A huge and well-deserved Congratulations to our editor, Swank-mo-tron, who today received a major award for his writing. Along with four others, he was honored for his contribution to the arts by the Utah Arts Festival and the Salt Lake City Mayor’s office.
Here’s what the legitimate press have to say about him:
“A star sci-fi geek. . .The prolific author, comic-book publisher and columnist is best known as founder/editor-in-chief of the geek news/review website Big Shiny Robot.”
—Sean Means, Film Cricket, “Five to receive Mayor’s Artist Awards at Utah Arts Festival” Salt Lake Tribune
And here’s their official press release:
Salt Lake City, UT: Since 1992 the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Office has recognized individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to the artistic landscape of the community. The Utah Arts Festival and the Salt Lake City Mayor’s office are honored to present the Mayor’s Artists Awards during the Festival on Friday, June 21st on the Festival Stage at 8:15 pm.
This year’s five recipients are Karen Horne – Visual Arts; Mary Ann Lee – Performing Arts; Bryan Young – Literary Arts; Frank McEntire – Service to the Arts by an Individual; and RadioWest – Service to the Arts by an Organization. (Biographies below)
Bryan Young – Literary Arts
Bryan Young works across many different mediums. As an author, he’s written the bestselling comedy “Lost at the Con,” the critically acclaimed pulp sci-fi adventure “Operation: Montauk,” and dozens of short stories in various anthologies. As a film producer, his last two films (“This Divided State” and “Killer at Large”) were released by The Disinformation Company and were called “filmmaking gold” by The New York Times. He’s also published comic books with Slave Labor Graphics and Image Comics. He’s a contributor for the Huffington Post and StarWars.Com, has a regular column in the Salt Lake City Weekly, and is the founder and editor in chief of the geek news and review site Big Shiny Robot! The Chicago Tribune also named him one of the “Hottest Geek Guys of 2013.”
Wait. . .WHAT?
How did that piece of gold slip past us? Well, actually, what happened was we knew about it, but none of the manbots wanted to look like robosexuals for calling Swank sexy. And all of the fembots kept fighting over who got the privilege of writing it up, and so no one did. Anyway, here’s the picture.
Anyway, a few kind words about one of our fearless leaders: I can personally think of no one more deserving of these honors than Bryan. He is tireless (I think he might be on drugs, or have access to a time-turner from Harry Potter)– always writing, always thinking, but maybe most importantly, always helping. As much as Swank works on his own work and promotion of his ever-growing ouevre, I guarantee you he spends an equal or greater amount of time lifting up, encouraging, and promoting his friends and partners.
He always has a story idea he’s throwing at me or another one of the robots. He’s always finding new projects to help those around him showcase their talents as much as his own (see his newly launched Full of Sith podcast, or another [I believe officially unannounced project that is an illustrated book he is working on with Bizarrobot doing the pictures.) And one can look at his weekly Pub Quiz he co-hosts with “Worst Utahn” Shannon Barnson to see that he is serious about giving back to the geek community.
So I’d like to both congratulate Swank-mo-tron for this award and thank him for inviting me a little over four years ago to join his happy band. Now if I can ever finish my part of that short story series we were working on together. . .