Blog

Things that make me happy

Posted on by Patrick

It’s Men­tal Health Week here at the uni­ver­si­ty, and so all week there are lit­tle things to try to dri­ve away the win­ter blahs. (Though the big melt yes­ter­day helped my mind­set, if no one else’s.)

Today they had free soup in the Min­gling Area. All you had to do was write down some­thing that makes you hap­py. I did­n’t par­take, for a cou­ple rea­sons: I tend to leave things like that for the stu­dents, to make sure they have enough, and (less altru­is­ti­cal­ly) it was Thai chick­en soup day at the cof­fee shop. (Mmmm.)

But con­tem­plat­ing things that make me hap­py sound­ed like a good idea, and so here is a nec­es­sar­i­ly incom­plete list:

  • Sun­shine
  • Kath­leen
  • Tri­fle
  • The guy who, see­ing that my hands were full, opened the door for me, say­ing “I got it, bro” [1]
  • Writ­ing
  • Free soup
  • Hap­pi­ness
  • Star Wars
  • Spring­time (mud and all)
  • Read­ing
  • the Beef ‘n’ But­tons sub from Piz­za Express
  • Cycling
  • Friends

[1]: I think that might be one of the first times I’ve ever been called bro by some­one that isn’t my sister.

More jetpack envy?

Posted on by Patrick

From Daniel Han­dler’s review of Patrick deWit­t’s lat­est nov­el, Under­ma­jor­do­mo Minor, which I am cur­rent­ly read­ing and enjoying:

It is said, for instance, that Mar­garet Atwood does a take on sci­ence fic­tion and there­fore is a lit­er­ary writer instead of a sci­ence fic­tion writer, and then we won­der why there are so few sci­ence fic­tion writ­ers who write as well as Mar­garet Atwood, while the sci­ence fic­tion writ­ers glare at us and order anoth­er round. This is bad. “The Handmaid’s Tale” is sci­ence fic­tion and should not be dis­qual­i­fied as such on the grounds that it has good sen­tences and makes you think, as does the work of Patrick deWitt. There­fore, “Under­ma­jor­do­mo Minor” is a ter­rif­ic piece of genre writ­ing, and that’s that.

I’m a lit­tle irritated—perhaps unjust­ly so—at the sug­ges­tion that sci­ence fic­tion (and oth­er gen­res) can nev­er con­tain “good sen­tences” or “[make] you think”. I just can’t quite decide if Han­dler shares my irri­ta­tion; I’d like to think that he does. In either case, I’d point those that may hold that opin­ion at works like Michael Swan­wick­’s Sta­tions of the Tide or Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun, to name two examples.

PS: If you haven’t read any­thing by deWitt, I high­ly rec­om­mend The Sis­ters Broth­ers and (even though I’m not yet done read­ing it) Under­ma­jor­do­mo Minor.

Tor.com is closing to short fiction

Posted on by Patrick

As of Jan­u­ary 7th, 2016, Tor.com will no longer accept unso­licit­ed short fic­tion.

On Jan­u­ary 7th Tor.com will close its short fic­tion sub­mis­sions sys­tem. Our ded­i­cat­ed edi­tors and read­ers will read through and respond to every­thing that is sub­mit­ted up to that point, but we do not plan to reopen in the fore­see­able future.

So if you’ve got some­thing that you’re plan­ning to send them, do it now.

If you miss the win­dow, well, there are plen­ty of oth­er fish in the sea. Or mar­kets in the æther, as the case may be.

(If you need me, I’ll be rum­mag­ing through my unpub­lished cor­pus, look­ing to see if I’ve got any­thing even close to ready.)

 

Library haul

Posted on by Patrick

Went down to the pub­lic library tonight, since my copies of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and John Scalz­i’s  The End of All Things were due back.

(Reviews: The Ocean at the End of the Lane was a spooky com­ing-of-age/mem­oir tale from a mas­ter of eerie fan­ta­sy; The End of All Things fur­ther solid­i­fied my view of John Scalzi as my gen­er­a­tion’s Joe Halde­man (though it might have been smart of me to read The Human Divi­sion first).)

So I went in with­out any plans as to what I want­ed to check out. I did check the cat­a­logue for the sta­tus of Emi­ly St. John Man­del’s Sta­tion Eleven, which has been checked out every time I’ve gone look­ing for it. Tonight was no excep­tion. One day (shakes fist at the sky).

But by and large I had no agen­da. I checked the New Releas­es sec­tion, and snagged Chuck Wendig’s After­math. Then I wan­dered over to the SF/F sec­tion, which is where I usu­al­ly end up. Grabbed anoth­er vol­ume there — a four-nov­el omnibus of Philip K. Dick nov­els, which either a) has fan­tas­ti­cal­ly small print or b) serves as a reminder of how short nov­els could be back in the 60s. And then I took a gan­der at the graph­ic nov­els, where I grabbed my third and final vol­ume: Scott McCloud’s Sculp­tor.

I’m look­ing for­ward to all of these. I just can’t decide which should be first.

Help?

Access Copyright

Posted on by Patrick

Are you a Cana­di­an writer?

Are you signed up with Access Copy­right?

If not, why not?

#

I found out about Access Copy­right via a cir­cuitous path. One day a few years ago, my aunt — an Eng­lish teacher, cur­rent­ly work­ing in Chi­na — sent me an email con­grat­u­lat­ing me for my poem (my first pub­li­ca­tion, a poem named “The Two Sea­sons”) appear­ing in the provin­cial Eng­lish exam.

My response: “Huh?”

After an extend­ed con­ver­sa­tion with my aunt and a cou­ple bureau­crats in the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, I got a look at the exam, an expla­na­tion (which boiled down to “We thought we were in the clear, copy­right-wise, because of Access Copy­right”) and an an apol­o­gy for their unac­knowl­edged use of my copy­right­ed content.

And I signed up with Access Copy­right as a Cre­ator Affil­i­ate, and now every year I get mon­ey in the mail, just for hav­ing pub­lished con­tent on paper in Canada.

So, like I said: if you’re a Cana­di­an writer, and not an Access Copy­right affil­i­ate: why not?