Links to posts about the Yukon
“The Song of Sasquatch,”my poem/story of bigfoot romance in the style of Song of Solomon, is up at Joyland: a hub for short fiction. Joyland is unique as an online fiction magazine. It has editors associated with a certain geographical place and all the stories come from writers associated with that place. Occasionally, editor Kevin Chong says, they like to pull a few writers from outside. Thanks, Kevin, for pulling me in! Enjoy!
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I’ll be at Mac’s Fireweed, Friday April 23rd from 4-6pm signing copies of EVOLVE: Vampire stories of the new undead–an anthology edited by Nancy Kilpatrick, where I have a story, “How Magnificent is the Universal Donor.” It’s all-Canadian (or in my case, landed immigrant), all vampire and the theme is the evolution of vampires. As far as I know, this has never been done. Shaking up the old rules. These are new kinds of vampires.Come and find out how vampires have evolved and what they’ve become. Or just come and say hi. I’ll be behind a lonely desk, and will want company.
This is the YUKON launch of the book–and we’re planning a reading in Tagish–sometime soon. It’s been launched now in Brighton, UK at the World Horror Convention in front of other horror writers; it’s been launched in Toronto in front of fantasy, science fiction and horror enthusiasts; and it’s being launched in Winnipeg, Montreal and Vancouver as well.
YUKON launch: Mac’s Fireweed, 4-6pm, Friday, April 23rd.
My article on Ufology in the Yukon appears now in Yukon, North of Ordinary. The magazine is the inflight mag of Air North, one of the finest airlines. I love Air North for its service, the fact that I know all the flight attendants, and for the Midnight Sun coffee and the cheesecake. I’m proud that Air North ran the article. They were both skeptical and worried that an article about UFOs in a magazine you read on an airplane might get people to thinking they were pushing the idea that UFOs exist. But they ran the article, and I’m very happy to see it there. The article focusses on the people who see UFOs, that they are normal everyday people. Ronald Reagan saw a UFO, and the Pope just okayed the existence of extraterrestrials, so things are changing for aliens—we’re getting okay with them. This article just lets you know that folks do see them, that they are normal people, and that in any other condition 32 eyewitness accounts that matched would be enough to prove something of this magnitude. But, as of yet, no spaceship has dropped enough hard evidence to make us all believe. That doesn’t stop these brave men and women who sometimes speak out, sometimes against ridicule. Many keep it to themselves. It’s good to listen to their stories and make up your mind later….
The article doesn’t itself endorse UFOs, but, like every issue, it does seek to promote the good folks of the Yukon, those who have seen UFOs and those who want to believe. God bless Yukon, North of Ordinary.
For the article follow this link to What’s Going On Up There? (there is a place there to download the whole issue as a PDF)
If you have seen something unidentified in the day or night sky and want to report it, there is a website for that as well. Martin Jasek and friends keep the UFO*BC website open for sharing experiences and for reporting sightings. If you’ve seen something, fill out this online form.
This is my review from What’s Up Yukon.
5 out of 5 Stars
I gave Justine Davidson, the theatre reviewer for the Whitehorse Star, a long hug at the end of The Laramie Project, the Guild Society/GALA play.
Both of us were near tears.
She said over my shoulder, “Does this mean it’s good when the journalists are crying?”
We weren’t the only ones moved.
But don’t let this make you think the play is a downer. It isn’t.
It’s mostly a fascinating study of 80 people learning to cope with sudden and abrupt change. The tragedy of Matthew Shepard’s murder happens before the play begins — so this is, in effect, the aftermath.
This is a community coming to terms with what they think about it — and finding themselves at the centre of a media tornado. You find yourself rooting for them as they try to make it through. …
(For the rest of the review, click here to go to What’s Up Yukon)
Some stunning work by Morgan Whibley, a Whitehorse based photographer. The Alley Series. (Yes, it was stunning and fun even before I was a subject.) His rules are simple:
One alley from sidewalk to sidewalk.
Ambient light only.
A different person everyday.
Seven days a week.
He’d been doing this for 43 days in a row when he ran into me. Follow the link, get stunned by his work. All Yukoners, all beautiful pictures, wonderful, fun people. They are our stories.
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But my story got me to thinking about being a writer of genre.
Morgan tells me to come into his shop, Photovision, and when I get there he cuts a piece of cardboard from a box, slaps down two markers and says, Draw. What do I draw? He’s made a speech bubble. “Whatever you want to.” I have NO idea what to put there. He wants the first things I think of. I hem and haw a bit. Suddenly, I just sketch out a design and draw Mr. Spock with a latte from Baked Cafe there. We shoot the photo in the alley.
And then, it’s over, so I think. And I’m halfway back to my truck and I think–“You fool! You could have said something important about the value of words. That words can be healing, or words can be explosive and destructive. And what did you do? You did something frivolous. And stupid–and highly derivative. Are you just a Trekkie? Is that all you are?” These were the voices in my head.
So I ran back to Morgan, grabbed him by the shirt collar. “We have to do it again!” I said. Okay, maybe I didn’t grab his shirt collar, but I was insistent that we do it again because I’ve thought of something more important to “say.” So he patiently carves out another speech bubble for me, and I draw out the symbol for Medicine (you know, the two snakes wrapped around the staff with wings–started by Moses, so long ago)–cause I’m going for “Healing Words”….
Yeah.
So, we go out into the alley so I can get shot again. And we’re both thinking the same thing, and we’re talking…maybe we’re overanalyzing, we both say.
And we take the shots. And they are highly thought out… and they say the “right thing.” But they seem orchestrated, forced.
I think, later, that THIS is the argument that every writer has with him/herself. Especially writers of any genre: humor, science fiction, romance, fantasy, western, children’s, young adult, gay, hairy monster, etc.
We think that we must say something IMPORTANT with what we write. That we have to use our considerable talent, and all writers have “considerable talent” with words, and say something like “WORLD PEACE, IDIOTS!” or “Stop oppressing us!!” or “Global Warming is REAL!” or “Whales don’t deserve to be SHOT!” And who can argue with these messages? Certainly they are important. We all know that. And certainly other people will consider you a much weightier writer, a writer with HEFT, if you can tackle Global Warming, or Teen Pregnancy, or something important, in your writing. They often give awards in that direction (and they do it in film too….).
But who’s to say that the person who laughs at my first photograph won’t be healed? Who’s to say that you can’t heal someone with words without broadcasting that you are HEALING them? Who wants to be hit over the head with a message? And why can’t REALLY good genre do everything that you need it to do–be a damn good story, with a subtle message and a lot of entertainment?
I think, as writers, we all balance between these two photos: the need to say something important, and the need to say something fun and frivolous. And we see them as two different categories. That we can’t be fun and important. We see this in many other areas too (religion, politics, leadership), but for me it resonates as the battle I fight every day: What value, I think, is Fantasy writing? How does it help the world? Shouldn’t I turn my skills to Environmental Literature?
No. You should only do that if you are called to do that. If you try to write Environmental Literature and you were born to write Children’s Books about Rockets and Squid–then you will be a very frustrated Environmental Literary Writer. Where is your passion? If you find your passion, I think you get the package deal. You will affect people in important ways by being yourself.
There is no real dichotomy between writings—there is only being true and not being true to yourself. The truth is–we need comedy, romance, westerns, mysteries, radio dramas, children’s picture books with gorillas in them–we need to laugh to fight the absurdity, we need to feel hope in the face of injustice, and we need to fantasize about escape. We need it All.
Write your part of the All.
My story, “One Nation Under Gods,” was selected to be part of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy anthology, Tesseracts 14, edited by Brett Savory and John Robert Colombo, due out in September 2010. The Tesseracts series is devoted to Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy and Horror, and has had, as you might have guessed, 14 other volumes (a Tesseracts Q was for Quebec, and the requisite 1-13 which came before).
You might have caught me reading a portion of this at the Yukon Writers Festival a couple of years back. It involves two kids and a history test, and a complete restructuring of the United States based on values Americans, like me, hold sacred: patriotism, freedom, the just war, independence, religion. I just personified them a bit. I’m very pleased it found a home. I’m now going to start work on the novel version of this story.
The picture on the left is the construction of the Statue of Liberty, a figure which looms large on the landscape at the beginning of my story. And as I was now an immigrant to Canada, the Statue of Liberty loomed large on my new immigrant’s mind…what a dramatic beginning to a new life for those coming to America. For me, I saw her on my way out. On my drive from Texas to the Yukon, I parked my red truck in Calgary for one month, flew to Vermont to be part of a writer’s colony, and in that time, snuck down to see her. Like some mistress I was breaking up with.
How do you explain to her that you are leaving?
I put her in my story, though, and so in this way, she haunts me.
I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed sitting a house with a dog over the holidays. I got to spend two weeks with a fine German Shepherd named Qimmik. He’s about 5 years old and over the last while we’ve bonded. How do I know this? He wants to go on long walks with me, but he doesn’t run that far ahead. And when I get out of breath–dang hill I had to climb–he walks slowly ahead of me and turns to check on me, leading me back home. He even waits till I catch up with him.
He’ll greet other dogs—very friendly–but he’ll stick close to me, and walk beside me most of the time. He protects me from being too “hounded” –but in a way, I like being “hounded”–encountering dogs in the woods that greet you, as if they are the doorgreeters. And with Qimmik, I’ve become permanently “hounded”. And this is a good thing.
I LOVE dogs. I want a dog. And I love their company. This one is a great companion. I wish he could talk, honestly. So I could understand what he wants. But sometimes he just wants to be with me.
When I get home he’s wound up like a top–runs, gets excited, out of breath, jumps! So we go on a walk right away. And he also sleeps in the same bed, down at the bottom of the bed. He breathes at night, and he sighs really big if I’m turning over too much. I like his company and the structure he gives my day. It’s too bad that I have to give him up on Wednesday.
There’s a great culture of dog owners in the Yukon–nearly everyone I meet has a dog or two or three…. And everyone walks their dogs in the woods, so you meet lots of people.
I did make this video, my first iMovie, of Qimmik and I walking each other on Christmas Eve. I made it as a gift for a dear friend, Susan Zettell, who let me sit her house 8 years ago, with her dog, Misery. It was a wonderful time.
In the video, it’s mostly him in the woods. I set it to Bon Iver’s “Woods” a song that builds and builds with the same four lines:
I’m up in the woods
And I’m down on my mind
I’m building a still
to slow down the time.
—until there are multiple voices, multiple harmonies. I’d like to slow down the time and enjoy the season more, enjoy the moment more, enjoy just being in the woods….
Hoping you get “hounded” this year, and you enjoy being “hounded” by the four footed friend that loves you most. (Okay, even you catted people count….or are you felined….)
Be Hounded and Happy.
My most excellent class of writers is the subject of a Yukon News article below. These writers are an awesome group of imaginateurs. I’m impressed, especially, with how they conducted themselves in an interview–thoughtful, insightful, well-read, interesting and interested in each other. Love to start a book club with them!
Article is by James Munson for the Yukon News.
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Zeb Berryman has some demons he’d like to share.
The 18-year-old scribe is an aficionado of the “dark side” in his literary circle, a dozen Whitehorse high school students known as Rocket Fuel.
“The darkness and violence is what makes it beautiful,” says Zeb, referring to one of his current anime reads.
Zeb’s comment elicits a few nods from his fellow science fiction enthusiasts sitting around the table in the FH Collins library.
These young adults have an encyclopedic knowledge of the fantasy genre, and can discuss the intricacies of alchemists, monsters, gods and goblins at length.
“It’s like literature discussion about a whole bunch of books you never get to hear literature discussions about,” says Jerome Stueart, a science fiction writer who started Rocket Fuel two years ago.
But more impressively, it’s their own literary creations they’re the most familiar with.
Ask any one of these students about their works, and it won’t be long before another interjects.
Franz Krabel, 12, tends to kill off his characters a lot, says Santana Berryman, Zeb’s 14-year-old sister.
Santana, for her part, has an obsession with the afterlife, says Stueart.
These writers know each other inside out.
Students who are a part of Rocketfuel, the science fiction and fantasy writing group afterschool program–sponsored by the City of Whitehorse–will have a reading Friday night–TOMORROW–at Shipyards Park. They’ll be reading from some of their current work. There might actually be a story of Santa Claus meeting the Reaper…you never know.
THE DETAILS:
Shipyards Park
Friday Dec 4, 7-9 pm.
Treats, goodies, beverages like tea and coffee, and a bit of Fantasy to go home with and share with your season….
If you’re free tomorrow night, come by. We’d love to have you.
Kudos to the kids of MAD (Music Art Drama) for their Haunted House this year, with its, yes, SCIENCE FICTION theme. I won’t give anything away, but it’s a lot of fun.
I didn’t know what to expect, but I was pleasantly shocked. I really enjoyed the opening number with their rendition of “Science Fiction/Double Feature” and the old movie posters and clips through that number! Brought back a lot of good memories.
My advice is not to come too early because you’ll be sitting for a bit. Come closer to the times they let people in: 1:00 and 2:30 on Halloween.
You have a hard choice–whether to go through the line and into the haunted house, or sit and watch some cute homemade films from the kids. I say, stay and enjoy the films at first; the haunted house will be there, so you don’t need to be in line up front.
I won’t tell you what’s in the rooms, but they’ve done a good job at recreating some of the frights of space travel that have been highly “documented” in science fiction…and playing them for all their worth in front of people.
I just want to tell the kids: You got me back for scaring you. The rooms are excellent. I left wanting more rooms. There’s some nice originality in these scenes. I love the Observatory! But it was the room with the synchronized bodies in it that freaked me out…. The use of the scrim on the stairs was a nice, scary touch, too. What the MAD kids seem to know is that it doesn’t matter if you show all the details…they leave a lot un-shown, and that’s what frightens you.
Five Dollars will get you a good scare! Go out and support these high schoolers from MAD. They’ve done an awesome job.
And thank you, Jeff and Mary, for thinking of Science Fiction when you think of scary…
Bear Witness 