I haven’t posted for a while because I’ve been out of town: four trips in six weeks, making for a very dense and colourful summer. Most of my writing time has been in airports. Why have I been travelling, you ask? Mostly family stuff, but some important writing stuff: Readercon. I flew down with Leah Bobet and Gemma Files–a veritable convoy of Canadian talent. This was my third time attending, and some things have begun to feel like traditions (the Viable Paradise Saturday night dinner at Redbones, the greasy spoon breakfast with Chang and Marko). Other things were shiny and new, particularly the Outer Alliance meetup, at which I experienced a spontaneous and utterly thrilling occurrence–I got to sign people’s copies of Beyond Binary. Photo by Julia Rios: Expect to see me on panels this coming year, assuming the con programming committee wants me–I think I am ready to start speaking as well as listening. The other recent writing benchmark was not so positive: for the first time, I reached double-digit rejections on a single story, which at the time of this post has still not been sold. For comparison, one of my most successful stories has two sales and […]
Best Canadian Speculative Writing
Imaginarium 2012 is coming to bookstores in July! I’m pretty excited about this–I’ve never been in a Year’s Best Anything before, and holy mackerel, look at the other names on that table of contents. David Nickle! Amal El-Mohtar! Gemma Files! Cory Doctorow! Peter Watts! A great day for Ideomancer all round: honourable mentions also went to Ian Donald Keeling’s Ideomancer story, “Broken”, and to publisher Leah Bobet’s “Stay”. I also find it strange and hilarious that both of the anthologies I’ve been in this year have cover images featuring a face with an eye full of binary code: […]
Story Hat Trick
I remember saying to my husband, while writing “Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All-Female Production of Waiting for Godot“, that no one other than me would ever want to read this story*. Then I sold it. Then I sold it again. Then I discovered that Ellen Datlow gave it an honourable mention in Best Horror of the Year #4. You know what? Now I’m going to finish writing all the other stories that I was sure no one would want to read. *He reads all of them anyway. That’s one of many reasons why he’s my husband. […]
Story Day!
“Nightfall in the Scent Garden” is up today. This is one of several stories I’ve written about unrequited love: in this case, the love a teenaged lesbian feels for her best friend, who is straight. It’s also about the Queen of Faerie, who you do not want to meet. And most of all, it’s about bargains, and how we don’t always know what we’re giving up. The scent garden is a real place which I visited as a child–I’ve been meaning to set a story there for ages, and I finally found the right one. […]
“I have seen the sunrise over the river”
DONE. This book is so done. Right on schedule. *genius hands* Now I’ve got a whole other week to do my agent queries, finish and submit the stories in the pipe, vote for the Nebulas, set up my con arrangements for the rest of the year and conduct other writerly business. Whose life is this? Mine, mine, mine. […]
In which there is counting
It’s the end of the year, almost. I shouldn’t be writing this post, because there are a few things still to come in before the real year-end, but I find myself at the computer just now with an urge to do it, and I can always update you guys again later, right? EDIT: within 24 hours of the original version of this post, I received both a rejection and an acceptance, which are now included in the data below! Number of new stories published: 1Number of podcasts published: 1Number of stories subbed: 6 (new record!)Rejections: 8New sales to pro markets: 1Reprint sales: 2 (1 podcast, 1 anthology)Fastest response: Clarkesworld (less than 1 day)Slowest response: Tor.com (still pending, subbed in July 2010)Most rejected story: 6 and countingRejections due to closed markets or cancelled publications: 3 (bad luck year in that regard)Milestones: joined SFWA […]
In which I will be anthologized!
Brit Mandelo has made the official announcement of the table of contents for Beyond Binary here, and I’m in it! This looks like such an awesome collection of stories: “Sea of Cortez” by Sandra McDonald“Eye of the Storm” by Kelley Eskridge“Fisherman” by Nalo Hopkinson“Pirate Solutions” by Katie Sparrow“‘A Wild and a Wicked Youth’” by Ellen Kushner“Prosperine When it Sizzles” by Tansy Rayner Roberts“The Fairy Cony-Catcher” by Delia Sherman“Palimpsest” by Catherynne M. Valente“Another Coming” by Sonya Taaffe“Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All-Female Production of Waiting for Godot” by Claire Humphrey“The Ghost Party” by Richard Larson“Bonehouse” by Keffy R. M. Kehrli“Sex with Ghosts” by Sarah Kanning“Spoiling Veena” by Keyan Bowes“The Metamorphosis Bud” by Liu Wen Zhuang“Schrodinger’s Pussy” by Terra LeMay Beyond Binary will be coming out in May from Lethe Press. […]
In which I play with Babelfish
Here’s a paragraph from the middle of the story I’m working on. I used Babelfish to translate it into Mandarin and back again. …It was a bit clearer in the original. “The new cat, the starting, strolls by to smell the decision in mine face. His student opened in the shadow width. He invested his nose to me, and his whisker has itched my cheek.” Here’s something from the first scene: “In the air, contains the fat wool one kind of sickness warm smell or the cotton material: I imagined a rug merchant to try from any clean 50 year stain once was jewelry bright kilim.” In slightly less random news, I am officially a member of SFWA, as of today. Also, I recently sold a story to PodCastle, and this will be my first audio publication. […]
In which it is Story Day!
My latest work: “Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All-Female Production of Waiting for Godot”. I had a lot of trepidation about this story, and I’m so glad the wonderful editors at Strange Horizons gave it a home. My high school actually did perform this play with an all-female cast. I can’t remember who they were, sadly–and none of them were Ginevra–but they did a wonderful and very memorable job. Ladies, if any of you ever happen to read this, thanks for absolutely laying waste to my little teenage mind, in the best possible way. […]
Pillow book of awesome
One spends the morning dancing in the kitchen, singing along with Aimee Mann and Wolf Parade. One fries an egg, and lays it on toast with kimchee. One’s colleagues laugh at one’s jokes. One tastes a beer so perfectly brewed that it causes hop vines to bloom in one’s mouth. One attends a rock show. One sells a story. […]