Writing

I just noticed my name in the Win­nipeg Free Press.

Spec­u­la­tive Fic­tion Series Returns

Since it’s on McNal­ly Robin­son’s site now, I’m pret­ty sure I can share this:

I’ll be one of the read­ers at Jan­u­ary’s ChiS­eries read­ing at McNal­ly Robin­son in Win­nipeg. Come one, come all!

Are you a Cana­di­an writer?

Are you signed up with Access Copy­right?

If not, why not?

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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?

I just sub­mit­ted a new/old short sto­ry — “The Ravens” — to Corey Redekop’s Can­lit Com­e­dy anthol­o­gy. Fin­gers crossed.

I actu­al­ly wrote the sto­ry a few years ago, and sub­mit­ted it to a cou­ple mar­kets, who reject­ed it. It seemed like the right idea for a humour piece, so I tried to res­ur­rect it…

…but I could­n’t find the orig­i­nal file any­where.

And so I re-wrote it from the ground up. I think it turned out all right. I read it today at Write Club, and there was quite a lot of laugh­ter. I’m going to call that a good sign.

Wish me luck!

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Update: Well, I’ve made it into the 2^nd round. Fin­gers still crossed. (Crampin’ a lit­tle bit…)

From one of my favourite authors, the great Michael Swanwick:

It’s not just that the sto­ries I read the oth­er day are fables of con­so­la­tion while the clas­sics set out to over­throw the read­er’s com­pla­cen­cy. It’s that in the great sto­ries things change. Irrev­o­ca­bly.

And sci­ence fic­tion is the lit­er­a­ture of change. 

From this Flog­ging Babel post.

4000 words today, and I think I’ve most­ly worked out the endgame of The Shad­ow Cru­sade now. The pri­ma­ry antag­o­nist is not a par­tic­u­lar­ly com­pli­cat­ed man, but his pup­peteer has a lot going on. Some­one made the wrong choice.

Sure, we’ll call it that.

I’ve tak­en a week’s vaca­tion, packed my lap­top, my cam­era, and a change of clothes, and rent­ed a friend’s cab­in on a near­by lake. Writ­ing, explor­ing, and cycling by day; attempt­ing some astropho­tog­ra­phy by night.

Cur­rent sta­tus: happy.