It’s that writerly tradition: the year-end post! I don’t always make one, but I usually wish I had. This year I received the gift of an unexpected day off from work and I’m going to make the most of it! 2017 short fiction from me, which I hope you’ll kindly consider when making your award nominations: “Wooden Boxes Lined with the Tongues of Doves”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies: a bleak and difficult start to the year, even more than usual for my work. This story doesn’t make it easy for the reader. “Dinners in Wartime”, Liminal: this one’s also quite bleak, inspired by the suicide of someone I cared about. Trigger warning, friends; I don’t know if this story’s emotional payload will hit you the way it hit me to write, but please take care of yourselves. “Yellowcat”, Grain Magazine: not actually available to read online so you’ll have to trust me on how fantastic it is! “Le lundi de la matraque (Nightstick Monday)”, Strange Horizons: Immortal screwup Gus Hillyard returns in this story of a violent moment in Canadian history. Gus is always willing to take up someone else’s fight, and not always able to tease out who’s right or […]
Still riding that win…
Yes, that’s me, accepting my Sunburst Award from chair Rebecca Simkin (who is wonderful even apart from the fact that she has just handed me a medal and a cheque). I am, once again, so thrilled to be honoured this way. The other works and writers who have been recognized with this award are beyond amazing! Since I believe in celebrating wins when we get’em, I wore my medal all night at the bar. (I may or may not have worn it to bed.) This win is a very happy ending for Spells of Blood and Kin. It’s not totally an ending, of course–it remains in print and on sale in stores–but unless there’s a movie deal or something (hi, producers! You’re all reading this, right?) it will take a back seat to newer works. Some of those newer works will also be written by me (uh, not right away, but watch this space). I won’t be a debut novelist next time around. I’ll be a grizzled veteran (not a metaphor…you should see how much grey hair I have now). I can’t wait. 2017 has treated a lot of us roughly, I have to say, but I’m coming out of […]