Cover Art Up!

The cover for Canadian Tales of the Fantastic Vol. 4 is up, along with the list of authors and all the info needed for pre-orders. (Release scheduled for September 2014.) 

Not bad, eh?

From the Red Tuque website:

Title: Canadian Tales of the Fantastic Volume IV
Authors: Jennifer Pohl, Virginia Laveau, Casey Wolf, Dana Luken, Derek Donais, Deborah Cannon, Shirley Barr, Jennifer R. Albert, Caroline Todd, Stephen Boylen, Frank Babics, Drew Davis, Louis Groarke
ISBN: 9781927049037
Publisher: Red Tuque Books
Pages:180
Price: 15.95

***** Release Date September 1, 2014 *****

We have in this collection, worlds of ghosts and terror, re-workings of traditional and native myth, moral twists, hair-raising pilgrimages, humorous pastiches, 'tongue-in-cheek' underworlds, enchanted hockey games, the exploration of life after death, near future SF. These stories form somewhat of an odyssey, and it's inspiring to see such evocative material being presented by Canadian writers.

 - Chris Turner, author of Tales of Other Worlds.

It was a pleasure to act as a judge for the anthology, and to see clearly that Canada's writing community is as strong as ever. Each story created a vivid world into which the reader was swept, and a common strength of the stories was this ability to set the scene.

 - Bennett R. Coles, author of Virtues of War.

With gnomes, ghosts, witches, shape-shifters, time travellers, Ogopogo, world building yoga and hockey, this eclectic collection of thirteen Canadian stories of the Fantastic has a little something for everyone. I hope the readers of this anthology will enjoy the stories as much as I did.

 - David Korinetz, author of FireDrakes.

Third Place for the Posture

I'm pleased to announce that my story "Posture of the Infinite" took third place in the Red Tuque writing contest, and will be published in its upcoming anthology, Canadian Tales of the Fantastic, Vol. 4.

See the post below for more details.

Cheers!

Story Sale: Posture of the Infinite

As most of you will know I dropped out of circulation a couple of years ago when I received a cancer diagnosis. Instead of writing stories I became focussed on my health. I'm no longer worried about this particular bout of cancer, and have been gradually catching up on projects I let go at that time.


Over the Christmas holidays I spent a couple of weeks revising four stories I had written and sent out and not followed up on when they came home, hats in hand. One of these was "Posture of the Infinite", which I wrote in 2010 as a prize for Elisa Jankowski, a participant in my Bitten By Books Interview and Chat. You can follow this link to find out how the prize worked and what the story is about, roughly, and this one to see her response to the story.


Well, 2010 was a long time ago and when I dusted off the story I had an urge to change it a wee bit, which I did and then sent it off to Red Tuque Books for their upcoming anthology Canadian Tales of the Fantastic Volume IV. (Look for it in September of this year.) I am happy to report that "Posture" made the first cut. This means it will be in the anthology, but there is a second round of blind judging where the first, second, and third prizes are decided, and "Posture" is now in that round.


Some of you may remember that Eileen Kernaghan and I did the second round judging for the first Canadian Tales of the Fantastic in early 2011. So it is fun to have a story going into its successor.


Red Tuque releases an anthology annually, but the theme varies. The first was speculative fiction, the second mysteries, the third romance. The one now announced with a deadline of 31 December 2014 is mysteries again. So sharpen those pencils, folks...


Moment of misery: I've spent an hour trying to get Blogger to upload an image for this post. Not at all happy with Google's mucking about. Oh, for the halcyon days of yore...

Posture of the Infinite: She Likes It!

Anantasana

I just wanted to share with you Elisa's comments on "The Posture of the Infinite", the story I wrote for her (as a prize, using her prompts. See my interview with Bitten By Books).

Spoiler Alert!

You are right - the story isn't exactly what I prompted for, but I think that's a good thing.   :)

There were moments where the story reminded me of The Epic of Gilgamesh, which is one of my favorite stories from my time at University studying literature and history. I love the idea that Daya had great knowledge (and therefore power) with each life/species she experienced, and yet all she wanted was to help someone else. She didn't complain about an inability to control her fate, nor did she scheme for which incarnation she desired next, she just gave.

And I liked that as she transformed with each position, it symbolized each being she has been or will be. Which of course begs the question: is the posture of the infinite each pose you take, or is it the essence of your soul (no matter what form you've taken) in each lifetime? Personally, I feel her desire to interact with others in a positive matter is the Posture of the Infinite. Perhaps that's my rosy outlook on how humanity should be - I can't shake my naïveté sometimes - but that's what I got from Daya.

A fitting story to be dedicated to me, to be certain!

Thank you so much for tackling my prompt, the result was perhaps experimental and literary, but a great experiment at that.  

Elisa Jankowski

Now, to send the story out somewhere. (My, I'm lax.)

The Prizes: "Roksana" & "Posture of the Infinite"

Back in the mists of time I did an interactive interview and chat for Bitten By Books. The prizes included a poem and a story written to specs given by the winners. (Within limits. See the bottom of this post for details or check out the video interview and text chat at the BBB site.) 

I wrote the poem "Roksana" for Rose last November. This is what she'd said: "Ok, protagonist's name is Roksana, and the ability she has is shape shifting to any animal. Roksana loves paranormal romance and urban fantasy. Chocolate is her life." Rose mentioned that she was from Uzbekistan, and told me a bit about what is important to her. I tried to bear all this in mind while crafting the poem, which turned out to be about a were snow leopard. It was great fun to write it and to be in touch with the delightful Rose.

Elisa took longer to decide what she wanted her story to be about. (I can relate! I took much longer to figure out how to write it!) She came up with this: " Based on the types of things you have in your repertoire, I think a story that touches on the process of a character finding his/her path in life would be great. I think most of us ask ourselves every now and again, “What is my purpose? Surely, I was meant to do something!” It’d be great to see this question answered by a divine someone in this character’s life. Be it a fairy, goddess, grocery clerk, you name it. Does that make sense? Actually, it would be pretty neat if the person directing people to their “right paths” was someone you’d least expect. Like that grocery store clerk, or perhaps the homeless man you pass by at the corner every week. Or a bus driver." 

Elisa hasn't yet seen her story. I have a little editing left to do on it. But it is not quite what she or I probably expected, based on her notes. The thing that I stumbled on was the "purpose in life". I have a hard time with that concept; I don't believe we have a single purpose, a single path that will suit or fulfill or be best for us. But I do believe we get knocked off any good path at times and people, situations, unorchestrated epiphanies can bring us to a new awareness that will help us get onto a path worth following. That is what I ended up writing about in "Posture of the Infinite", which features a woman who remembers countless past incarnations, and is a human for the first time.

Both of these writing projects were challenges for me and I loved that about them. My contact with Rose and Elisa was a great pleasure, too. I wondered if I was biting off more than I could chew by offering these prizes, but I am very glad I took the chance. I hope Rose and Elisa are, too! I regret the long delay in delivering Elisa's story--after my dad's death I lost all feeling for writing for several months--but I'm glad I got to ponder it long enough that I finally came up with something I think is worth giving her.

 
Prize 1: A story written for You. You choose the genre and the time period. Tell me up to three things about the protagonist (a name, an ability, something she hates or something she likes – it’s up to you) and I will do the rest. Or you can choose a theme - say, art and the paranormal or alien shopping or whatever you’re curious about, and I’ll come up with the character, etc. Or you can leave it all up to me. In any case, tell me a little about yourself and what you like or what is important to you, and I will bear that in mind as I write. The publishing rights remain with me, but the story is dedicated to you and you see it first. I’ll send you a signed printout when it’s done. Heck, if you like I’ll call and read it to you. Plus you will receive a personalized signed copy of Finding Creatures & Other Stories. (Note: writing a story takes time! This won’t come instantly but it’ll get there soon enough.)

Prize 2: A personalized signed copy of Finding Creatures & Other Stories plus a poem in the genre of your choice. Choose one element of the poem and I’ll do the rest. See Prize 1 above for details.