science fiction and fantasy

Imaginarium 4: Table of Contents revealed

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10982867_10153036781103855_735786566531418969_oVery honoured to be chosen to work with Sandra Kasturi of ChiZine Publications as a guest co-editor for Imaginarium 4: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing which features, yes, as advertised, the best speculative writing of Canadians from 2014.  This will be published in September, I think.  Follow the link above to see the Table of Contents.

Believe me, there were more amazing stories and poems than we could have possibly picked for one volume. These were hard choices, some of them, frankly, excruciating–but a 600 page volume was something that ChiZine said wasn’t possible for us at this time.

Congratulations to all who were chosen for this volume.  There is a significant list of Honourable Mentions that you’ll see in the book.

Damn, but Canadians are writing well.  That’s all I can say.

So happy too to have Margaret Atwood writing the Introduction to this collection.

For the Table of Contents please follow this link:

Imaginarium 4: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing

Mac’s Fireweed, Noon, Saturday, signing with me and Dave Strachan

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Thanks everyone for coming out and being a part of our signing at Mac’s Fireweed!  Two anthologies I’m a part of: Tesseracts 14 and Inhuman, and Dave Strachan, who has the lead story in Inhuman, was signing too!  The Fantasy/Science Fiction community in Whitehorse is doing great!  More and more of our group are stretching their talents and skills, and turning out great stories and sending them off to publishers!  So happy that this is happening in Whitehorse!  The Yukon is building a presence in Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy.  Oh YEAH!

Tesseracts 14 and Inhuman are both published by Hades Publications and Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing (for Inhuman, through their imprint Absolute XPress).

Here’s photos of us at Mac’s Fireweed, Saturday March 12.  See if you can recognize all the campadres who helped make it a great event…

 

 

 

Realms of Fantasy Folds: Is it Past Time to Save A ‘Zine?

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Very ,very sad to announce that Realms of Fantasy is folding.

The news broke yesterday.

Realms of Fantasy has been with us for fifteen years and “was coming up on its 100th issue,” Cleveland said. “We were excited about the special Halloween issue we’d been planning, which would have been our first.” The staff is obviously harried by the news, and that it’s become public so quickly. Cleveland had been hoping to tell the authors and artists the news before it broke publicly.

Realms of Fantasy has been one of the anchors of the Fantasy short story publishing industry.  As a print magazine, Realms was billed as “the largest magazine in the world devoted to Fantasy”.  It was part of the big four anchor magazines of the industry (the others being Asimov’s, Fantasy and Science Fiction and Analog) partly built on the venue–a large glossy magazine (not a small pulp), its reputation for helping careers begin, the high distribution from subscription, and the amount it paid for stories. Editor Shawna McCarthy was recognized as one of the best editors in the business (and she will be here in the Yukon in April!–I hope!!).  Will all venues and markets go web-only?  Is that an answer to part of it–or is it about advertising, and since you’d have to have advertising either way, are closings inevitable?

With Fantasy and Science Fiction going bimonthly, Realms‘ closing narrows the market for writers of short FSF considerably.  If this is the beginning of the economic crisis, recession, depression, etc., then this isn’t a good sign.  Two out of four of the big anchor markets down or downsized?   I’m assuming Realms thought of all options–bimonthly, web-only zine, etc.— so I’m not gonna try to come up with suggestions for fixes…

However, now is the time to save a ‘zine.  If the economic crisis is just going to get worse, is there a way to help ‘zines as fans and writers?  Can we donate money? Tell us.  Can we help support in other ways?  Tell us.  Can we ask universities to adopt a Zine for a short period of time?  I was never one to subscribe much–mostly because I moved around every couple of years, and my subscriptions had a hard time finding me, and because I was often broke.  When I could I bought from the newsstand.  But if I can help by choosing three zines to subscribe to in order to save them from oblivion–let me know.  I should have been doing that all along.  However, if I thought it was balanced on my subscription, I would have done it earlier.  And I suspect many writers would feel the same way—that if people needed to borrow from us, they could.

Is there a way to stop the closing of Realms of Fantasy?  Is there a way to stop the decline in markets and venues and places to read great science fiction/fantasy?

Novelists! Classes start Monday at Yukon College

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rightimg1Happy New Year to Everyone! I hope this coming new year brings you what you want.

It’s a long and interesting journey, no doubt.

Perhaps, you are looking to work on your novel? Perhaps, you have been working on one for years and you want to get some guided help through a course? Maybe, you just plunked one out in November during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and you want to work on revising it, or just getting feedback on it.

Yukon College is offering two courses: Monday nights for Realism/Mainstream writing and Tuesday nights for Speculative Fiction (Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Fantastical Children’s Lit). The school, though, is closed till Jan 2, or Friday. So, if you’re gonna sign up and come to the first class on Monday, you’ll have to sign up on Friday or Next week. Regardless of when you sign up, come to the first classes. We have to get a viable head count to know if the classes will make. We need 8 people each class, at least, to make this happen. We’ll be working on synopsis writing and editing three chapters of your novel.

Click on Writing Classes to learn more.

Also, don’t forget that Yukon writers, in classes or not, should be getting ready for the Editor’s Weekend that is happening at the beginning of April. Six editors are coming up to talk with Yukoners, give workshops, about the next steps in publishing their manuscripts. This coincides with the last weekend of our coursework. So it makes a fitting transition after our class is done to move towards shopping a manuscript around.

So, if working on your novel is part of your planned journey for 2009, I hope to see you in class in the new year!

Rocket Fuel May Not Make it Off the Ground

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Our new afterschool program for High school students interested in Science Fiction and Fantasy writing may not make it off the ground if The City of Whitehorse doesn’t have enough registered people.

So far, we have five.  They need eight to make it.  But I know there are many many more young authors out there who love to write science fiction and fantasy.  The group is scheduled from Sept 17th through the first part of December.  The cost is $65 for 12 weeks of instruction–exercises, workshopping, brainstorming, building characters and plots–plus snacks.

I’m gonna do this:  I’ll meet on Wednesday, after school with whoever shows up.  If we don’t make the required numbers via the City of Whitehorse, we will figure out our options.  If you know of youth interested in writing science fiction and fantasy, have them sign up via Parks and Recreation, 668-8325, or 668-8360 at the Canada Games Centre.