with some limited combat engineer training in clearing obstacles during assaults and light engineering duties; until assault pioneers were responsible for the operation of flamethrowers. Field engineer: is a term used in many Commonwealth armies. In modern usage, it is synonymous with "combat engineer". However, the term identified those military engineers who supported an army operating in the field as opposed to garrison engineers who built and supported permanent fix bases.
In its original usage, "field engineering" would have been inclusive of but broader than "combat engineering." Miner Pontonier Combat engineers are force multipliers and enhance the survival of other troops through the use and practice of camouflage, reconnaissance and other services. These include the construction of roads, field fortifications and the construction and running of water points. In these roles, combat engineers use a wide variety of power tools, they are responsible for construction rigging, the use of explosives, the carrying out of demolitions, obstacle clearance, obstacle construction, assault of fortifications, use of assault boats in water obstacle crossings, helipad construction, general construction, route reconnaissance and road reconnaissance, erecting communication installations. Combat engineers build and run water distribution points, carrying out water filtration, NBC decontamination when necessary, storage prior to distribution. All these role activities and technologies are divided into several areas of combat engineering: Mobility Improving the ability of one's own force to move around the battlefield.
Combat engineers support this role through reduction of enemy obstacles which include point and row minefields, anti-tank ditches, wire obstacles and metal anti-vehicle barriers, Improvised Explosive Devices and wall and door breaching in urban terrain. Mechanized combat engineer units have armored vehicles capable of laying short bridges for limited gap-crossing. Clearing terrain obstacles Overcoming trenches and ditches Opening routes for armored fighting vehicles Constructing roads and bridges Route clearanceCountermobility Building obstacles to prevent the enemy from moving around the battlefield. Destroying bridges, blocking roads, creating airstrips, digging trenches, etc. Can include planting land mines and anti-handling devices when authorized and directed to do so; when the defender must retreat it is desirable to destroy anything that may be of use to the enem
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and referred to as Washington or D. C. is the capital of the United States. Founded after the American Revolution as the seat of government of the newly independent country, Washington was named after George Washington, first President of the United States and Founding Father; as the seat of the United States federal government and several international organizations, Washington is an important world political capital. The city is one of the most visited cities in the world, with more than 20 million tourists annually; the signing of the Residence Act on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of a capital district located along the Potomac River on the country's East Coast. The U. S. Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U. S. Congress, the District is therefore not a part of any state; the states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, which included the pre-existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria.
The City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia. Washington had an estimated population of 702,455 as of July 2018, making it the 20th most populous city in the United States. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's daytime population to more than one million during the workweek. Washington's metropolitan area, the country's sixth largest, had a 2017 estimated population of 6.2 million residents. All three branches of the U. S. federal government are centered in the District: Congress and the U. S. Supreme Court. Washington is home to many national monuments, museums situated on or around the National Mall; the city hosts 177 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of many international organizations, trade unions, non-profit, lobbying groups, professional associations, including the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization of American States, AARP, the National Geographic Society, the Human Rights Campaign, the International Finance Corporation, the American Red Cross.
A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973. However, Congress may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, but the District has no representation in the Senate. The District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century. One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. In his Federalist No. 43, published January 23, 1788, James Madison argued that the new federal government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance and safety.
Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia. Known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. Article One, Section Eight, of the Constitution permits the establishment of a "District as may, by cession of particular states, the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States". However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital. In what is now known as the Compromise of 1790, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson came to an agreement that the federal government would pay each state's remaining Revolutionary War debts in exchange for establishing the new national capital in the southern United States. On July 9, 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River; the exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, who signed the bill into law on July 16.
Formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory: the port of Georgetown, founded in 1751, the city of Alexandria, founded in 1749. During 1791–92, Andrew Ellicott and several assistants, including a free African American astronomer named Benjamin Banneker, surveyed the borders of the federal district and placed boundary stones at every mile point. Many of the stones are still standing. A new federal city was constructed on the north bank of the Potomac, to the east of Georgetown. On September 9, 1791, the three commissioners overseeing the capital's construction named the city in honor of President Washington; the federal district was named Columbia, a poetic name for the United States in use at that time. Congress held its first session in Washington on November 17, 1800. Congress passed the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 that organized the District and placed the entire territory under the exclusive control of the federal
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War known as the Second Indochina War, in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America or the American War, was an undeclared war in Vietnam and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and other communist allies; the war is considered a Cold War-era proxy war from some US perspectives. It lasted some 19 years with direct U. S. involvement ending in 1973 following the Paris Peace Accords, included the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, resulting in all three countries becoming communist states in 1975. American military advisors began arriving in what was French Indochina in 1950 to support the French in the First Indochina War against the communist-led Viet Minh. Most of the funding for the French war effort was provided by the U. S. After the French quit Indochina in 1954, the US assumed financial and military responsibility for the South Vietnamese state.
The Việt Cộng known as Front national de libération du Sud-Viêt Nam or NLF, a South Vietnamese communist common front aided by the North, initiated a guerrilla war against the South Vietnamese government in 1959. U. S. involvement escalated in 1960, continued in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy, with troop levels surging under the MAAG program from just under a thousand in 1959 to 16,000 in 1963. By 1964, there were 23,000 U. S. troops in Vietnam, but this escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which a U. S. destroyer was alleged to have clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft. In response, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave President Lyndon B. Johnson broad authorization to increase U. S. military presence, deploying ground combat units for the first time and increasing troop levels to 184,000. Past this point, the People's Army of Vietnam known as the North Vietnamese Army engaged in more conventional warfare with US and South Vietnamese forces; every year onward there was significant build-up of US forces despite little progress, with Robert McNamara, one of the principal architects of the war, beginning to express doubts of victory by the end of 1966.
U. S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces and airstrikes. The U. S. conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam. The Tet Offensive of 1968, proved to be the turning point of the war; the Tet Offensive showed that the end of US involvement was not in sight, increasing domestic skepticism of the war. The unconventional and conventional capabilities of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam increased following a period of neglect and became modeled on heavy firepower-focused doctrines like US forces. Operations crossed international borders. S. forces. Gradual withdrawal of U. S. ground forces began as part of "Vietnamization", which aimed to end American involvement in the war while transferring the task of fighting the communists to the South Vietnamese themselves and began the task of modernizing their armed forces. Direct U. S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973 as a result of the Case–Church Amendment passed by the U.
S. Congress; the capture of Saigon by the NVA in April 1975 marked the end of the war, North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities. Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 966,000 to 3.8 million. Some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians, 20,000–62,000 Laotians, 58,220 U. S. service members died in the conflict, a further 1,626 remain missing in action. The Sino-Soviet split re-emerged following the lull during the Vietnam War and confllict between North Vietnam and its Cambodian allies in the Royal Government of the National Union of Kampuchea, the newly-formed Democratic Kampuchea begun immediately in a series of border raids by the Khmer Rouge and erupted into the Cambodian–Vietnamese War, with Chinese forces directly intervening in the Sino-Vietnamese War; the end of the war and resumption of the Third Indochina War would precipitate the Vietnamese boat people and the bigger Indochina refugee crisis, which saw an estimated 250,000 people perish at sea.
Within the US the war gave rise to what was referred to as Vietnam Syndrome, a public aversion to American overseas military involvements, which together with Watergate contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected America throughout the 1970s. Various names have been applied to the conflict. Vietnam War is the most used name in English, it has been called the Second Indochina War and the Vietnam Conflict. As there have been several conflicts in Indochina, this particular conflict is known by the names of its primary protagonists to distinguish it from others. In Vietnamese, the war is known as Kháng chiến chống Mỹ, but less formally as'Cuộc chiến tranh Mỹ', it is called Chiến tranh Việt Nam. The primary military organizations involved in the war were as follows: One side consisted of th
Conscription
Conscription, sometimes called the draft, is the compulsory enlistment of people in a national service, most a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names; the modern system of near-universal national conscription for young men dates to the French Revolution in the 1790s, where it became the basis of a large and powerful military. Most European nations copied the system in peacetime, so that men at a certain age would serve 1–8 years on active duty and transfer to the reserve force. Conscription is controversial for a range of reasons, including conscientious objection to military engagements on religious or philosophical grounds; those conscripted may evade service, sometimes by leaving the country, seeking asylum in another country. Some selection systems accommodate these attitudes by providing alternative service outside combat-operations roles or outside the military, such as Siviilipalvelus in Finland, Zivildienst in Austria and Switzerland.
Several countries conscript male soldiers not only for armed forces, but for paramilitary agencies, which are dedicated to police-like domestic only service like Internal Troops, Border Guards or non-combat rescue duties like Civil defence troops – none of, considered alternative to the military conscription. As of the early 21st century, many states no longer conscript soldiers, relying instead upon professional militaries with volunteers enlisted to meet the demand for troops; the ability to rely on such an arrangement, presupposes some degree of predictability with regard to both war-fighting requirements and the scope of hostilities. Many states that have abolished conscription therefore still reserve the power to resume it during wartime or times of crisis. States involved in wars or interstate rivalries are most to implement conscription, whereas democracies are less than autocracies to implement conscription. Former British colonies are less to have conscription, as they are influenced by British anticonscription norms that can be traced back to the English Civil War.
Around the reign of Hammurabi, the Babylonian Empire used. Under that system those eligible were required to serve in the royal army in time of war. During times of peace they were instead required to provide labour for other activities of the state. In return for this service, people subject to it gained the right to hold land, it is possible that this right was not to hold land per se but specific land supplied by the state. Various forms of avoiding military service are recorded. While it was outlawed by the Code of Hammurabi, the hiring of substitutes appears to have been practiced both before and after the creation of the code. Records show that Ilkum commitments could become traded. In other places, people left their towns to avoid their Ilkum service. Another option was to sell Ilkum lands and the commitments along with them. With the exception of a few exempted classes, this was forbidden by the Code of Hammurabi. In medieval Scandinavia the leiðangr, leding, lichting, expeditio or sometimes leþing, was a levy of free farmers conscripted into coastal fleets for seasonal excursions and in defence of the realm.
The bulk of the Anglo-Saxon English army, called the fyrd, was composed of part-time English soldiers drawn from the freemen of each county. In the 690s Laws of Ine, three levels of fines are imposed on different social classes for neglecting military service; some modern writers claim. These thegns were the land-holding aristocracy of the time and were required to serve with their own armour and weapons for a certain number of days each year; the historian David Sturdy has cautioned about regarding the fyrd as a precursor to a modern national army composed of all ranks of society, describing it as a "ridiculous fantasy":The persistent old belief that peasants and small farmers gathered to form a national army or fyrd is a strange delusion dreamt up by antiquarians in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries to justify universal military conscription. Medieval levy in Poland was known as the pospolite ruszenie; the system of military slaves was used in the Middle East, beginning with the creation of the corps of Turkish slave-soldiers by the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim in the 820s and 830s.
The Turkish troops soon came to dominate the government, establishing a pattern throughout the Islamic world of a ruling military class separated by ethnicity and religion by the mass of the population, a paradigm that found its apogee in the Mamluks of Egypt and the Janissary corps of the Ottoman Empire, institutions that survived until the early 19th century. In the middle of the 14th century, Ottoman Sultan Murad I developed personal troops to be loyal to him, with a slave army called the Kapıkulu; the new force was built by taking Christian children from newly conquered lands from the far areas of his empire, in a system known as the devşirme. The captive children were forced to convert to Islam; the Sultans had the young boys trained over several years. Those who showed special promise in fighting skills were trained in advanced warrior skills, put into the sultan's personal service, turned into the Janissaries, the elite branch of the Kapıkulu. A n
Finncon
Finncon is the largest science fiction convention in Finland and, with up to 15,000 participants, one of the largest SF conventions in Europe. Finncon is unique among SF conventions because it has no participation/membership fee, is funded on various cultural grants as well as income from traders; the event is organised annually in different cities in Finland. From 2003 to 2009 and in 2011 the convention included the anime convention Animecon, which boosted the convention's attendance and public visibility significantly. Since the conventions have separated, the future of the Finnish Animecon is uncertain beyond the 2011 combined Finncon-Animecon. Finncon alternates between different cities in Finland without a formal rota; the event has been held every year, but a year is skipped if no city is found to host the event that year. Finncon website Finncon 2018
Museum of Pop Culture
The Museum of Pop Culture, or MoPOP is a nonprofit museum dedicated to contemporary popular culture. It was founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2000 as the Experience Music Project. Since that time MoPOP has organized dozens of exhibits, 17 of which have toured across the US and internationally; the museum—which used to be known as Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame and EMP Museum until November 2016—has founded many public programs including "Sound Off!", an annual 21-and-under battle-of-the-bands that supports the all-ages scene. MoPOP, in collaboration with the Seattle International Film Festival presents the Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Film Festival, which takes place annually every winter at Seattle Cinerama Theater. MoPOP is home to exhibits, interactive activity stations, sound sculpture, various educational resources. A 140,000-square-foot building, designed by Frank O. Gehry, that houses several galleries and the Sky Church, which features a Barco C7 black package LED screen, one of the largest indoor LED screens in the world.
Exhibits that cover pop culture, from the art of fantasy, horror cinema, video games to science fiction literature and costumes from screen and stage. Interactive activities included in galleries like Sound Lab and On Stage where visitors can explore hands-on the tools of rock and roll through instruments, perform music before a virtual audience. IF VI WAS IX, a guitar sculpture consisting of more than 500 musical instruments and 30 computers conceived by UK exhibit designer Neal Potter and developed by sound sculptor Trimpin; the largest collections in the world of artifacts, hand-written lyrics, personal instruments, original photographs celebrating the music and history of Seattle musicians Nirvana and Jimi Hendrix. Educational resources including MoPOP's Curriculum Connections in-museum workshops and outreach programs. Public programs such as MoPOP's Science Fiction + Fantasy Short Film Festival, Pop Conference, the Youth Advisory Board, Sound Off! the Northwest's premier battle-of-the-bands.
MoPOP was the site of the concert and demo program of the first NIME workshop, which subsequently became the annual International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, a leading venue for cutting edge research on music technology. The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame was founded by Paul Allen and Jody Patton and opened to the public on June 18, 2004, it incorporated the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, established in 1996. The museum was divided into several galleries with common themes such as "Homeworld," "Fantastic Voyages," "Brave New Worlds," and "Them!" Each gallery displayed related memorabilia in large display cases and interactive displays to sketch out the different subjects. "From robots to jet packs to space suits and ray guns, it's all here." Members of the museum's advisory board included Steven Spielberg, Ray Bradbury, James Cameron, George Lucas. Among its collection of artifacts were Captain Kirk's command chair from Star Trek, the B9 robot from Lost in Space, the Death Star model from Star Wars, the T800 Terminator and the dome from the film Silent Running.
Although the Science Fiction Museum as a permanent collection was de-installed in March 2011, a new exhibit named Icons of Science Fiction opened as a replacement in June 2012, at which time the new Hall of Fame display was unveiled and the class of 2012 inducted. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame was founded in 1996 by the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society and the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas; the chairmen were Robin Wayne Bailey. Only writers and editors were eligible for recognition and four were inducted annually, two deceased and two living; each class of four was announced at Kansas City's annual science fiction convention, ConQuesT, inducted at the Campbell Conference hosted by CSSF. The Hall of Fame stopped inducting fantasy writers after 2004, when it became part of the Science Fiction Museum affiliated with MoPOP, under the name "Science Fiction Hall of Fame". Having inducted 36 writers in nine years, in 2005 it began to recognize non-literary media.
It thus reduced the annual number of writers. The 2005 and 2006 press releases placed new members in "Literature", "Art", "Film and Media", "Open" categories, one each. In 2007 and 2008 the fourth inductee was placed in one of the three substantial categories. MoPOP de-installed the Science Fiction Museum in March 2011; when the exhibition "Icons of Science Fiction" opened in June 2012, a new Hall of Fame display was unveiled and the class of 2012 inducted. Nominations are submitted by the public but the selections are made by "award-winning science fiction authors, editors and film professionals."MoPOP restored the original name online during June 2013 and announced five new members, one daily, beginning June 17. The first four were cited or wholly for science fiction but the last was J. R. R. Tolkien, "hailed as the father of modern fantasy literature"; the class of 2017 brings the number of members to 92, plus twenty extra added in 2016 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the museum. Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inductions19
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit 5013 organization of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. While SFWA is based in the United States, its membership is open to writers worldwide; the organization was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. The president of SFWA as of 2015 is Cat Rambo. SFWA has about 1,900 professionally published writer members worldwide. SFWA Active members vote for the Nebula Awards, one of the principal English-language science fiction awards. SFWA informs, promotes and advocates for its members. SFWA activities include informing science fiction and fantasy writers on professional matters, protecting their interests, helping them deal with agents, editors and producers in print and non-print media. Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight in association with a group of writers connected to the Milford Conference, which he headed. According to Todd McCaffrey, the organization "acquired great status in its efforts to help J.
R. R. Tolkien get fair recompense in America for pirated sales of The Lord of the Rings." In 1991, the name of the organization was changed to Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, to reflect the fact that the organization had always included writers working in multiple genres. After the name change, both SFWA and SFFWA were used as acronyms; the acronym SFWA was re-established in 1996. In 1982, Lisa Tuttle withdrew her short story "The Bone Flute" from the final Nebula ballot, to protest what she saw as excessive campaigning for awards and that voters did not receive copies of nominated works, her withdrawal was sent. When informed she had won, she told them she refused to accept it, she was told. Her publisher accepted the award in her place with no knowledge of her withdrawal, there was no mention of her objection. In September 2009, SFWA joined the Open Book Alliance to oppose the Google Book Settlement; as a party to the class action suit, SFWA had explained its reservations about the settlement and declared its intention to file an objection.
In 2013, the SFWA Bulletin was the subject of a controversy about sexism. This led followed by a reboot of the magazine in a modern, updated format. In 2014, the original Massachusetts corporation was dissolved and SFWA reincorporated as a California nonprofit 5013 organization with new bylaws. SFWA participates in various trade shows and publishing industry events in the United States and abroad, including BookExpo America, the American Library Association Midwinter Conference, the USA Science & Engineering Festival, several major science fiction and media conventions. SFWA holds a semi-annual business meeting at the World Science Fiction Convention when it's held in North America, at the North American Science Fiction Convention otherwise. SFWA hosts its own events, which include: SFWA Nebula Conference: SFWA Nebula Conference is an annual conference during which a banquet is held and Nebula Award winners are announced and presented. Other Nebula Awards Weekend events include a semi-annual SFWA business meeting and a mass autographing session for member authors, open to the public.
In recent years, an extensive program of panels and workshops for professional writers has been offered. SFWA Nebula Conference, the earlier Nabula Awards Weekend have been held at different cities throughout the United States, it is held in a different location every two years. It will be held in the second year at that location; the SFWA Reception in New York: SFWA has hosted an annual reception in New York to provide SFWA members the opportunity to meet and socialize with editors, publicists, art directors and other publishing industry professionals. Over the years, the reception has gone by several names, including Authors and Editors and Swill, the NY Reception; the event was put on hold in 2015 because of rising costs. The SFWA Reading Series: A series of free quarterly events during which SFWA authors read or discuss their fiction with members of local communities. Held in Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, Philadelphia, PA, but the program may soon expand to other areas; as an organization, SFWA acts as an advocate to effect important changes within the publishing industry among publishers of science fiction and fantasy, by promoting author-friendly copyright legislation, equitable treatment of authors, fair contract terms.
SFWA sponsors Writer Beware, whose mission is to track and raise awareness of the prevalence of fraud and other questionable activities in and around the publishing industry. Writer Beware consists of the Writer Beware website, which provides the latest information on literary schemes and pitfalls. Writer Beware receives the support of the Mystery Writers of America and th
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