Haven’t posted recently. Too many reasons to list here, but one of them involves an April-30 story deadline that I beat by a measly two hours. I would have beat it by more than that, but after writing half a story I realized it was crap and started out with an entirely new plot exploring […]
I For One Would Like to Welcome Our New Small-Press Overlords…
Category: On the Road, public interface, writing newsHaven’t had much to say recently. I’ve been head-down against an imminent deadline while trying not to dwell on catastrophic medical scenarios grown suddenly personal (a family member, within a hairsbreadth of death for the past couple of weeks: the situation remains dire, but has at least stabilized for the moment). Topped it all off […]
Bons Mots.
Category: public interfaceWay over in France, ActuSF has posted an interview. Go here for the Frawnsh translation; here for the original Canuckian). If you want to know why I suck at writing villains, how American triumphalism forced me to turn Starfish into a trilogy, and exactly why I’m so defensive on the subject of vampires, you might […]
BOG, meet Internet. Internet: BOG.
Category: miscRussian for “God”, I’ve been told. Phonetically at least. Also British for “toilet”. But here, now, it’s an acronym: Big Orange Guy or Beloved Old Goof or Barrel O’Greatness. He is not, as you can see, a great beauty. He may in fact be the homeliest mammal in all of southern Ontario. And we […]
Hopefully Not An April Fool’s Joke.
Category: writing newsI mean, you gotta wonder when Margaret Atwood’s final specs settle in at 666. Even if she has scarcely varied from that beastly number for the past two weeks. There were a couple of weird hiccoughs along the way — a sudden 2.5% jump for The Pattern Scars back on the 21st, in addition to […]
Going Viral.
Category: a-life, evolution, writing newsWhen you’re a first-time lecturer in a department full of senior faculty, odds are you’ll get crap time slots when it comes to your teaching load. When you’re a first-time lecturer whose supervisor is the most-detested rival of the department head, you’re pretty much guaranteed as much. Which is how I ended up teaching Advanced […]
That Which Is Not To Be Named.
Category: writing newsOr described. Or empictured, or hinted at, or invoked in any way: except for this brief and unenlightening announcement, which has been approved from upstairs. I’m working on a project with Capcom Vancouver. It’s currently a Schröedinger’s Cat: not alive, not dead, or maybe both. The important thing right now is to not pop the […]
Cold Vancouver, Creeping Votes
Category: misc, On the RoadI’m on my way to Vancouver for a week (no, I can’t tell you why just yet — hopefully soon). And I gotta say, looking at the weather forecast I am not happy. I lived in Vancouver for over a decade, and among its many pleasures was the torrent of cherry blossoms and the t-shirt […]
In Space, No One Can Hear You Scar the Patterns.
Category: ink on art, miscI was going start this off by claiming that I don’t often pimp those in my own social circle — to try and convey the sense that I’m Mr. Objective and totally averse to conflicts of interest, I guess — but when I thought about that for about two seconds I realized it was bullshit. […]
Odd Man Out: The Starship Sofa Online Workshop
Category: public interfaceStarship Sofa (the phenomenal, out-of-nowhere, Hugo-award-winning brainchild of Tony Smith) is hosting an on-line event on March 31. It’s being promoted as “a workshop for aspiring science fiction writers”, and at least two of the speakers bear this out: Ann Vandermeer will be talking about “Unlocking Your Creativity”, and Nancy Kress will describe techniques for […]