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.

Rob Sawyer remains a classsy guy

I recently sent an e-mail to Rob Sawyer, as I did to most people I know, asking him to spread the word that I put my story "The Coldest War" online in hopes of garnering an Aurora nomination this year. Rob responded by devoting a whole post on his blog to "The Year of Matthew Johnson" -- spotlighting both the story and the publication of Fall From Earth. Needless to say this was way more than I expected and absurdly flattering. It's also a bit funny to me because I've more thought of it as "the second year in a row where I've done hardly any fiction writing," as busy times at work and fatherhood have pushed me to Ted Chiang-like levels of productivity (the comparison is in terms of quantity, obviously, not quality.) That being said, I did just send off a new story I wrote shortly before the end of last year, as well as a reprint and a piece from the back catalogue, so 2010 may have a few more entries under my name in the Canadian SF Database.