Not that I’m worried about anybody at my office tracking my blog to check for content disparaging my employer, but I have heard of people losing their jobs over blog posts and a friend of mine was interviewing for a position at another publisher and was asked about his “online presence.” I’m not foolish enough to endanger my job by taking cyber potshots, hence while you’ll never read anything about my day job in my blog.

So when I read this story about someone who got fired from Nintendo over her blog–and whose defense was that, despite slagging Nintendo and several co-workers and having her real photo up on the blog, it should be considered “protected speech” and an “exaggeration” because she used a fake last name for blogging purposes–I had to shake my head.

Despite some people thinking that what they say on the internet is anonymous or that employers won’t care, what really bothers me is how poorly this girl covered her tracks. I mean if you’re going to be duplicitous at least be smarter and a little better at it, lady.

Sheesh 🙂

– S.

If any of you are looking for that perfect gift for me this upcoming holiday season, look no further–you can now get me a home observatory, as outlined in this article in the New York Times.

How cool is that!?!?

– S.

It’s spherical but quite pointy in parts…

Ah, the little probe that scared the pants off the Americans and started the Space Race turns 50 today. What a bright, shiny, chrome-plated future Sputnik represented. Assuming mankind didn’t opt for self-induced atomic holocaust, we were all supposed to drive flying cars by now, eat entire meals in pill form, and vacation in Stanford torus orbital hotels.

Well, we avoided the atomics (for now) but alas no flying cars or orbital vacations.

We do have TiVo, though, so humanity has made some progress. And just think of all the clever words Sputnik gave rise to–Beatnik, Peacenik, Picnic (well, maybe not that last one…)

There’s a nice article about Sputnik over at the New York Times.

For some sounds of Sputnik (and other early satellites) go here.

Happy birthday Sputnik, мой друг!

– S.

Image courtesy of John Burridge

Damon Kaswell (L), and John Burridge (R), this year’s two Wordos Writers of the Future winners, were interviewed recently about their award win on the ‘People at Noon’ show on local CBS affiliate KVAL 13 in Eugene, Oregon.

Through the miraculous tubes of the internets you, too, are able to watch their interview here.

Good work guys!

Tony Pi was interviewed last week on the Rogers station in Kitchener and said it went well. He may be getting a copy on DVD. I’m going to be on the same show early in November.

– S.

Tim in action teaching at Writers of the Future

For those of you in the T-dizzle:

I just heard that Tim Powers, winner of the Philip K. Dick Award and multiple World Fantasy awards, one of my WOTF instructors, and all-around amazing/entertaining/nice guy, will be appearing at the Toronto Public Library’s Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy on Saturday October 13, 2007 at 1:30 p.m.

He’ll be talking about fantasy and writing in the reading room (as well as selling books) and I cannot recommend him or his presentation highly enough.

The Merril Collection is located in the Lillian H. Smith branch of the Toronto Public Libraries at 239 College St., Toronto ((416) 393-7748/9)

I’ll be there for sure and I hope I’ll see some of you there, too.

Of course I just met Tim in August, but here I’m going to see him in October, and then maybe again in November if he’s able to make it to World Fantasy. I’m not sure who is stalking whom…

– S.

Salmonella carried on shuttle mission returned three times more potent than its Earth-bound cousin, reports a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers, who worked with astronauts on Space Shuttle Atlantis mission STS-115, say that their work may one day lead to a vaccine to protect against Salmonella typhimurium, or a new antibiotic to keep an infection in check in space and on Earth.

Interesting information, especially given the brief Andromeda Strain-like fears triggered by the impact of a meteor in a remote area of Peru last week. The incident caused considerable alarm, with about 200 local people reporting strange sicknesses and a foul odour emitting from the crater. Turns out it wasn’t alien space bugs, just *ahem* bad gas.

Though the exact reason for the increased toxicity in the salmonella isn’t clear, the scientists think it might have something to do with the way fluids flow (called “fluid shear”) over the outer membranes of bacteria differently in low gravity. Fluid flows over bacteria in different ways in the human body as well and though scientists don’t know what impact this has, this study suggests it might be important to find out.

One of the nastier facts from the Globe & Mail‘s coverage: Getting a “cold” in space is difficult to handle, especially because the nose can’t drain in microgravity, resulting in the sinuses filling with more and more fluid.

And here I thought sneezing in your space helmet would be the biggest worry. Yick!

– S.

According to a new survey a sizable majority (~80%) in many countries now believe that human activity is causing global warming and climate change.

This is very good, very hopeful news, if a bit late in coming. One can wish more people had taken this issue seriously a decade or more ago, but we are where we are now and hopefully we’re not too late to reverse what could be catastrophic damage to our planet.

However, look at some of our leaders and you’d never know the pendulum has swung against them.

Yeah, I’m looking at you Stephen Harper.

This morning, at a UN conference on climate change no less, our Prime Minister (though I didn’t vote for him) announced that while Canada will be reneging on its commitment to the Kyoto Protocols we will happily be joining the Asia-Pacific Partnership–a rival plan to curb emissions that many environmentalists have called the “anti-Kyoto”.

The Asia-Pacific Partnership is a less-filling-tastes-great plan which has no mandatory pollution-reduction targets to fight climate change despite its members producing more than half the world’s emissions.

So who’s in the new club we just joined?

Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and the United States. Oh good. Now Harper and George Bush, and John Howard can all hinder real progress together.

Never a fan of Harper’s pseudo-environmentalism to begin with, I began to question not only his (and others’) intelligence but also his sanity recently when Ottawa was all aflutter that the Northwest Passage–dream of explorers and traders for centuries–might, at last, be open for shipping, oil and gas drilling, and diamond mining.

In all the talk of Russia planting flags, Canada asserting its Arctic sovereignty over the Passage, and the Americans asserting (erroneously, I think solely because it would be of economic benefit to them) that of course the Passage is in international waters and should be shared, there was never any cry of terror that THE ARCTIC WILL SOON HAVE NO ICE!

Hey guys–maybe we should look in to that NOT happening, whaddya say?

Here’s what I don’t get: even for those people who outright deny climate change has anything to do with human activity why don’t they support efforts to break us to our addiction to oil (which seems to cause only trouble and strife the world over as nations fight to control these non-renewable resources) and to clean our air by reducing factory and automobile emissions? Even if you think they’re not hurting Mother Nature you won’t find a doctor anywhere who can tell you honestly that sucking on a tailpipe is good for you, right?

I live in a city where in the summer (and last year even in the WINTER) you can SEE and TASTE the man-made pollutants hanging in our air. We have to have daily air quality advisories so that people (like me) who have allergies, asthma, and other breathing problems know that they should avoid exerting themselves outdoors. That stuff in our air gets in our lungs and our eyes, it washes into the water we drink, and we KNOW and can PROVE that it shortens lives.

So given all of that, even if they don’t believe all that “tree hugger” talk about global warming, why don’t we stop these emissions for their own sake (you know–the ones they can actually see with their own eyes) so that we can breathe our air in the summer, and drink our water. And if in ceasing to burn those fossil fuels we stop the emission of carbon dioxide and stop the climate change they don’t believe in, well, wouldn’t that be a nice bonus?

80% of people on the planet = HOPE.
Harper and the rest = DOPE.

– S.

Wednesday was simultaneously one of the longest and shortest days of my life.

In bed at 130am, I was up at 5 am when Doug’s cell phone alarm went off. We’d agreed we’d get an early start and I actually found I wasn’t that tired (my body always does pretty well with the three hour time difference in California—it tricks my body into thinking it doesn’t need as much sleep. I always feel like I can get so much more done in a day in Cali…)

The next hour or so was spent writing, then Doug and I went off to breakfast. Well aware that there wouldn’t be time for lunch today (even breakfast was a bit of a luxury—we should have spent that time writing!) we got the buffet and ate our $20 each worth.

Then back to the room for the completion of our marathon.

There’s not that much to report in terms of events for the next eight or so hours—Doug and I basically sat in our room (me in the armchair, him on his bed) writing as fast as we could.

Doug was definitely the faster—speedwise he out wrote me 2:1 and was actually done his story around 2pm, giving him time to revise. But Doug was a great roommate the whole week and was a good guy to be cooped up with for a whole day writing.

The only breaks came when I went to get ice (for the Dr. Pepper, which along with the tortillas and salsa I’d bought on Monday, sustained me until nearly 10pm that night), and when (guess who?) Hugette came by to get some “action shots” of us writing.

Here’s my action shot. It’s actually 2pm and bright
and sunny out, but because I was sitting in front of the
window we needed to draw the blinds…
(photo courtesy of WOTF/Galaxy Press)

I also popped down the hall for a bit to see how Tony was doing. He and his roommate John (who’d MacGyvered himself a writing desk out of a collapsible laundry stand and a towel) were working feverishly, and Tony was not only confident in his ability to finish in time, but had in fact broken the story into thirds and was budgeting time to work on and complete each section. Needless to say, I (who was worried I’d be the first-ever WOTF participant not to finish the 24-hour story) was impressed (and a little intimidated) by this kind of scheduling. I was also envious of Tony and John’s balcony!

Tony and I stepped out for 5 minutes on a Starbucks run. While I don’t drink coffee, Tony has an uncanny ability to sense how far he is (in meters) from the nearest Starbucks. While most humans are 70% water, Tony is actually 70% iced decaf triple grande five pump soy no whip Mocha…

It turned out that Pasadena was the place to be in California that week. In addition to the Writers of the Future awards and the Miss Teen USA competition, they were filming part of an episode of Heroes down the street from the Starbucks. Ah! I loved the first season of Heroes and it would have been fun to go lurk around the set and maybe catch a glimpse of one of the principles…

But, instead, it was back to the room and back to work.

I kept pounding out the words all afternoon. Tony and John stopped by later for about five minutes to check on Doug and I but otherwise it was a mad dash to the finish for me while the hours rushed past. As I said, this was one of the shortest longest days I’ve ever experienced.

Writing until 545pm (with a 6pm deadline) I managed to finish a draft and ran to the business center to print. I bumped into Andrea and British Steve doing likewise. After Andrea worked some magic with the USB interface on the hotel computer (I think being yelled at to work in that New York accent of Andrea’s was the computer’s cue to do whatever she said if it valued its continued computing existence…) we three had printed off our tales and handed them in on time.

I have to say, we all looked a little rough for the experience but I think it was universally enjoyed. We looked forward to some dinner and then to bed…

But no!

Despite our collective hollow, zombified gaze, we were to have more class. Okay–Tim and Kathy want to talk revision with us. That makes sense; I know my story will need some major work to get it into shape (but I was happy with the basic story, which was surprising after only 24 hours with it…)

And their thoughts were really interesting and engaging–which shows you how good Tim and Kathy are, given how tired I was. I think Tim and I seem to work in a similar fashion during revision, but hearing how Kathy works (which is a bit different) was really intriguing–I like a variety of perspectives so I can maybe try new things myself.

This is the point at which I realized where I’d stopped working, thinking that the story was “done”, is where the really hard, important work on a story should start. This is something that I know I’ll have in my mind ever after when I’m revising, and one of the (many) insights from the week that I’ll always to grateful to Tim and Kathy for helping me realize.

But class didn’t end there!

Then the Galaxy Press folks spoke to us about promotion, book signings, and doing media.

First, to impress us, they brought in about six file boxes full of old pulp magazines in plastic sleeves. They laid these amazing magazines out (had to be a hundred or more) over all the tables and let us look at them for a while. They were all the magazines that L. Ron Hubbard had published in (his story was often the cover story) either under his own name or one of his numerous pseudonyms. But his wasn’t the only recognizable name: Heinlein, Van Vogt, Sturgeon, Poul Anderson, Asimov…the list went on.

Impressed we were.

John Goodwin with a copy of Astounding Science Fiction from February 1950. This blows my mind–my father would have been three months old, and my mom wasn’t even born yet.
(photo courtesy of WOTF/Galaxy Press)

Here’s a close-up of the same magazine
John is holding–this one isn’t in nearly as good
shape, though.

Many of the pulps were in fabulous, near-pristine condition and a rough estimate was that there was more than $100 000 dollars worth of pulps in that room.

To see and hold these relics of the Golden Age was an amazing experience. Some of the covers were pretty garish, but there were so many colorful, interesting, and exciting ones…I think if SF magazines had some of these covers today (okay, maybe not the ones with space robots kidnapping topless young women) they’d sell more copies on the newsstand.

Next, Kim Catalano from Galaxy Press spoke to us about how to set up book signings, in-store promotion, and the press kit that we’d be sent once we were home.

Peter Breyer followed to talk to us about blogging and driving traffic to your site via keywords, content distribution, and ‘pinging’.

Peter Breyer gave a talk on blogging–this ping’s for you!
(photo courtesy of WOTF/Galaxy Press)

And finally, John Goodwin spoke to us about doing media and press, which included us doing fake interviews with our twin (this came in handy almost immediately, as Tony and I were both interviewed two days later by the Adventures in Scifi Publishing podcast).

At 930pm (fourteen hours and counting…) we were mercifully released for the evening, having been given the three stories–Andrea’s, Joe’s, and Tony’s–we were to read for the critique session the next day.

Tuxes had arrived and Sarah was handing them out. Mine was great except the jacket was a size too large (the tailor had guessed my size and had guess a bit big) but Sarah assured me they’d have a new one for me the next day.

After that I joined Andrea, Kim, and Damon for dinner at PF Chang’s. We were joined by past WOTF winners Eric James Stone (WOTF 21) and Steven Savile (WOTF 19), along with Steve’s girlfriend (who is also an author) Alethea Kontis. While dinner wasn’t that great, the company certainly was as Eric and Steve (soon known as ‘Swedish Steve’–for while he’s British he now lives in Sweden…and we already had a British Steve) regaled us with tales of WOTF weeks past, and offered their advice to we new winners. I actually feel really lucky that I got this time to talk to Steve as we got on well and because his actual presentation to us the next day (on much the same topic) was cut a bit short due to scheduling problems.

On the way back to the hotel, Kim pointed out (jokingly) how she didn’t like a “wicked Canadian” in the running to “steal our American trophies.” I challenged her to a game of hockey to decide the matter. She thought she had the upper hand, pointing out that an American team (the Anaheim Ducks) had won the Stanley Cup this year…until I pointed out that most of the players on the Ducks (and on most NHL teams) are, in fact, Canadians…and that most of the rest are Europeans, with only a “token” American or two playing.

Us damn immigrants, eh? 😉

We got back to the hotel at 1130pm (sixteen hours and counting…) and it was time to read the stories…but I decided that had better wait until the next morning when, after several hours of sleep, I might manage to say something intelligent.

– S.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
TOMORROW: Thursday
– Bing…Bing…BINGBINGBING!
– JPL and the Shifty, Untrustworthy Canadian
– “Most of you will fail.”
– The Niven Disaster
– Kevin J. Anderson and the Palm Tree of Death

I woke up around 5am (which was really 8am my time) freaking out about having an apple as my inspirational item.

I’d started writing down ideas the night before, kind of brain-storming, word association, etc. but they all seemed really clichéd to me. The apple is just so done in our culture, isn’t it? Right from Genesis on down.

At some point I got thinking about another story I’d submitted to the WOTF about a tree museum (inspired by a Joni Mitchell song–points if you can tell me which song) and started thinking about apple trees. Hmm. Okay. Maybe I’ll reuse that idea. Kathy had written a note on the story saying that it was more like an outline than a real story–maybe I could resurrect the idea like I’d always meant to.

Knowing that today was to be the day we interviewed our stranger, I decided to wear blue. One of the few things I remember from my first year into to psychology class is that people wearing blue are perceived as more trustworthy, and I certainly didn’t need anyone thinking I was some weirdo asking questions (even though I was).

And blue brings out my eyes 🙂

We had a short class about research and interviewing–appropriate given our plans for the afternoon. Along with Tim and Kathy’s thoughts we read some of Hubbard’s articles on research and specifically on interviewing strangers. These were interesting–his main point being, rightly, that by talking to people who do what you’re writing about or who have lived through events you’d like to describe, your portrayal of same in the story will have the ring of truth about it even if it is fiction.

However, our interview was to be a little different. Unlike Hubbard, we were not to inform the person we were talking to that we were a writer seeking information for a story. We were simply to pry and pry and keep prying…until they called the police (which I’m told almost happened once…)

Then it was the walk to the library.

Here we are in the hotel lobby before heading to the library. That’s me center in the blue shirt–see what I mean about it bringing out my eyes? These informal hallway sessions are where we really learned. Just after this photo was taken, Tim showed us all the secret Masonic author handshake that guarantees access to the inner sanctum of sci-fi success… I mean…No he didn’t. Didn’t show us anything. Nothing at all.
(photo courtesy of WOTF/Galaxy Press)

On our walk to the library. Here is Pasadena City Hall
(which has a lovely Spanish courtyard and fountain).

Hugette took a number of pictures of us outside (she kept having to run into the dark of a doorway because the glare of the sun meant she couldn’t see the digital display on her camera–but that left us all withering in the heat).

A good lookin’ bunch. I’m in the back thinking: “I’m melting…Oh, what a world!”
(photo courtesy of WOTF/Galaxy Press)

At one point a random stranger tried to jump into the picture with us and started cracking jokes as he did so. He was covered in tattoos and looked pretty tough.

“Hmm,” I thought. “I bet he’s an ex-con. Maybe out from San Quentin. Wonder if I could interview him? That would make for an interesting story…”

“You should have mutilated those cattle on the very first page.”
– KD Wentworth

No sooner had my thought finished than pictures were over and we were set free until 5pm to do research in the library and interview our person. I turned to see where San Quentin had gone but Jeff Carlson was already walking down the street with him, talking.

D’oh!

(It turned out that they guy was an ex-con from San Quentin, on his way to see his parole officer. Ah, California).

I spent the next hour or so wandering through the stacks of the Pasadena public library, a beautiful building. I decided that the first order of business was to find and interview my random stranger, since I assumed that would be a lot harder than looking up books.

“This book–once you put it down you can’t pick it up again.”
– Tim Powers

My first potential was a guy I noticed in the basement (warning sign #1) sitting on the floor in the corner (warning sign #2) working intently taking notes on something. I casually picked a book from the shelf (I was in the biography section and spied a bio of Douglas Adams–fitting, I thought) and tried to suss out a little more of what he was doing in hopes of finding an in to a conversation.

Now closer I could see that he had a collection of items piled around him: a sleeping bag, a ladies’ change purse, some shopping bags, odds and ends. He had a bushy beard and wiry, unkempt hair.

Okay, a homeless person.

He looked up at me with a wild look that you’d not expect from your average library user.

Okay, a crazy homeless person.

When he saw me looking at him he muttered something (to me or himself I wasn’t sure)…and then reached down and zipped up his pants (WARNING SIGN #3! WARNING SIGN #3!) He had, it turned out, been scribbling intent notes about the Bible (the copy he held might have been his own, as certain passages were highlighted) and, getting up, he walked to the end of the stack where he stood, waiting for me to leave.

Afraid if I stayed any longer this man might eat me, I obliged him and went (ran) back upstairs.

“These people should be hospitalized.”
– Tim Powers

Next, I found a fellow I dubbed Samurai Man. He too was sitting on the floor reading, but as I casually wandered closer he seemed normal–no stack of worldly possessions, no muttering or frothing at the mouth. He was maybe a few years older than me, Latino, dressed pretty hip, and had his black hair pulled back into a topknot that reminded me of a samurai hairdo. Okay, interesting. But best of all he had one of those metal briefcases that spies carry. Ah ha! Perfect! That case alone could hold my whole story. Ever seen Pulp Fiction? What’s the macguffin they have in there?

Okay, now how to strike up conversation?

“Excuse me,” I said.

He looked up, annoyed at having been interrupted.

“If you don’t mind me asking: where did you get that briefcase?” I asked. “I’ve always wanted one like that.”

Then he named some intersection.

“Oh, is that here in town?”

“No. In LA,” he said, and not only went back to reading but turned his back to me. Now, I’m not expert in body language but I’m pretty sure that mean “Piss off, buddy.”

Strike two.

I wandered upstairs again, this time to the main floor and the periodicals reading room. Walking through I noticed a guy just sitting there in a chair, no reading material, but who had on a really nice gold watch. We made eye contact and he kinda smiled at me. I kept walking but only to seem casual. I doubled back, grabbed a National Geographic, and took up a seat near enough to him that we could talk.

I’d decided that the gold watch was to be my in.

Flipping through the magazine, I waited for a couple of other near-by people to leave before approaching the man. I didn’t want to disturb these folks, and I suppose part of me didn’t want to look like some nosy freak (though I felt a bit like one…)

But at that moment who appears but…Hugette! She sees me and starts snapping away with that giant camera. And not just a few photos–she spent what had to be 10 minutes taking shots of me from all angles. When the flashes started going off people starting looking up, no doubt wondering who I was, why I was having my picture taken, and what kind of crappy brand of anything would have such a homely model…I tried to pretend none of this was happening.

Me, attempting to look casually disinterested
in the giant camera taking flash photographs
of me in the library…
(photo courtesy of WOTF/Galaxy Press)

Eventually she moved on to find others. Soon after that (perhaps deterred by the flashes) the other people near us left as well.

“Say, that’s a nice watch,” I said.*

(* Now, you have to understand that earlier in the day we’d had a hilarious discussion in class about dialogue, and one of the examples of bad dialogue Tim used was Terminator 2. He (rightly) pointed out that when the T-1000, disguised as a cop, walks up to the motorcycle cop and says “Say, that’s a nice bike” the officer should have known that he was talking to a homicidal shapeshifting robot from the future and driven away as fast as he could because no one would ever really say that. Having just done so, however, I couldn’t help feel intensely awkward and hoped that this guy didn’t think I was a homicidal shapeshifting robot from the future.)

“Oh yes,” he said. “My ex-wife gave it to me for my birthday.”

And such was my introduction to Billy Bland of Hunstville, Alabama. Billy was an interesting guy. Divorced, with two kids in college, he’d been down on his luck for many years, and had moved out to Pasadena to be near his children. He was staying at the Mission down the street but was planning a trip to Fiji in the winter as the heat was good for his arthritis. He was apparently well-traveled, having been to Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto, all over Europe, and even up to Greenland (“Because I wanted to see it for myself,” he said). Mostly, though, he liked the Caribbean and the South Pacific (having been to Fiji fifteen times). The highest compliment he could pay a place he had visited was to say that he liked it because it was quiet. He also had an uncanny ability to know and recount every route of every transit system in every city he’d ever visited.

I suggested lunch so we could talk more and Billy knew a sandwich place nearby. We’d just got our order and were going to sit down when who should appear?

Yup. Hugette and her camera. She “just happened” to be passing by.

No doubt 🙂

Billy and me. He was very gracious about having his
photo taken by a complete stranger while having
lunch with a complete stranger.

(photos courtesy of WOTF/Galaxy Press)

On the way back to the library I pass the Jackie Robinson
Memorial. He grew up in Pasadena–who knew?

I returned to the library to finish my research and bumped into some of the others, a few of whom were still having problems finding someone to interview. I recommended against venturing to the basement.

Still fixated on reusing the tree museum idea I grabbed a stack of books on trees, forests, and greenhouses. Amongst these were some kids’ picture books and simple science books, which Kathy recommended we look at sometimes for good, basic descriptions of things.

And as I was researching trees I was approached by an elderly gentleman who wanted to know if I was an arborist. Now some stranger was interviewing me. I decided to interview back.

His name was Bob (this was my day for meeting ‘B’ people, apparently). He was an 88 year-old retired marketing director for Dow Chemical and used to travel a great deal for his job. His interest in trees was based on a curiosity about which kind of pine was out front of his condo (we eventually decided it was a Madagascar pine).

And that’s when Hugette found me again. She kept more of a distance this time, and I was able to point out John Burridge near-by and she went to photograph him instead (sorry, buddy 🙂

“Okay, now point to the book and pretend we’re talking about something…”
(photo courtesy of WOTF/Galaxy Press)

John and I left together, bumping into Andrea and Joe on the way back, and traded stories of our interviewees.

When we reassembled at 5pm we had a brief discussion of the afternoon, then a quick chat with our twin about what we’d decided to write about and our research and interview. After hearing my stuff Tony wasn’t convinced by the tree museum idea–he didn’t see how what I’d found from my interviewee was going to fit. Part of me had to admit that he was right.

“Still on about the trees, eh?”
(photo courtesy of WOTF/Galaxy Press)

Tim and Kathy gave us a run-down of what we were expected to do for the 24-hour story, and at 6pm we were dismissed to begin our writing odyssey. Heading back to our rooms, as we stepped off the elevator Tony said, sagely: “Don’t be too attached to your tree idea.”

The tux fitting was at 730pm in Sarah’s room, which was set up like the WOTF command center for the week. I met Marcus Collins and Randall Ensley, two of the illustrator winners, for this first time in the hallway outside. Randall was the artist who illustrated my story and is a really nice guy–and funny as hell. He wouldn’t give me any hints on what the drawing he’d done was though…

Also in the hall, as we waited to get in for measurements, I met Sean Williams, one of the judges for the contest. Sean was wonderful the whole week and would later give me some very good advice about making the transition to novels. He turned out to be one of the judges for my quarter and said that he enjoyed my story and thought it very original. I always take “original” as high praise because I’m usually worried about how hard it is to do something new in SF. This was very nice to hear.

Just as my measurements (36-24-36) were being read off by the tailor
to his assistant everyone in the room went quiet and listened intently…
(photo courtesy of WOTF/Galaxy Press)

After the fitting Doug, Jeff, and I went for (more) tacos and then quickly back to work. Tony’s words had echoed in my mind all night and when I sat down at 8:50pm to “think at the keyboard” as Tim had advised I realized Tony was right. After some quick brainstorming I realized that the material I’d gathered from Billy wanted to be told as a fantasy, not science fiction. I dashed down to the hotel’s (thankfully) 24-hour business center and did some quick Wikipedia searching on geomancy and ley lines. Things fell into place quite quickly and I knew (roughly) the story I wanted to tell.

I even knew how the apple would fit into the tale.

By 130am–when I could no longer key my eyes open–I had 500 words written.

I would be up again soon, though…

– S.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
TOMORROW: Wednesday
– Marathon Man
– Discovery of coffee-based life forms
– “Blogging–it’s so cool.”
– Kim Zimring and I agree to a steel cage death match…on ice!

For those of you in the Great Toronto Area, here’s a lecture you may care to attend. See you there!

Italian Science Fiction from 1952 to the Present
Valerio Evangelisti (author)

Thursday, September 20th, 2007
4.00 p.m.
Alumni Hall 400
121 St. Joseph Street
St. Michael’s College

A reception will follow.
RSVP (acceptances only) to 416-926-2345 or email: italian.studies@utoronto.ca.
Everyone is welcome and admission is free.

Valerio Evangelisti is one of the major figures in the current renaissance of genre fiction in Italy. Best known for the series of science fiction novels featuring the fourteenth-century inquisitor Nicolas Eymerich, the latest instalment of which, La voce di Orione, is forthcoming in October, he is also the author of a cycle of historical novels set in North America – Noi saremo tutto (2004), Il collare di fuoco (2005) and Il collare spezzato (2006) – in which he explores the history of the American labour movement and the relationship between the United States and Mexico. He has also written extensively on contemporary literature and on political and social issues, and is a frequent contributor to Italian and foreign periodicals such as Il manifesto, Liberazione and Le Monde Diplomatique.