Author Archives: Stephen

Stephen Kotowych Wins the Writers of the Future Competition

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I’m very pleased to make the “Big Announcement” that I’d promised about my writing. And the announcement is bigger than I’d even hoped! I’m please to be able to tell you that I’ve just won first place in the quarterly Writers of the Future contest.

The Writers of the Future contest is open to new and amateur short story writers in science fiction or fantasy. Submissions are blind judged by some of the top writers in the field, including Robert Silverberg, Frederik Pohl, Robert J. Sawyer, Jerry Pournelle, Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, and Larry Niven.

My first place finish means a cash prize, publication in the annual Writers of the Future Anthology (in this case, Volume 23), a trip to a week-long writer’s workshop run by some of the contest’s judges, and a gala awards dinner. One of the year’s four first place stories will be chosen the Grand Prize winner at the dinner and its author will receive an additional $5,000 US in prize money.

The contest organizer has asked that I not reveal the name of the story yet, so you’ll have to wait and find out!

And don’t worry; I won’t let this win go to my head. I’ve already been taken down a couple of pegs since I found out yesterday. First, this morning I got a rejection letter from the British magazine, Interzone, for another story I’d submitted there. And second, when I told my dad I’d won a contest for a piece of my writing he said: “Then why are you so bad at Scrabble?” 🙂

– S.

Chinese Democracy

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After something like 15 years, rumour has it that the long-awaited Guns ‘n Roses album Chinese Democracy will finally drop on 21 Nov 2006. My friend (and her father) apparently have tickets for the show at the Air Canada Centre here in Toronto.

“Now what, pray tell,” you might wonder, “does this have to do with Steve’s writing career?”

Well, nothing really.

As it says in the slug line up top this is “personal and professional” updates.

So as a long-ago GnR fan, and being given to flights of fancy and/or delusions of grandeur as an SF author, I merely want to state my sincere belief that Chinese Democracy (should it ever surface) will be the greatest musical achievement in human history.

After 15 years of waiting, this album will not only actually usher in democracy in China and in all other oppressed regions of the world, but will inspire world peace, universal harmony, and the brotherhood of all mankind. It shall be all things to all people, and its utter musical perfection is such that human beings everywhere will simply stop making music because, it will be realized, everything human beings have ever tried to say through music—love, loss, hope, despair, yearning, fulfillment—has now be said definitivly by the songs of Chinese Democracy.

Assuming, of course, that Axl doesn’t storm off stage first…

– S.

Under Construction – Hardhats and Boots Required at All Times

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Hi all –

Well, given that this is my first foray into the “blogosphere” (so called) it’s safe to assume this blog will be a beta (the Beta Blog??) for the next few weeks while I decide what I’d like to have up here.

I’ll promise you one thing now, though: there will be a fairly BIG piece of news forthcoming about my writing in the next three weeks or so…Stay tuned here for more news!

TTFN

– S.

Semper ubi sub ubi.

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