I just finished speaking with John Goodwin from Galaxy Press and doing a bit of pre-interview prep.

On Monday, Nov. 5 I’m going to be interviewed on Kitchener’s Rogers TV Cable 20 morning show ‘Daytime‘ about my Grand Prize win and story in this year’s Writers of the Future. So any of you in the K-W can tune in and see my five minutes of interview glory.

While I don’t get the channel here in Toronto, John tells me that he’ll be ordering a copy of the interview from the station and will send it to me later on.

– S.

So I know it’s been a while since I last posted, but things have been pretty hectic in my life the last little while, and what free time I have had I’ve been spending getting to know the love of my life a bit better.

In any case, I at last have my internet connection at home so should be able to keep on top of things here at my digital frontier a bit better.

And as a series of posts today will detail, I have a lot coming up in the next little while…

– S.

Well, with the possible exception of Christopher Pike, the principle cast of the new JJ Abrams-helmed Star Trek film appears to be set. Your new crew is:

Chris Pine as Kirk

Karl Urban as McCoy

Anton Yelchin as Chekov

Simon Pegg as Scotty

Zachary Quinto as Spock

John Cho as Sulu

Zoë Saldana as Uhura

Hmmm…

While I remain dubious of the whole endeavour, I’ll reserve judgment until I see the finished product.

There’s some talent amongst the new cast, that’s clear. Though I think only the new Spock, Uhura and Chekov look anything like the original actors (you have to admit–the guy playing Chekov already has the weird Monkees hairdo down…)

– S.

…I now do.

Last night, as promised, I bought myself a brand new MacBook Pro. I spent all night trying it out, installing software…Oh, I love it so.

I even love the box.

It sits in the corner, awe-inspiring, like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey…

– S.

Okay–just saw this on YouTube and was thoroughly impressed not only at the creativity (who would think of something like this!?) but at the sheer manual dexterity…Oh, and I’ve always liked this song, too, which is a bonus.

I’ve been convinced since childhood that women’s and girl’s brains and reflexes are wired differently than men’s, allowing them to do things like this. It first occurred to me in grade school when the girls would play elaborate games of paddycake in which a single complex sequence of motions would last all of recess. And no boy I ever knew, no matter how hard the girls tried to teach him, and no matter how hard he tried to learn, could ever last more than a few moves.

Frustrated, we boys would run off to play something less mind-consuming, like tag.

– S.

Hey gang –

On Tuesday, November 6th from 6pm-9pm come to the World’s Biggest Book Store (20 Edward Street in Toronto) to meet this year’s L. Ron Hubbard Writer’s of the Future Grand Prize winner Stephen Kotowych (that’s me), and 2nd Place winner Tony Pi, who will be signing copies of this year’s anthology, L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writer’s of the Future XXIII, which features our award-winning stories.

Robert J. Sawyer, a judge of this year’s contest, and past writing teacher of both Tony and myself, will also be in attendance signing copies of his work.

Don’t worry, you’ll be getting another reminder or two of this event as the date approaches, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to announce it now since it’s been officially posted on the World’s Biggest Bookstore’s Sci-Fi Fan Letter Blog (say that three times fast…)

– S.

Tony Pi, Mike Rimar, Sarah Totton, and myself were all in attendance for our WOTF instructor/guru Tim Power’s talk this weekend at the Merrill Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy.

Rather than a how-to-write talk, Tim’s presentation was one of the most compelling arguments I’ve ever heard as to the relevance and merits of reading and writing fantasy fiction.

In the audience were a number of Eng lit students (including one professor) who quizzed Tim afterward about fantasy’s relationship to allegory, magical realism, etc. Tim, himself an English lit student, had some interesting thoughts.

This got me wondering whether any one would ever ask such questions of science fiction…I decided probably not, mostly because I fear I’d never be able to handle myself in a similar situation as deftly as Tim. I assume questions I’ll be asked will be mostly of the “Do you know all the science in your story is wrong?” variety…

Here’s all of us. Not exactly sure why Tim–the Guest of Honour–is the one crouching down front. He insisted. We’ve been trying to come up with a name for the four Toronto-area WOTF winners. Mike offered The Gang of Four (which I liked), but Sarah’s suggestion of The Usual Suspects could sway me, so long as I get to be Fenster.
Photo courtesy of Sarah Totton

Mike has a nice write up (and more pictures) on his blog here.

– S.

So the weekend before Thanksgiving, Karen Danylak (from my writer’s group) was kind enough to throw me a party in congratulations for my Grand Prize win at the Writers of the Future. We all trekked out to her and husband Aaron’s new house in Pickering and a good time was had by all. But as I just got the photos now (there having been some confusion about where the USB cable for the camera was) I’ve waited to post until now:

Tony and I set up our trophies on the buffet–a complete set!

There was a great spread of food provided by Karen,
including these congratulatory cupcakes.

Besides Karen, in attendance were many of the friends I’ve made over the last few years in the Toronto SF writer community, including: Tony Pi (fellow WOTF winner), Mike McPherson (from the Fledglings and award-winning author in his own right…write?), Suzanne Church (who regaled us with tales of interviewing Jamie Bamber at DragonCon), Arlene and Brad Carson (also of Fledglings fame, and who brought champagne!), Ian and Jane Ann McLachlin and their daughter Amanda (again, Fledglings), as well as Jana Paniccia (my editor from Under Cover of Darkness), and Nebula Award Nominee Karina Sumner-Smith (who we spent most of the evening convincing to go to World Fantasy in November–she eventually relented and is going to come).

Opening the champagne Brad and Arlene brought. In proof that all those
years I worked at the LCBO weren’t wasted, I opened the champagne properly—
without popping the cork and shattering a window and without spilling a drop.

Later in the evening, Rob Sawyer and his Wife Caroline Clink arrived fresh from Dawson City, Yukon! They’d been back in town less than 24 hours and had to be up early the next morning to attend Toronto’s annual Word on the Street festival. It meant a great deal to me that they were able to come, as without Rob I never would have been part of the Fledglings and might never have even entered, let alone won, the Writers of the Future.

Rob, and me, and the bling. Sadly Tony had to leave early–
it would have been nice to get a photo with the three of us.

And around 9pm who should show up be James Alan Gardner, great writer and all-around good guy, and fellow WOTF Grand Prize Winner (he won in 1989). As only the second Canadian Grand Prize winner I feel very fortunate to be in Jim’s company. And to show you what kind of a classy guy Jim is he ducked out of a wedding in which he was best man in order to come! He said he couldn’t miss the party. What a guy. Foolishly, however, I forgot to get a photo with him, too.

Later in the evening we started seeing how many words we could make from the remaining cupcakes. Eventually we got down to APE ONE (which sounds like some weird spaceship that Richard Branson is funding…) Yes, this is how writers entertain themselves at parties.

We watched (on Aaron’s gorgeous widescreen LCD TV) the DVD of the award ceremony and speeches that Galaxy Press had provided. Tony had insisted I bring it and I only agreed because he gets so uncomfortable watching himself 🙂 People seemed to get a kick out of reading my lips when they announced my name…I can’t imagine why.

All in all it was a fabulous evening and I’m very grateful (and very touched) that Karen did so much to organize it for me.

– S.

So the little hit counter I have on my page offers no end of fun statistics. You may view my blog, true believer, but like Nietzsche’s abyss I’m able to view you as well.

I’m able to tell that 74.4% of you use WinXP (only a combined 15% of you use some version of Mac OS) and that 56.2% of you are Internet Explorer users (which is odd, because everyone I know uses Firefox yet only 35.6% of you do–I guess I don’t know very many of you 🙂

I can also tell where you’ve been referred to my site from (a crushing 97.3% of you use Google), what your screen resolutions are (kudos to the 13 of you running 1280×768), and even how many bits of colour you use (21 of you run 24 bit colour).

As I mentioned previously, I can also see where you’ve visited from. Some of the more recent exotic locales visitors have come from include:

South Africa

India

Italy

Switzerland

Estonia

Argentina

Croatia/Hrvatska

Brazil

Belarus

Japan

Morocco

There’s also been a recent spike in the number of people visiting from Austria. Not sure why. Maybe I’m on my way to being the next David Hasselhoff? Hello Austria!

Anyone who thinks there’s privacy anymore is nuts.

The most fun, however, is BlogCounter‘s list of the Top 40 Keywords that have led you all here. The first few are pretty obvious: Stephen Kotowych, Kotowych, Blogowych, etc. But there are some curious ones, too.

My favorite keywords so far?

california here i come writer

readhair (I don’t recommend typing that into Google while you’re at the office, by the way. Of course you’re all going to now…)

is twelve an overestimated novel

special rock from the moon

bringing your body into a perfect shape 36-24-36

jordans that came out in september

space pen writer

picture of the boomerang fish thrower

and, best of all…leather pants university of toronto

I’m not making any of those up. How could I? I’m not that good a writer.

Now the real question is: do these bizarre keywords say more about you as readers or me as the one who generated content which somehow relates to these keywords?

– S.

I’m pleased to announce that Writers of the Future XXIII is now available as an audiobook from Audible.com.

This is the first WOTF volume to be available as an audiobook, and needless to say we writers were all pretty excited that it was going to be our volume released as an audiobook when we were let in on the secret a few hours before the award ceremony.

From what I “hear” it’s a really first-rate production 😉

You can download your copy here.

– S.