Readers Theatre on the Horizon???

 

I haven’t been active in my Casey persona in recent years (as a writer, 

that is!) for two reasons:

 

I have been focussing on my Brigit writings, as Mael Brigde, and this 

has taken a lot of time and energy. (You can find a link to my book, 

blogs, etc. here.)

 

VCon, our annual SF convention here in Vancouver, Canada, has been 

absent for several years. Over the last year or two, volunteers have been 

hosting events in order to rebuild toward VCon, and I’ve enjoyed these 

very much, but as a regular attendee, not as a panelist. In November, 

they are presenting a one day convention called CONnections, and I 

have decided to pitch a readers theatre, as we have done in previous 

years as the Pallahaxi Players Readers Theatre. 

 

I hope this happens. I haven’t volunteered this time around to be on 

panels, and with the very sad and sudden death of Fran Skene, there is 

not likely to be a Turkey Reading (one of the greatest delights of VCons 

past, for me, at least), but I would love to sit down with fellow writers and 

read out something delightful for the audience.

 

We may have something in the can already, but if you have a short, 

stirring or humorous, play that would suit readers theatre*, we would be 

happy to see if your writing would be a fit for us. Or if you know of 

something in the public domain that would work well for an audience of 

SF and fantasy fans, we'd be interested in knowing about that, too.

If you are interested in participating at CONnections, you can pitch your 

idea here:

 

 

https://www.zeffy.com/en-CA/ticketing/connections-program-guest-inquiry

 

* Unlike actors memorising lines and acting with a set, we sit at a table 

together and read out our parts.

 

Image: “Alien Amor” by Laura Molina (Laura Molina/National Museum of Mexican Art) 

[CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

Another Fine Day...

 I should note that I mostly blog here now (and that not a lot!):

https://finedayscriptorium.blogspot.com/

“Eating Our Young” Rises Again!

 

“Eating Our Young” is a grim allegory about the way families can unthinkingly consume their members, told from the perspective of the youngest members of one family. First published in The Speed of Dark, edited by Clayton Bye (2013), it has been published in the current edition of Exile magazine in a selection of works by four authors from the upcoming speculative fiction anthology, The Food of My People. I'm happy to have this story see the light of day again.

You can find Exile magazine wherever Canadian literary journals are sold, or it can be ordered directly from the publisher here.

 

“Mrs. Zaberewsky” Rises Again

 

If you have ever longed to follow your artistic dream, only to have it squelched again and again, you will cheer on Witka, the protagonist of “Mrs. Zaberewsky.”

I was pleased to learn a week or so ago that the story “Mrs. Zaberewsky” was going to be published again, this time in a “Best Of” anthology from the free online speculative fiction magazine, Polar Borealis. Edited by Rhea Rose, it features short stories and poetry, and a fair whack of both; due to the tight word limit fr PB, there was room for more than the usual number of stories for a given anthology.

It features work by Y. M. Pang, Mary Choo, Taral Wayne and Walt Wentz, Lisa Timpf, Michael Donoghue, and many more.

Click HERE to reach Polar Borealis Magazine: A Free Online Magazine Devoted to Canadian Speculative Fiction

created by R. Graeme Cameron.

Pssst! Hey, you! Yes, YOU--the one who can't wait till the anthology comes out to find out about Witka in “Mrs. Zaberewsky.” Check out issue number one, here. 

Casey Interviews Eileen Kernaghan (in Bruce Gillespie's SF Commentary 101)

It's pretty much all in the title, folks. Follow this link to read the pdf of Australian SF fan Bruce Gillespie's latest fanzine, including an interview with the wonderful Eileen Kernaghan, long-time Canadian writer of scrumptious fantasy.

Enjoy!

New Beginnings Anthology -- Ready for Take-Off!

The launch for the New Beginnings anthology is right around the corner, and I'm looking forward to it. A portion of the proceeds from sales of this extremely varied collection are going to support Share Family and Community Services. New Beginnings and it's support of Share are the brain children of Erik D'Souza, author and now publisher in the Lower Mainland's Tri-Cities area. 

On Saturday, 20 July at the Port Moody Inlet Theatre and Galleria, there will be readings in three blocks, beginning at 2 PM and going till 5 PM. I'll be reading from my story, "Mother of the Star." in the 3-4 PM block. 

"Mother of the Star" follows the strange birth and troubled life of a rock star through the eyes of a mother he never knew. Careful attention to detail will tell you what star we are speaking of, and most of the story, but surely not all of it, is true.

Join us and enjoy an afternoon of literature and munchies. 

Image: Nederlands: Fahrenheit Twins live (c) by Marloes van Geel on Wikimedia, adapted by C. J. Wolf.

Who are the Pallahaxi Players? What is Readers Theatre?

Who are the Pallahaxi Players? What is Readers Theatre?

“Reader's theatre or Reader's theater is a style of theater in which the actors do not memorize their lines. Actors use only vocal expression to help the audience understand the story … This style of performance of literature was initially lauded because it emphasized hearing a written text as a new way to understand literature.” Wikipedia

The Pallahaxi Players is a group of fans and authors who like to perform (scripts in hand) short plays for the audiences of VCon—Vancouver’s premier science fiction, fantasy, and gaming convention. We are following in the tradition of Lonely Cry Theatre, founded by Michael G. Coney, who with fellow writers and hangers on entertained VCon audiences for years. Our name is an homage to the world found in his novels Hello, Summer, Goodbye (alternately published as Rax and Pallahaxi Tide) and I Remember Pallahaxi.

Recipient of the British Science Fiction Association Award, one Nebula, and five Aurora Awards, Michael G. Coney was a well loved man and an influential writer in the 1970s British Invasion, writing a variety of works that often lulled the reader into thinking she was reading fantasy only to discover it was finely wrought science fiction. Humour, character, place, and plot all played a large part in Mike’s works. He is greatly missed by those who knew him.

This year at VCon, as part of our celebration of the British Invasion, the Pallahaxi Players will be performing Mike’s first Lonely Cry offering, “Sex and Perversion in Gnomedom.”

VCON 42/Canvention 38: Science Fiction, Fantasy and Games: 5-7 October 2018. Hosted by WCSFA - West Coast Science Fiction Association and VCON.

Visit our Facebook page!

Mike Coney, External References:

“I think that [writing] has taught me always to be completely honest with the reader and never allow myself to take the easy way out for the sake of glib plot device.”

Casey June Wolf’s first contact with Mike Coney’s books (“though I’d known Mike and his Lonely Cry Readers Theatre for some years”): “Pallahaxi Mike,” Den Page of Casey June Wolf, Friday, September 16, 2005.

“Michael Coney: Science-fiction writer whose readability hid inner depths” by Christopher Priest. The Guardian, Thu 1 Dec 2005 09.31 GMT.

Michael's Spyglass: an Interview with Mike Coney by C. June Wolf. Strange Horizons, Issue: 6 february 2006.

Review of “Hello Summer, Goodbye and I Remember Pallahaxi by Michael G. Coney” by Colin Harvey. Strange Horizons, Issue: 28 July 2008.

Excerpt from Pallahaxi Tide by Michael G. Coney, read by Casey June Wolf. FintanSparky, 22 Oct 2011.

Michael G. Coney Wikipedia page.

Summary Bibliography: Michael G. Coney, The Internet Speculative Fiction Database.

Image: "Alien Amor" by Laura_Molina (Laura Molina/National Museum of Mexican Art) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

"Delta Marsh" Free Online (read or listen)

Michael DeLuca, publisher of Reckoning, "An annual journal of creative writing on environmental justice", has been one by one releasing online the stories from Reckoning's second annual issue. My story, "Delta Marsh," became available this month. You can read it online (in a very clear and easy format) or you can listen to or download (!) the podcast--read by yours truly.

Enjoy "Delta Marsh" and all the other offerings of writing and art that DeLuca has pulled together for you.

Cheers!

Casey

Two Stories Upcoming in "The Food of My People"

I am very happy to note that two of my stories, one new and the other a reprint, have been accepted for the anthology, The Food of My People, edited by Ursula Pflug and Candas Jane Dorsey.

The two are very different stories.

"The One That Gets Away", set on the west coast of Vancouver Island, tells the story of a man obsessed with fishing for dogfish from a pier.

"Eating Our Young", which was first published in the small press anthology, The Speed of Dark, looks at the plight of two young children who are regularly eaten by their family and left to recover.

I suppose they sound equally grim, in a way, but the one is an exploration, an awakening, and the other is a painful close-up of unwitting cruelty and its effects.

One of the requirements of the book is a recipe to go with each story. Both of these were a challenge for me, considering I don't actually eat sharks or children. But in the end I was able to find recipes that made sense with the stories, and now I am eagerly awaiting the publication of the book, so that I can discover all the other stories presented in the book.

"Delta Marsh" published in Reckoning 2

I'm happy to report that my story "Delta Marsh" is included in this year's Reckoning magazine (Reckoning 2). The story burbled up one day many years ago when I made a visit to the marsh and the research station there. I left it for ages and then came across it again, rewrote it, and discovered Michael J. deLuca's wonderful magazine. It felt like a great fit for the story and how lovely that the editor agreed. 

I've also recorded a podcast of the story (at the Vancouver Public Library's wonderful and free Inspiration Lab)--Michael will likely post it when my story is made available on the website. The way this works is, over the next few months the stories listed in the table of contents below will be put up on the website. So if you want to have a read of the stories very very gradually, you can get them this way. (Though they won't be a lovely epub download like the full anthology). "Delta Marsh" will probably come out at the end of March. I'll keep you posted.

Here's a little idea of what you will find in the journal, and links to where you can buy it ($7 US). Michael is also going to be releasing the stories one at a time online, though I'm not sure exactly where. Check here to see what's up.

Reckoning 2

A locus for the conflict between the world as it has become 
and the world as we wanted it to be. 

Ebook release: December 21, 2017. e-ISBN: 9780998925226
Ebook available now!
Weightless Books
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

Print release: June 21, 2018.
248 pages, 67,000 words.

Contents

Art

Cover: Rebirth – Archan Nair
Disintigreetings – Pepe Rojo
Once It Was a Tree – Oneslutriot

Poetry

Earthspun – Krista Hoeppner Leahy
The Bull Who Bars the Gate to Heaven – Zella Christensen
I’m the Villain, Ok? – Mary Alexandra Agner
A Hundred Years From Now – Mohammad Shafiqul Islam
Development – F.J. Bergmann
Will We Be Good and Kind At The End – Kelly Madden

Fiction

A Wispy Chastening – D.A. Xaolin Spires
Rumpelstiltskin – Jane Elliott
To the Place of Skulls – Innocent Ilo
Girl Singing with Farm – Kathrin Köhler
The Complaint of All Living Things – Joanne Rixon
Fourth-Dimensional Tessellations of the American College Graduate – Marie Vibbert
Delta Marsh – Casey June Wolf
The Shale Giants – Marissa Lingen
An Oasis of Amends – Floris M. Kleijne
The Alice Grey – Santiago Belluco
Lanny Boykin Rises Up Singing – Jess Barber
Night of No Return – Grace Seybold

Nonfiction

Editor’s Note: On Having a Kid in the Climate Apocalypse – Michael J. DeLuca
A Ghost Can Only Take – Justin Howe
From Paris, With Rage – George F.
‘You are from the U.S.’ – Yukyan Lam
A Kinder And More Caring Future? – Brian Francis Slattery