So I spent this past weekend in Ottawa with nearly all of my dearest friends from high school, and had a complete blast.

However, on the drive home after thinking objectively about how we talk around one another, I finally understand how the language used by the Children of Tama in the ST:TNG episode ‘Darmok’ evolved.

You see, my friends and I (in a painful display of our alpha geekness) can carry on entire conversations is dialog borrowed (primarily) from movies and television. We can perfectly express thoughts, feelings, desires, etc. using this borrowed shorthand grammar and I’m certain that’s how the Tamarian language developed.

(My brothers Martin and Charlie are even more fluently advanced in this shorthand language–drawn for them mostly from Simpsons episodes and dialog from Homestar Runner–to the point where even I’m confused and my parents are just terrified.)

Even if you’re only a casual fan of TNG, you’ve likely heard the phrase “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” uttered one or twice before. What I couldn’t figure out when first watching that episode in 1991 was how they could have developed this metaphorical language–they would first have needed a basic shared language in which to tell the stories that later became the metaphors (shortcuts) in which they communicate.

It took me 16 years, but I see now that the Tamarians once had a basic language (likely American English if we go by every other ‘alien’ race on Star Trek…) which was subsumed by this shorthand grammar taken from their stories. Eventually, the original basic language was lost, and only the shorthand remained. One wonders if this shorthand language precludes the telling of new stories, or whether new names of people and places can simply be inserted in old metaphors to relate new ideas (the way the Tamarian first-officer does at the end of the episode when he says: “Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel”.

See the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night? I wonder about the linguistic development of alien languages. This is how an SF writer thinks, I guess.

– S.

Ever since he got drafted 13th overall in the 1997 entry draft by the Chicago Blackhawks, I’ve been keeping an eye on the career of Daniel Cleary.

See, when I was in Grade 10 at Regiopolis-Notre Dame in Kingston, Ontario there was a new student who showed up one day named Dan Cleary, a young hockey player from Newfoundland, who’d been sent to Kingston to play hockey because (no word of a lie) his parents always heard Don Cherry on Coach’s Corner talking about how Kingston is a great hockey town.

Dan and I weren’t that close (we had English and Drama classes together, the highlights of which were, respectively, Dan offering me $50 to write an essay for him–turned down, because I don’t work for less than $100–and an hilariously profane Jerry Springer Show skit in which he played some trailer park floosie–in a kilt borrowed from one of the girls in our class–and I played Ross Perot–who was all the rage at the time) but he was a nice enough guy, said hello in the halls, that kind of thing. Plus he had a great story and lofty dreams of NHL stardom, and I admired that (having some lofty dreams of my own) and looked forward to when I could say: “Hey–I went to high school with that guy!”

Turns out we both moved away for Grade 11 (me to a little town called Perth, ON and Dan to Belleville to play for their OHL team, the Bulls) but I always remembered to keep my eye out for him if he ever made it to the NHL.

Well, like I said he was drafted in 1997 and has bounced around the NHL (and the professional hockey wilderness) a bit, but has really started to come into his own since signing with the Detroit Red Wings after the lockout.

There’s an article in the Globe & Mail today about him and his performance in Game 3 of the Red Wing/Flames series.

Guess who I’m cheering for?

– S.

Some kind words from Trent Hergenrader, fellow SF writer and one of my first readers.

Of my recent sale of CITIUS, ALTIUS, FORTIUS Trent says: “I’m happy to say I read the story prior to this announcement and yup, it’s no wonder it sold.”

You can see the whole post here on Trent’s blog.

What a nice guy 🙂

And this story owes a special debt to Trent (i.e.: he prevented me from looking stoopid) thanks to his knowledge of international athletic competitions (from his affiliation with the United States Soccer Federation–he’s a footie fanatic). Apparently, once you compete for a nation internationally, whether amateur or professional, you can’t jump to some other country. I’d never have known unless Trent pointed that out…

Trent is a really great writer (and I am lucky enough to get to read his stories in advance from time to time); a graduate of Clarion, he’s sold to Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, Cicada, and Fantasy & Science Fiction amongst others. He’s currently doing an MA, en route to a PhD, in English/Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

For those of you who were attending members of the 2006 Worldcon in Los Angeles or who will be a supporting or attending member of the 2007 Worldcon in Japan, Trent’s second year of eligible for the John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award is coming up. Keep your eye on him!

– S.

Hi all –

I got a lovely surprise today when I opened my e-mail and discovered that the Easter Bunny brought a message from Holly Phillips and Cory Doctorow informing me that my story CITIUS, ALTIUS, FORTIUS has been accepted for inclusion in TESSERACTS 11. The contract is in the mail!

CITIUS, ALTIUS, FORTIUS is a story about corporate nations, the Olympics, genetic modification, and how dreams have a way of not turning out the way you expect.

The Tesseracts series of books began in 1985 (the first volume was edited by Judith Merril) as a showcase for Canadian SF. Now published by EDGE Books of Calgary, each volume is edited by a rotating group of notables in the Canadian SF scene. This year’s editors are Holly Phillips and Cory Doctorow, and past editors have included Robert J. Sawyer, Nalo Hopkinson, Robert Charles Wilson, Phyllis Gotlieb, Geoff Ryman, and Edo Van Belkom.

This will be the eleventh volume in the series (plus one volume–Tesseracts Q–of translations of stories by Québécois authors) and according to the EDGE Books website, the collection is due out in November 2007. It will be my third publication this year (and third publication ever, coincidentally 🙂

“Hoppy” Easter,

– S.

Happy Easter everybody!

– S.

PS: That’s a traditional Ukrainian & Russian Easter greeting in the blog title. Bonus points for anyone who knows the response 😉

Congratulations to Karen (of Fledglings fame) and her husband Aaron on the birth of their first child, a daughter, Liane Judith Audrey Coholan, who was born in the wee hours of March 25th.

Liane was a healthy 8 lbs 3 oz (don’t know when we’ll weigh babies in metric…) and from what Karen said at Ad Astra, will be enrolled in kickboxing classes as soon as she can stand on her own (it is the sport of the future, I’m told).

Welcome to the third planet from the sun, Liane. You’ll always be “Coco” to me 🙂

– S.

At long last, the other of my editors, Jana Paniccia, has a website of her very own.

www.janapaniccia.com

Go check it out. Right now.

– S.

Apparently I look like John Mayer…Does that mean I get to date Jessica Simpson, too?

– S.

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.

Hi all –

The Writers of the Future blog has posted my report (and some familiar photos) about the WOTF panel at Ad Astra.

The headline of the post is “More Ad Astra News from Stephen Kotowych“…but I can’t find the original news they posted about the con 🙂

Ah well.

I’ve also happened upon this Flickr page of photos posted by Rebecca Simkin. Included are a bunch from Julie Czerneda’s pizza par-tay.

– S.