My first day of the WOTF experience began auspiciously: I got dropped off at the wrong terminal at 830am.

Now, admittedly this was my fault—I got this ticket confused with the one I had booked for the next week to Chicago and said I was leaving from Pearson’s Terminal One (Air Canada) instead of Terminal 3 (US Airways).

D’oh!

I took the monorail (monorail, monorail…) to T3 and had plenty of time to check in and spend my 40 minutes to get through customs.

Once I’d checked my baggage I found my gate and Tony Pi, fellow Toronto winner (who’d got there at 730am—apparently I like to live dangerously when it comes to flight times, a theme which would repeat later in the week…), and settled in. Tony and I talked about what to expect, who of the writers would be there (Tony’s been in touch with quite a few via LiveJournal, Critters, Kathy Wentworth’s WOTF forum on SFF.net, etc.) We both agreed, once we had boarding passes in hand and were through security, that it seemed like this might actually be happening after all.

Wage checks to make sure he has his passport and ticket ready for boarding.
He doesn’t want to end up in GitMo, after all…

Our flight for Phoenix left on time and was pretty painless. Alas, Tony and I weren’t seated together (I think they must have shuffled Tony around to make room for somebody because I’m almost sure our e-tickets said we’d be sitting together the whole way there and back—ah well). Tony was up in row 16, while I was in row 22—the very last row in the plane; fine, except when you’d like to make a quick exit in Phoenix to catch your connection.

I had the window seat and while that was cool I felt badly when I had to get up to use the washroom. I was beside a guy who slept the whole flight (had to wake him up) and an elderly lady who had real trouble getting around and out of the seat.

It occurred to me that in the event of an emergency, despite being closest to the plane’s rear left exit, I was screwed.

Like I say, the flight was pretty painless, but US Airways…not the greatest airline in the world. I’d had breakfast, but our 4 ½ hour flight meant lunch aboard. After getting a look at the prices of a sandwich at Pearson ($9!) I decided to wait and get one on the plane ($5). But the attendant announced at the beginning that they only had a limited supply of sandwiches (why, I don’t know—you know it’s a sold-out flight over the lunch hour) and once they were gone they were gone, meaning that by the time they got to me…so hungee. I had two Cokes and hoped to get something in Phoenix.

But the other thing that bothered me about US Airways was their request that we slide down all window shades “for the benefit of our passengers trying to enjoy our in-flight movie—Shrek 3.” In the first place, it would take a lot more than total darkness to enjoy Shrek 3. And besides, I didn’t want to watch the movie; I wanted to read and look out the window as we crossed into the desert of the American southwest. I’ve never seen the desert and have always wanted to, so this request seemed a little unreasonable to me (or maybe I was cranky because I was hungry.) In any event, my window shade stayed up.

The desert really is amazing country and so unlike anything I’m used to or have seen before. There’s actually a very clear dividing line as you’re flying over the American plains and their rich agricultural land (below us for much of the journey were vast fields, laid out in huge, perfect grids, uninterrupted by lakes or rivers or any variation in terrain, like some great green chessboard for giants). One minute it’s all lush fields and then there’s a band of scrub transition terrain maybe only 50 miles wide and then the desert.

The earth itself looks different there. It’s all blasted land, red and khaki, with dark hills rising and rippling up from the desert floor; wandering tendrils of dried mud and salt halos show where rivers once ran. Dark dots of desert shrubs follow the contours of the land, finding their home in valleys and on ridges and without these little tufts of plant life it could almost have been mistaken for Arrakis, our plane powered by the beat of ‘thopter wings…

Once and while there would be another (much smaller) square of lush green farming below us, but it struck me at that point as an oddity and unnatural in that landscape. I couldn’t help thinking over and over again as we flew into Phoenix how much water it took to sustain such farms and such huge cities (Phoenix has a population of 1.5 million and stretches across the desert floor forever) in this arid place. The southwest finds itself in the middle of a huge population boom (Las Vegas is the fastest growing city in the USA) while at the same time being caught in a terrible drought.

The Fremen in me was very upset.

One really cool thing about Phoenix is the desert art. Whereas at home they line highway on- and off-ramps with shrubs and trees, in Phoenix they have desert art pained or carved right into the earth. It looked to be Navajo or Hopi imagery, mostly of deserts birds and lizards.

We came down from
Carson and Springfield/
We came down from
Phoenix enthralled
– ‘The Celebration Of The Lizard’, The Doors

We landed in Phoenix and our brief exposure to the desert heat as we exited the plane via the gangway made me understand why the Navajo called Phoenix Hoozdo–literally “the place is hot.” It was like stepping in front of a full body hair drier, much as I imagined the arrival in Arrakeen to be like for young Atreides…

Are those the hills around Phoenix or the Shield Wall around Arrakeen?

I had just enough time to grab that longed-for sandwich ($7) before boarding for the up-and-down to Los Angeles. While Tony and I were seated together for this leg, I felt bad for him—the pressure differences of takeoff and landing really give him headaches, and like I said, Phoenix to LA is all up and down.

Coming into LA was impressive in a really gross way: you’ve heard of the LA smog? Yeah, it’s as bad as they say. The whole valley looked like it was covered in a thick fog and it was hard to see landmarks of any kind.

After landing and baggage claim (everything arrived!) we were met by Claude and his WOTF sign.

Tony and Claude

He took us outside to wait for the car (and curbside at LAX is so much crazier than curbside at any airport I’ve ever been at before). We got to talking and Claude informed us that Galaxy Press had just sold rights for a Turkish edition of WOTF 23! They apparently don’t get that many frees as part of the deal, but they promised to keep us informed and maybe work out some deal where we can get a copy of the Turkish edition cheap. Very cool.

Is there an Amazon.tr? 🙂

Soon we were met by our driver, Jason, and then whizzed around to one of the other gates to pick up Aliette de Bodard, the first WOTF winner from France! Aliette and I won in Q3 and had been e-mailing already (as had she and Tony) so it was almost as if we knew each other a bit to begin with.

We next met Hugette, a fellow Canadian (she’s from Montreal) and the week’s official photographer. She got quite good at finding me at almost every turn during the rest of the week (more on that later).

She took a few photos of us, and had Tony and I get out to fake a few shots of our arrival (because we didn’t want to fish our luggage out of the back of the mini-van, Tony and I tried to look casual as we had our pictures taken standing near the luggage of some guy who was waiting for a cab…)

Tony and I “arrive” at LAX…
(photo courtesy of WOTF/Galaxy Press)

Palm trees and American megalopoli still fascinate this Canadian boy.

Seeing this sight made me feel like I was in a Red Hot Chilli Peppers song…

As we drove down the 101 through LA and the 110 to Pasadena, Aliette regaled us with tales of transferring international flights at Heathrow. She had a two-hour layover and still barely made the plane after all the security, etc. Makes me feel pretty silly for being worried that 40 minutes in customs at Pearson was going to make me late…

After a brief stop at the 76 for gas (and witnessing a genuine California highway fender bender), we arrived at the Sheraton Pasadena. We were greeted at the check-in by Sarah Caruso, one of the Galaxy Press folks and our coordinator during our stay.

Sarah Caruso (in the foreground) and John Goodwin (over her shoulder).
This shot is actually from Monday. Note the binder Sarah is looking
through–she was never without it all week.

Sarah was fabulous all week–if you needed something done, you asked her and it was ready by the next break. I think she slept even less than the winners, because every time I was wandering the hotel corridors at 4am there was Sarah… I also think her clipboard-binder thing had been surgically grafted to her arm, because she was never without it. She did a great job keeping the wheels greased all week.

We were also greeted at the desk by John Goodwin, President of Galaxy Press. I’d e-mailed with him a number of times but it was great to finally meet him.

What I didn’t expect was for him to look like Superman–seriously, look at the guy. He doesn’t need those glasses. John Goodwin can see through walls.

Tony, Aliette, and I agreed to meet shortly to get some lunch and went to our rooms to drop stuff off.

I arrived in room 240 to find that my roommate’s stuff was already there, and soon in he walked. Douglas Texter–which is possibly the best last name for any writer ever–with whom I got along fabulously (as evidenced by his inscription in the book later in the week: “To the best WOTF roommate I’ve ever had” 😉

The view from our hotel room.

Doug is an English lit PhD candidate (specializing in utopian studies) and at one point had worked as a developmental editor for a textbook publisher in the US so he actually (unlike most people) understood what I did for a living. We talked shop for a bit (he once ‘Canadianized’ a textbook and was fascinated with the Toonie I had with me) and then there came a knock on the door–Hugette was looking for some photos of us meeting so we faked a few more for her.

Doug Texter and me “arriving” in our hotel room.
(photo courtesy of WOTF/Galaxy Press)

Downstairs for lunch to discover that a number of the other winners who had already arrived were assembled ready to strike out in search of food in Pasadena. We wandered over to the open-air mall for the first of many trips. There was lots of talk about the contest, how many times people had submitted before winning (I think the highest was 12), and what to expect from the week (most people had pieced this together from the various web pages and blogs of past winners).

The courtyard the of the mall where we took most of our meals.

I just can’t get over my fascination with those hills…

As we returned to the hotel we discovered that the Miss Teen USA pageant was being held next door at the arena. Girls in sashes were thus to haunt over every move during the week. A very LA experience.

At 8pm in the hotel lounge we met up with the rest of the winners who had arrived (a few, like poor Andrea Kail, wouldn’t arrive until extremely early the next morning) and we were also introduced to Tim Powers and KD “Kathy” Wentworth, both of whom we came to love over the course of the week.

They briefly outlined what we could expect from the week and took our questions, which started off being about the week, but then quickly turned to other aspects of publishing, agents, etc. We were hungry for knowledge and success and it showed.

That disembodied arm to the right of KD Wentworth? Yeah, that’s me.
The lady in the red golf shirt by the mirror is Joni Labaqui, the contest organizer.
(photo courtesy of WOTF/Galaxy Press)

Tim’s most salient advice that night for new writers?

1) If you’re at the WOTF you’re already one step ahead. You’ve shown you can sell a story. The workshop is to take you beyond the first sale.
2) Have a crappy part-time job so you can write. Make sure it’s crappy so that you don’t mind dropping it in order to write more.
3) Start smoking (* This last I think was motivated more by Tim’s disappointment that none of us smoked rather than its necessity to good writing. He had no one to hang out with on break and have a butt–and though I hate smoking I was tempted to take it up for a week just to hang out with Tim. Tobias Buckell told me before the WOTF to stick as close to Tim as I could, so…)

We were also exposed for the first time to Tim’s primary quirk. He was drinking a can of Coke through the whole introduction, and when he’d finished that one he pulled another from an inner pocket of his thin, black jacket. When Jeff Carlson asked him just how many he had in there he pulled out two more from what I swear were secret pockets in the lining. The weird thing is that you couldn’t tell from looking that he had four cans of pop concealed on his person. This wasn’t to be the last time Tim produced Coca Cola seemingly from thin air…

We were all handed itineraries and several books of Hubbard’s article on writing and received our first homework: read two specified articles before class at 9am.

I retired to the bar with a band of the other winners to talk writing, the contest, life, the universe, everything… Eventually we broke up and headed for our rooms to read the requested articles.

As I finally lay down to sleep I couldn’t wait for the WOTF week to really begin.

– S.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
TOMORROW: Monday
– A new breed of SF writer shows itself
– Lessons on a traditional Thai weight-loss plan
– My brain gets full
– We learn that a human being’s maximum safe daily dose of caffeine is actually more a recommendation than a hard-and-fast rule…

(NB: This is a repost of an article that first appeared on 9 September 2007. You can find my rationale for this repost series here.)

Okay, okay–I know. My great plan to do a week-long series of posts about the Writers of the Future award week in August kinda got derailed somewhere in, oh, August 🙂

The original plan was to do a series of lengthy, day-by-day posts (with pictures!) about the experience of the award week so that you, as a reader, could get a bit of a sense what it was like.

I got as far as Thursday, which is ironic given that the biggest stuff happened Friday 🙂 The problem with my original plan was that I didn’t anticipate how long it would take me to do each entry.

See, in the months leading up to the award week I scoured the tubes of the internet for any information I could glean about the goings-on at the WOTF week from posts made by past winners and participants. I got a lot from the accounts of people like Scott Nicholson, Ron Collins, and I must credit the great journals by Mike Rimar (who I was also lucky enough to get to question in person at last year’s Ad Astra), and David D. Levine as my direct inspiration for the day-by-day breakdown.

(NB: I was also in touch via e-mail with many of these same folk in the lead-up to the week, asking for any advice they had on how to get the most out of the week, things they wish they’d done or not done, etc. Without exception the previous winners I was in touch with were friendly, helpful, and excited for me. The universal comment was “I wish I could go again!” and that really speaks volumes of the workshop, awards, and the people who put them on. By the way, some of the advice I got? Tobias Buckell very sagely told me to stick as close to Tim Powers as I could all week–advice I tried to heed, hence my flirtation with taking up smoking for seven days–and Jim Hines told me to keep my inner fanboy in check–advice I ignored only once, when I introduced myself to Larry Niven and, well, we all know how that went…)

So, having gotten so much from these posts I, too, wanted to write up something that would really be of use to people going to the awards and interested in what to expect, and to those considering entering and wanting to get a sense of what can happen.

But that took a lot longer than I thought it would 🙂

And now I see that all the winners from this year’s edition of the contest have been chosen…and I’m STILL not done posting about my trip to the awards. There’s a strange thrill in knowing that these people are in line for a truly life-changing week, and that amongst them is the person to whom I’ll have to pass the sash and tiara of Grand Prize Winner…

And so, if you’ll indulge me, I’m going to try and do what I set out to do the first time: starting today, Sunday Jan. 20, and running until this Saturday Jan. 26, I’m going to repost my series of journals about my WOTF experience and I’m actually going to finish the posts for the Friday and the Saturday & Sunday of the award week.

Now, I’ll add some new content to the old posts (consider these the digitally enhanced Special Edition 🙂 and I got a lot of positive feedback on the journal, so hopefully you’ll enjoy seeing what the Big Day and the rest of the weekend was like from my particularly stunned perspective 🙂

– S.

Hi all –

Found a great interview with literary agent Donald Maass over on Writer Unboxed. Maass and the agents at his Donald Maass Literary Agency represent some amazing clients, including Karl Schroeder, Jack Whyte, Jay Lake, Nalo Hopkinson, Anne Bishop, Elizabeth Bear and, of course, WOTF XXIII’s own Jeff Carlson.

Maass’ book, Writing the Breakout Novel, is actually already on my ‘how to write a novel’ reading list (along with William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade–recommended to me by WOTF judge Sean Williams–and Albert Zuckerman’s Writing the Blockbuster Novel–recommended to me by WOTF judge Dave Wolverton)

Part One is here, and Part Two is here.

– S.

What was that saying from the X-Files? “I Want to Believe.”

News today that several dozen people in the Texas town of Stephenville (coincidence? I think not…) witnessed a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it. One pilot who saw the object from the ground said the object he saw was a mile long and half a mile wide. “It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts,” he said.

Brody: You’re gonna need a bigger boat.
– Jaws (1975)

Now, I believe that there is life elsewhere in the universe. Big surprise as as a science fiction writer, I know.

I’m even willing to bet that some percentage of that alien life is intelligent. And, like I said, I’d like to believe that there are alien travelers and explorers capable of journeying across the vast gulf of interstellar space, even if all they seem interested in is buzzing rural townsfolk and mutilating the occasional cow.

The problem is that the laws of physics as we understand them seem to prohibit such travel between star systems in any workable time frame (like, say, your average human lifespan). Even exotic suggestions for getting around the universe’s cosmic speed limit, that of light (1,079,252,848.8 km/h–thanks a lot, Einstein!), like wormholes or propulsion systems like the Alcubierre drive and the Krasnikov tube either wouldn’t allow anyone to travel through the phenomenon, appear to require vast, if not infinite amounts of energy to make happen, or violate a whole host of energy and causality principles as we currently understand them.

But…

As I’ve said before, the history of science is the history of people being wrong about things. It was said at one time that no heavier-than-air machine could ever fly, that we couldn’t break the sound barrier, that human beings could never survive outside the atmosphere of the Earth, that 640K ought to be enough for anybody…you know–things we know are wrong now.

So I’m hoping that we, for all our genius, are wrong about the possibilities for interstellar travel and that the aliens have found some better, more space-commuter-friendly understanding of physics and actually can come visit and molest our cattle.

After all, like the man said: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. FTL travel may seem like magic to us now, but let’s just hope that alien civilizations have some pixie dust or ruby slippers that can get them (and maybe someday us) there and back again.

– S.

Hi all –

I know you, like me, are no doubt distraught that the Writers Guild of America strike has meant an end to the glitzy award shows that are so much a part of the Hollywood awards season.

But fear not!

There is a glitzy homegrown Canadian award ceremony awaiting your vote as we speak!

That’s right—nominations are now open for the 2008 Prix Aurora Awards, Canada’s highest award for creative work in Science Fiction and Fantasy.

As you know, I’ve had several publications this past year, and these are eligible for the Auroras in the category Best short-form work in English, which is defined in the contest rules as “a published novella, novelette, short story or poem in the English language by a Canadian writer released in Canada in the previous calendar year (2007).”

For those Canadians amongst you who have read my stories and would like to nominate me for an Aurora Award (sorry–only Canucks can nominate!) your support would be greatly appreciated. Please consider nominating my Writers of the Future Grand Prize winning story “Saturn in G Minor”.

While I’ve had three stories published this year, I’m suggesting “Saturn in G Minor” for the nomination because I think it’s my strongest piece, because it won the Writers of the Future Grand Prize this summer, and to avoid vote-splitting (hey—it’s happened to others…)

Any of you who haven’t read “Saturn in G Minor” please let me know and I’ll be happy to e-mail you a copy of the story for your consideration.

Any Canadian citizen (not necessarily living in Canada), or permanent resident of Canada is eligible to nominate works for the award, and there is no fee to nominate.

This year, for the first time, Canadian fans will be able to nominate and to vote on-line at the Prix Aurora Award website.

You can vote online here:
http://www.prix-aurora-awards.ca/English/AwardProcess/nominationForm.php

Please only vote once—I don’t need any ballot box stuffing getting me disqualified 🙂

I’ll also take this opportunity to point out that two of the anthologies my stories appeared in this year are also eligible to be nominated under the Best Work in English (Other) category:

Under Cover of Darkness, Julie E. Czerneda and Jana Paniccia, eds., Daw Books, Feb. 2007

Tesseracts Eleven, Cory Doctorow and Holly Phillips, eds., Edge S&SF Publishing, Nov. 2007

The Aurora Awards will be presented at KeyCon 25, held May 16 to 19, 2008 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Nominations are open NOW and close March 17, 2008 (but why wait, right?)

Thanks gang,

– S.

Further to my point about gene therapy as the future of doping for athletes is this story from the BBC about gene therapy and ‘freeze-dried’ tendons.

All gene therapies being used (or considered) for doping by athletes and their coaches started off as legitimate therapies for legitimate conditions or injuries. Just a matter of time until somebody ‘repairs’ their perfectly good tendon to out-perform the competition…

You heard it here first 🙂

– S.

The 2007 Preliminary Nebula Ballot has been released and I couldn’t be happier for the five friends I have who have made the long-list in the various categories.

Perhaps most thrilling is Andrea Kail‘s nomination for her beautiful story “The Sun God at Dawn, Rising from a Lotus Blossom”, which appeared in Writers of the Future XXIII. I couldn’t be happier for her!

Also nominated are:

Species Imperative #3: Regeneration – Julie E. Czerneda,
Rollback – Robert J. Sawyer,
Ragamuffin – Tobias Buckell,

“Sister of the Hedge” – Jim C. Hines,

Not only that, but Robin Wayne Bailey’s “The Children’s Crusade”, which appeared in Heroes in Training, the anthology Jim Hines edited last year with Martin Greenberg, was also nominated. Clearly Jim can spot talent when he sees it!

SFWA members will now vote on the works on the preliminary ballot, narrowing the field down to (usually) a final ballot of five works in each category. Special Nebula juries are permitted, but not required, to add one deserving but overlooked work to the final ballot in each category. SFWA members then vote on the final ballot and the awards will be presented in Austin, TX, April 25-27, 2008.

Well done to all of you! I hope you all make the final ballot.

– S.

=========================
Novels

Ragamuffin, by Tobias Buckell
(Tor, Jun07)

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, by Michael Chabon
(HarperCollins, May07)

Species Imperative #3: Regeneration, by Julie E. Czerneda (full PDF on Private Edition)
(DAW, May06)

Vellum: The Book of All Hours, by Hal Duncan
(Del Rey, Apr06 (Macmillan hardcover Nov05 (UK)))

The Accidental Time Machine, by Joe Haldeman
(Ace, Aug07)

The New Moon’s Arms, by Nalo Hopkinson
(Warner Books, Feb07)

Mainspring, by Jay Lake
(Tor, Jun07)

Odyssey, by Jack McDevitt (full PDF on Private Edition)
(Ace, Nov06)

The Outback Stars, by Sandra McDonald
(Tor, May07)

Strange Robby, by Selina Rosen (full PDF and hardcopy offer on Private Edition)
(Meisha Merlin Publishing Jul06)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling
(Scholastic Press, Jul07)

Rollback, by Robert J. Sawyer
(Analog, Feb07 (serialized in Oct06 through Jan/Feb07 issues; Tor book, Apr07))

Blindsight, by Peter Watts (free Creative Commons versions)
(Tor, Oct06)

Novellas

“The Helper and His Hero,” by Matt Hughes (link to Private Edition)
(F&SF, Mar07 (Feb07 & Mar07))

“Fountain of Age,” by Nancy Kress
(Asimov’s, Jul07)

“Stars Seen Through Stone,” by Lucius Shepard (link to Private Edition)
(F&SF, Jul07)

“Kiosk,” by Bruce Sterling (link to Private Edition)
(F&SF, Jan07)

“Memorare,” by Gene Wolfe (link to Private Edition)
(F&SF, Apr07)

Novelettes

“The Children’s Crusade,” by Robin Wayne Bailey (link to Private Edition)
(Heroes in Training, Martin H. Greenberg and Jim C. Hines, Ed., DAW, Sep07)

“A Flight of Numbers Fantastique Strange,” by Beth Bernobich (link to Private Edition)
(Asimov’s, Jun06)

“Things That Aren’t,” by Michael A. Burstein and Robert Greenberger (link to Private Edition)
(Analog, Apr07)

“The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” by Ted Chiang
(F&SF, Sep07)

“Sister of the Hedge,” by Jim C. Hines (link to Private Edition)
(Realms of Fantasy, Jun06)

“The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs Of North Park After the Change,” by Kij Johnson (link to Private Edition)
(Coyote Road, Trickster Tales, Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Ed., Viking Juvenile, Jul07)

“The Sun God at Dawn, Rising from a Lotus Blossom,” by Andrea Kail (link to Private Edition)
(Writers of the Future Volume 23, Algis Budrys, Ed., Galaxy Press, Sep07)

“Safeguard,” by Nancy Kress
(Asimov’s, Jan07)

“Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders,” by Mike Resnick
(Asimov’s, Jan08)

“Tonino and the Incubus,” by Peg Robinson
(Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, WS & LWE, Ed., Oct06 (Fall06 issue — #2))

“Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter,” by Geoff Ryman (link to Private Edition)
(F&SF, Nov06)

“The Fiddler of Bayou Teche,” by Delia Sherman (link to Private Edition)
(Coyote Road, Trickster Tales, Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Ed., Viking Juvenile, Jul07)

“Not of this Fold,” by William Shunn (link to Private Edition)
(An Alternate History of the 21st Century, Spilt Milk Press, Sep07)

Short Stories

“Unique Chicken Goes In Reverse,” by Andy Duncan (link to Private Edition)
(Eclipse 1: New Science Fiction And Fantasy, Jonathan Strahan, Ed., Night Shade Books, Oct07)

“The Padre, the Rabbi, and the Devil His Own Self,” by Melanie Fletcher
(Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, WS & LWE, Ed., Oct06 (Fall06 issue — #2))

“Always,” by Karen Joy Fowler
(Asimov’s, May07 (apr/may07 issue))

“For Solo Cello, op. 12,” by Mary Robinette Kowal (link to Private Edition)
(Cosmos, Mar07 (Feb/Mar07))

“Titanium Mike Saves the Day,” by David D. Levine (link to Private Edition)
(F&SF, Apr07)

“The Story of Love,” by Vera Nazarian (link to Private Edition)
(Salt of the Air, Prime Books, Sep06)

“Captive Girl,” by Jennifer Pelland
(Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, WS & LWE, Ed., Oct06 (Fall06 issue — #2))

Scripts

Children of Men, by Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby
(Universal Studios, Dec06)

Pan’s Labyrinth, by Guillermo del Toro
(Time/Warner, Jan07)

The Discarded, by Harlan Ellison and Josh Olson (script on Private Edition)
(Masters of Science Fiction, ABC-TV, Apr07)

Blink, by Steven Moffat (script on Private Edition)
(Doctor Who, BBC/The Sci-Fi Channel, Sep07 (Aired on SciFi Channel 14 Sep07))

The Prestige, by Christopher Nolan and Jonathon Nolan
(Newmarket Films, Oct06 (Oct 20, 2006 — based on the novel by Christopher Priest))

V for Vendetta, by Larry Wachowski and Andy Wachowski
(Warner Films, Mar06 (released 3/17/2006 — Written by the Wachowski Brothers, based on the graphic novel illustrated by David Lloyd and published by Vertigo/DC Comics))

World Enough and Time, by Marc Scott Zicree and Michael Reaves (script on Private Edition)
(Star Trek: New Voyages, http://www.startreknewvoyages.com, Aug07 (Aired 8/23/07))

Andre Norton Award

Vintage: A Ghost Story, by Steve Berman
(Haworth Positronic Press, Mar07)

Into the Wild, by Sarah Beth Durst
(Penguin Razorbill, Jun07)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling
(Scholastic Press, Jul07)

Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog, by Ysabeau S. Wilce
(Harcourt, Jan07)

A big congratulations to Sean Williams on being a finalist for the 2008 Phillip K. Dick Award. Sean is nominated for his book Saturn Returns.

Sean is one of the judges for the Writers of the Future contest and was one of the judges for the quarter I won in. We hit it off at the WOTF week…perhaps because we both have a thing for Saturn? Hmm…

He’s such a nice guy and a really fabulous writer; I hope he wins (even though he’s up against a fellow Canadian, Minister Faust, who is nominated for his book From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain–you know Sean must be good if he can make me betray my countryman!)

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the award ceremony is sponsored by the NorthWest Science Fiction Society.

You can find the full list here.

Let the Dick jokes begin! 🙂

– S.

I know a non-trivial number of people who insist that New York is the greatest city on Earth. Never having been to Ye Biggie Apple I can’t really say one way or the other (I kinda think it would be a bit too big for me–I find Toronto overcrowded…)

But after reading this article from BBC News, well, they may just be right.

It’s terribly ghoulish of me, I know, but I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when I read: “Mr Dalaia and Mr O’Hare are said to have expressed surprise when paramedics told them Mr Cintron was dead.”

– S.

Hi all –

I’m pleased to report that the Finnish magazine Spin and the Argentinian magazine Axxón will be publishing my story “Borrowed Time” in translation (in Finnish and Spanish, I should think) later this year.

So that makes upcoming Russian, Greek, Finnish, and Spanish translations for this story. Which reminds me I should send them my author bio soon…

Axxón is also an online magazine, so I’ll be sure to point you in the direction of la traducción when it becomes available.

Ciao,

– S.