About Sylvia
Sylvia Spruck Wrigley was born in Germany on the 7th of March
1968. She spent most of her childhood in Los Angeles but escaped
at the end of the 1980s. After a few years of drifting, she moved
to England where her accent was irretrievably damaged. She
somehow ended up in Estonia with no good explanation. You can
contact her by email at
sylvia@intrigue.co.uk.
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Estcon 2020 experience in Locus Magazine
17 November 2020
2020 has been a difficult year for events and conventions, which led to Estcon being the biggest event of the summer for me. My write-up and photographs were featured in the November issue of Locus Magazine and you can read all about it at the Locus online magazine: https://locusmag.com/2020/11/estcon-2020-report/
Attending a science fiction convention from a tent was definitely not what I expected to be doing this summer but my presentation went well and I had a great time.
Exoplanet Demographics Conference
12 November 2020
I was excited by the opportunity to take part in the Exoplanet Demographics conference hosted by the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at IPAC/Caltech over the 9-13th of November.
The organisers of the virtual conference were surprised by the amount of interest they received from science fiction writers and decided to do a Collaborative STEAM public outreach project, soliciting science fiction stories, poetry and art inspired by the discoveries being presented during the conference.
I was given the abstract of a presentation by Juliette Becker entitled The Origins of Multi-Planet Systems with Misaligned, Nearby Companions. Inspired by the details of the discovery (at least those that I understood), I wrote a short-and-sweet science fiction story called "The Missed Connection".
This was published in the Wednesday edition of the Heavy Metal Jupiters and Other Stories e-zine edited by Jessie Christiansen and Heather Clitheroe.
I'm doubly excited to discover that the author of the research talk said that she loved my story!
I absolutely love the story Sylvia Spruck Wrigley wrote about my #ExoDem research talk. I won't spoil it, but Rocky the sentient asteroid has a bad time because he makes some assumptions about STIP geometries! Link: https://t.co/c6eZhcYwbr https://t.co/7lguTpCzDC
— Juliette Becker (@jcbastro) November 11, 2020
This was a great initiative and I am proud to have been a part of it.
What I was Doing While I Wasn't Here
14 October 2020
I wrote a long update as I've been terrible about posting news.
The past six weeks have been a whirlwind and I've just finally had a chance to sit down and take a deep breath. Some of my friends have talked about how much more free-time they have during the pandemic, because they aren't going out and they are working from home. Somehow, this hasn't happened to me at all, even though I'm not travelling.
You can read all about it here: What I was Doing While I Wasn't Here
Interviewing for an Aviation Documentary
7 September 2020
I've been very lucky to be able to work on a number of excellent documentaries and I'm excited to share that, despite not being able to travel, this is still happening. Last week, I met with a Tallinn camera crew who filmed me doing a COVID-safe interview via Zoom. The producer and I talked for three hours about an accident they are featuring on the television series which inspired me to write the Why Planes Crash books and which is still my my favorite crash show. The episode will probably end up with me saying about three words in the final version but it was exciting all the same. It's also an unbelievable sequence of events that I'm glad to see being covered. I'll tell you more as soon as it is out and I am able to share the details!
Space Ageing
26 November 2019
I'm thrilled that my article on Old Women in Science Fiction has appeared in Nature magazine!
I wish I'd tried harder to mention Chrisjen Avasarala in Caliban's War and Ofelia Falfurrias in Remnant Population but I struggled with the space limitations.
You can read the full article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03618-w
17 November 2020
Estcon 2020 experience in Locus Magazine12 November 2020
Exoplanet Demographics Conference14 October 2020
What I was Doing While I Wasn't Here7 September 2020
Interviewing for an Aviation Documentary26 November 2019
Space AgeingSylvia's Books
Without a Trace 1970-2017
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 in 2014 is considered the greatest aviation mystery of our time but it does not stand alone. How could a military pilot chasing a glowing unidentified object disappear from radar in an instant? How did India's military misplace five fighter jets? Did a young Australian pilot flying over the Australian coast really get abducted by aliens? These questions and more are explored in Volume 2 of Without a Trace.
Read more…
Without a Trace 1881-1968
For many, aviation still brings with it an air of mystery, a century-long magic trick. Though most of us will board an aircraft at some point in our lives, we know little about how they work and the procedures surrounding their operation. It is that mystery that makes these losses, such as the vanishing of Malaysia Airlines flight 370, so terrifying.
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Wail (as Kenzie McLaughlin)
Wail is a story of friendship and death. Not necessarily in that order.
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Why Planes Crash — Case Files: 2003
Why Planes Crash Case Files: 2003 follows eleven aircraft disasters from 2003, detailing how the accidents happened and how they might have been avoided. This "CSI for aviation enthusiasts" series examines both the history and the current climate of aviation to unravel the instigating events which led to these catastrophes.
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Domnall and the Borrowed Child
The best and bravest faeries fell in the war against the Sluagh, and now the Council is packed with idiots and cowards. Domnall is old, aching and as cranky as they come but, as much as he'd like to retire, he's the best scout the Sithein court has left.
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The Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
In this age of constant surveillance, it shouldn't be possible to lose a Boeing 777 carrying 239 passengers. It's inconceivable that the aircraft flew for seven hours without anyone noticing that it was up there, completely off track. Yet, that's exactly what happened.
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Why Planes Crash — Case Files: 2002
The second book in the Why Planes Crash series covers incidents and accidents in 2002, including two in-flight suicides, the Sknyliv airshow disaster, how to write off a Saab 2000, an aircraft collision over the runway, a dramatic river landing, Air China 129’s flight into a Korean mountain, and finally, an in-depth view of the Überlingen mid-air collision.
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Why Planes Crash — Case Files: 2001
This, the first of the series, deconstructs eleven of the most interesting incidents that the world saw in the year 2001. These include a detailed analysis of the disastrous runway incursion at Linate, the passenger interference leading to the Avjet Aspen Crash and why an Airbus A300 disintegrated over Queens.
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You Fly Like a Woman
Getting a pilot's licence was the furthest thing from her mind – until an ex-RAF instructor suggested that she wasn't competent to do so. The thing is, he could be right. Sylvia has just a few weeks to prove that she can fly as well as any man.
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