Next week in Spokane

Yikes! Less than a week 'til Sasquan -- guess I'd better post my schedule:

Thursday: SFWA Board meeting all morning, but I'll be wandering around in the late afternoon and evening.

Friday:

11:00 - 11:45: Kaffee Klatsche in CC - 202A-KK1. You can sign up here or just show up.

1:30 - 2:00: Reading in CC - 301.

2:00 - 2:45: Managing Your Online Brand in CC - 401C with Jim Wright , Frank Catalano  and Marah Searle-Kovacevic. On social media, are you a person or a brand?  Do you handle interactions differently depending on what type of social media you're on?  And what happens when you're involved in a brou-ha-ha?  How is it different for a group and for an individual?

5:00 - 5:45: Autographing with Scott Lynch , Susan Palwick , Phyllis Irene Radford , Susan Forest , Tina Connolly , Ellen Datlow (whew!) in CC - Hall B.

Saturday:

10:00 - 10:45: From Middle Earth to Westeros: Fantasy Worldbuilding in CC - Integra Telecom Ballroom 100B with Pat Cadigan , Martha Wells, Michael Swanwick , Mary Soon Lee . Building a believable world, with believable geography, culture, and rules, is at least as important in fantasy as it is in SF.  The panel looks at how to create fantasy worlds, citing examples of the good (and maybe the not so good). 

1:00 - 3:00: SFWA Business Meeting in CC - 300B.



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Where I'll be at the Toronto International Book Fair

Just back from World Fantasy (which was great, by the way) and tomorrow I'm off again for the Toronto International Book Fair. I've been organizing SFWA's participation in collaboration with the invaluable Jaym Gates: we'll have a table at booth 118 in the Marketplace where you can chat with SFWA authors, buy books and/or have them signed and pick up informational materials about SFWA.

We're also having two SFWA-sponsored events:

Friday:
 
SFWA Showcase: I'll have the honour of introducing readings by members A.M. Dellamonica, Ed Hoornaert, Robin Riopelle and Karina Sumner-Smith at 5:30 on the Spark Stage. Hang around after to catch a bunch of great CZP authors on the same stage, talking about the legacy of Shirley Jackson and her successors.

Saturday:

SFWA Presents: The Future Ain't What It Used to Be at 5:00 on the Spark Stage. Despite the amazing technological advances of the last fifty years, our world looks very different from the future predicted by science fiction. This panel asks the question of what role SF writers play in predicting and preparing us for the future. Stephanie Bedwell, Julie Czerneda and Douglas Smith will discuss these questions with Andrew Barton moderating. 
 
I'll also be participating in Put That On Your Bookshelf: Quirky Shorts on Saturday at 3:30 on the Discovery Stage alongside D.D. Miller and Shawn Syms, where I'll be reading about 6 minutes' material from Irregular Verbs and Other Stories.

There will be signing sessions after each of these events. If you'd like to meet participating members outside of those sessions, you can come visit the SFWA table at the following times:

Thursday 

7PM to 8PM: Matthew Johnson
8 PM to 10PM: Jaym Gates

Friday 

10 AM to 12 AM: Suzanne Church
12 AM to 2 PM: Alyx Dellamonica
2PM to 4PM: Ed Hoornaert, Jaym Gates, Matthew Johnson
4PM to 6PM: Eric Choi, Madeline Ashby
6PM to 8PM: Derwin Mak, Matthew Johnson

Saturday

10 AM to 12 AM: Robin Riopelle, Matthew Johnson
12 AM to 2 PM: Andrew Barton, Matthew Johnson
2PM to 4PM: Douglas Smith, Jaym Gates
4PM to 6PM: Gina Grant
6PM to 8PM: Stephanie Bedwell‐Grime, Jaym Gates

Sunday

10 AM to 12 AM: Julie Czerneda, Karina Sumner-Smith
12 AM to 2PM: Jaym Gates
2PM to 6 PM: Matthew Johnson





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"Public Safety" podcast up at Far-Fetched Fables

When I do readings, I usually like to do a story that's short of enough for me to read the whole thing. The problem with that is that I only have so many stories that are the right length for a 20-30 minute reading slot, and it leaves out a lot of my favourites. That's why I was delighted when Nicola Seaton-Clark contacted me about doing a podcast of "Public Safety." As I've written before, this is one of my favourite stories, and I've always thought that it would read well: I think narrator Nobilis Reed proves me right. You can check it out here.





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Video: "Irregular Verbs" reading from the CZP summer book launch

A couple of Fridays ago ChiZine held a launch for their summer books (Kenneth Mark Hoover's Haxan, Brent Hayward's Head Full of Mountains, and of course Irregular Verbs) at Maxwell's here in Ottawa. The crowd wasn't too bad for summertime and they seemed to enjoy the readings a lot. Luckily for me Rob Olsen, of Geek Inked magazine, was there to film it. Enjoy!




Part one




Part two



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You will find it positively fascinating

Here's my schedule for Can-Con, coming up next weekend (October 4-6) in Ottawa:

Friday

8:00 PM: News and fun from WorldCon with Cenk Gokce, Marie Bilodeau, and Andrew Barton.

9:00 PM: Humour in Science Fiction with Ira Nayman and Mike Rimar.

10:00 PM: ChiZine party and Ottawa launch of Imaginarium 2013, where I'll be doing a short reading from "The Last Islander."

Saturday

9:00 AM: SFWA Regional meeting. Coffee and wood-fired Montreal-style bagels for SFWA members in attendance.

10:00 Reading with Kate Hearfield. I'll be reading "Beyond the Fields You Know," a new story from my upcoming collection; Kate will read "For Sale by Owner" and the prologue from her upcoming On Spec story "Traveller, Take Me".

5:00 PM: Multiculturalism in Science Fiction with Yves Menard, Candace Black, and David Hartwell.

6:00 PM: Researching for Fantasy Stories with Karen Dudley and Mike Rimar.

7:00 PM: Law in Science Fiction with Kate Heartfield, Tom Barlow and Lynda Williams.

8:00 PM: You're qualified for SFWA: Should you join?with Derek Künsken, Suzanne Church, and Andrew Barton.

Ottawa, Ad Astra, Aurora

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.

And so ends a month of pretending to be a real writer! First was my reading at the Toronto ChiSeries where I was proud to be part of a lineup including Peter Watts, Kari Maaren and Kate Story. I had a good time and for once I was able to stay late and hang out with people. Then came Ad Astra which started, for me, with a panel on The Walking Dead that led, somehow, to jokes about Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey and Venn Diagrams. (If there's a bad Venn Diagram joke, I haven't heard it.) Later the same night was my reading with Matt Moore. The room was nearly full and I got to read "Beyond the Fields You Know," a story from my upcoming collection which only one person in the room had seen before; Matt read his great story "Delta Pi".

About five seconds before I give up on my Kobo

The next morning I had panels on two different flavours of alternate history and then went to do my turn at the Bundoran table. This is the first time we've had a table at Ad Astra so it was as much about building awareness as selling books; fortunately we did sell more than a few books, and it was gratifying to have people come looking for my book after they'd seen me on panels. Saturday night was the launch of "The Salt and Iron Dialogues" as well as the e-book of "Blood and Water" so I got to read alongside Kate Heartfield, Derek Kunsken, Ryan McFadden and oh, yeah, Julie Czerneda!

Then with just a day to recover I got to help launch ChiSeries Ottawa. Matt Moore was once again to blame, though this time I wasn't reading with him but with Violette Malan and Charles de Lint. We couldn't have asked for a better turnout and the audience was great. (Thanks to Jonathan Crowe for taking the pictures you see here.)

Last up: There are three days left before Aurora nominations close. I haven't done any particular promotion of the two stories I have that are eligible, but on the off chance that you plan to nominate and haven't yet done so I'll just remind you about "The Last Islander" (Asimov's, September 2012) and "The Afflicted" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August 2012).

Now back to reality!

Back to the future

I thought I was done with Shi Jin.

Every now and then, in the years since Fall From Earth was published, people have asked me whether I was ever going to revisit its world and characters. (Whether that reflects a genuine interest in reading more about them or just an assumption that every SF/F novel is part of a series is an open question.) I've had the same question about a few of my short stories as well, and my answer has always been that I had told as much of that story as needed telling. I've also always been a believer in the "iceberg" theory of worldbuilding, which is that you only show the reader 10-20% of the setting details you've invented, and which might be undermined by going back to an established setting.

So why did I write "The Salt and Iron Dialogues"? Basically, it comes down to Shi Jin, the protagonist of Fall From Earth. When I first started work on that book, I wrote background pieces of varying lengths about the major characters. One these (Griffin's)wound up integrated mostly intact in the final text, while a few others had some bits included or referred to in dialogue. But Shi Jin's, which naturally was the longest, I wound up cutting because the only way to include it was as a prologue, and the conventional wisdom was that editors don't like manuscripts that start with prologues. So it survived only as a few elliptical references, and that was that...

Until about six months ago I was cleaning out my office and found an old computer that I thought had been thrown away several years ago, on which I found a version of Fall From Earth that still included the prologue. And it was a prologue, but when I re-read it I couldn't help feeling that there was more of Shi Jin's story that I wanted to tell: a story about a young woman learning to navigate between power, authority and heroism, which might be able to stand on its own for people who hadn't read Fall From Earth -- as well as providing an added dimension for those who had.When I finished (after junking and rewriting about 2/3 of the original text) I remembered just why it was that I had liked Shi Jin so much in the first place, and why I decided to write a novel about her.

"The Salt and Iron Dialogues" is launching Saturday night at Ad Astra and it'll be going up for sale on the Bundoran site shortly. If you've read Fall From Earth and liked it, I'm pretty sure you'll like this too: if you haven't, I think you'll enjoy meeting Shi Jin for the first time.

Ad Astra

Here's my schedule for this year's Ad Astra convention, which is being held April 5-7 at the Markham Holiday Inn & Suites in "Toronto":

Friday 7 pm Franklin Mainstream Zombies: the Walking Dead Panel with David Clink, Stephanie Bedwell-Grime, and Adam Blendick    

The television adaptation of The Walking Dead is arguably the most mainstream zombies have ever been – and they don’t even call them zombies! Whether the show measures up when compared to the classic image of the zombie, or even to its own source material, is the meat of the debate in this panel.  Also on the slab will be what makes zombies so popular, and just how original this story truly is.      

          

Friday 10pm Floor 2, Suite 2 - Reading: East Block Irregulars with Matt Moore. Matt's going to read his great story "Delta Pi" and I'll probably be reading an original story from my upcoming collection with CZP. 

Saturday 10 am Berczy A Alternate Canadian Histories with Neil Jamison-Williams and Eric Choi.

What if the Vikings had successfully settled Atlantic Canada? What if Louis XV had kept Quebec in the Treaty of Paris in 1763? What if the war of 1812 had a different outcome? Or if the Red River Rebellion had resulted in an independent republic of Assiniboia? What would our country look like today?  This panel examines the options.

                        

Saturday 11 am Ellsemere East Creating a Successful Alternate History with Derek Kunsken, Stephen Hunt, Neil Jamison-Williams and Ed Greenwood.

When we talk about alternate histories, Steampunk is an obvious standout, but there are countless ways of using the principles of alternate timelines in fantasy and science fiction. By combining thorough research with a few basic rules of thumb, we can re-examine our present by rewriting our past.

                                

Saturday 4 30 pm Berczy B - Autograph Session (to 6 pm)

Saturday 9 PM Suite 1410 Bundoran Press book launch! We'll be launching my new novella "The Salt and Iron Dialogues" along with new e-book editions of several other Bundoran books. I'm don't know yet how you do a launch for an e-book, but I'm sure Hayden has it all figured out!

Another reading, closer to home

More news! Just a month after I'm reading at the ChiSeries in Toronto, I'll be part of the very first Chiaroscuro readings here in Ottawa, alongside Violette Malan and Charles De Lint! I'm hugely honoured and proud to be part of launching this series, especially alongside two such amazing writers.

Because Violette and Charles will both be reading fantasy pieces, I've been asked to read some SF. Unfortunately my SF stories tend to be on the longer side and I've been asked to keep it to around twenty minutes. I'm leaning towards "The Coldest War" right now, but I've got two months to think about it.

Aaaaand we're back

Had a great time at SFContario -- many fun panels and other interactions. I did a reading Friday night of "Heroic Measures," which you can listen to under the "Audio" heading in the right margin.