From Horrors to Sorrows (to Laughs)

Both The Speed of Dark and Callanish Writes Volume VIII are now available for perusal.

The Speed of Dark is the brainchild of Canadian author and publisher Clayton Bye, named for his young son, who tottered in one night to ask, "What is the speed of dark?" The book itself is not suitable reading for young children, though. It is a collection of "strangely different and disturbing" horror stories.

Those of you who have read my stories may be surprised that I have anything in a horror anthology--so am I. But by and large I let stories write themselves. Certainly, I help. But if a story needs to take a turn that is uncomfortable for me, I will hang in and let it work itself out. "Eating Our Young" didn't take an uncomfortable turn, exactly. It began grim and continued on that way. But it speaks about a kind of wrong that I feel deeply, something that crept up and said, look at me.

I invite you to have a look, too.

The Callanish Society of Vancouver, BC offers week-long retreats for people with cancer. I had the privilege of being one of their scholarship participants in February 2012, and it really was a life-changing event. I am extremely grateful that I was told about them days after receiving my cancer diagnosis, and that I was able to attend a retreat before my treatment began. The amount of intelligent caring and joyful openess that surrounded each of us was incredible, and the eight participants gained immeasurably from our week together.

It was not all gloom, by any means--I should perhaps pull out some of the ukelele pictures for you some day--but the laughter and kindness and beautiful food and surroundings (in the woods near Whistler, BC) helped to make it possible for us to look at the hard facts of cancer in each of our lives.

A couple of months later Callanish offered a writing class for former retreat participants going back several years. The group met once a week for several weeks in a row and with poetic prompts and such-like, sat together and wrote whatever sprang (or dragged) forth. Rather than then critiquing them, we read them aloud (or didn't) and responded from our hearts. Some of us were healing, some of us were dying, and some were long in recovery, but all knew both the joy and the sorrow that cancer can bring.

Many of the offerings we wrote over those weeks are now in a book called Callanish Writes Volume VIII. There is some darn good writing in there, and some very honest talk. A beautiful book, and I treasure my copy.

To download the first volume of Callanish Writes (not the one I refer to above), click here. To learn more about the Callanish Society, sign up for a retreat, donate, or winkle a copy of the latest volume of Callanish Writes, click here.

Pred & Ed Readers' Choice # 4 !

Writers on the Wrong Side of the Road places 4th in the Preditors and Editors Reader's Choice Award (for Anthologies).  http://critters.org/predpoll/final_tally_antho.ht

This is particularly cool for me as I have three stories (one co-authored) in the anthology. So, yay!

Here's the full list:

1. The Ghost Is the Machine, Post Mortem Press, [link][comments] 




2. Sapphic Planet Anthology, Sapphic Planet, [link][comments] 
3. Beneath the Surface, Gypsy Shadow Publishing, [link][comments] 
4. Bonded By Blood 5: Doomsday Descends, SNM Horror Mag, [link][comments] 
4. Writers on the Wrong Side of the Road, Chase Enterprises Publishing, [link][comments] 
5. Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations, Dark Moon Books, [link] 
5. Blaze, Amazon Digital, [link][comments] 
5. Evernight 2, XoXo Publishing, [link][comments] 
6. Adventures in Otherwhen, BooksforaBuck.com, [link] 
7. Read The End First, WIcked East Press, [link] 
8. Mirages: Tales from Authors of the Macabre, Black Curtain Press, [link] 
9. 2012 Christmas Collection, Victory Tales Press, [link][comments] 
10. Horror for Good, Cutting Block Press, [link][comments] 
10. Substitution Cipher, Candlemark & Gleam, [link] 
10. Wicked Bag of Suspense Tales, Wicked East Press, [link][comments] 

Free Book Download--including "Miss Lonelygenes' Secret"!

Ahmed Khan has announced that his anthology A Mosque Among the Stars is now available as a free download. 

My story, "Miss Lonelygenes' Secret" follows a scientist who matches—and sometimes improves upon—potential spouses based on their genotypes. But her own life isn't going so terribly well...

Find out why at 

http://www.islamscifi.com/AMosqueAmngstTheStars.pdf

www.islamscifi.com

Urgent Call for Poems about Trees from Poets who Love Them

Call out from Susan McCaslin -

The Han Shan Project: An Urgent Call for Poems about Trees from Poets 

who Love Them

Han Shan was an ancient Chinese poet who posted his poems on the trees 

and rocks of Cold Mountain. In the spirit of Han Shan….

o Join our effort to speak for the trees of McLellan Forest East, an 

endangered rainforest in Glen Valley, Langley, BC. It could be sold for 

private development and logged after Dec. 17th.


o Send us a tree poem and we’ll post it on a tree in the forest. One poem 

per poet. Keep it to one page with your name at the bottom. Small photo 

of you is okay.

o This is the west coast, so poems about species such as fir, hemlock, 

cedar, hemlock, spruce, bigleaf maple, black cottonwoods are especially 

relevant.

o Send your poem immediately to Susan McCaslin who can provide more 

information about the forest and the issue.
smccaslin@shaw.ca

Background: This remarkable and ecologically important forest will be 

sold by the Township of Langley for private development after Dec. 17 of 

this year if something radical is not done immediately to keep Council from 

proceeding.

For further information: http://mclellanpark.blogspot.ca/

McLellan Park Blog 
mclellanpark.blogspot.com

McLellan Park Blog mclellanpark.blogspot.com

***************************************************

This is my offering:

For the trees of McLellan Forest East:

making way

above the railway cut there stands

the gauzy remainder of our trees

city sliced down cottonwoods

bitter cherries alders

lest they stumble and slide downslope

to this new train

black tangles against evening mauve

quiet empty yard 

enclave in a loud

forgetful neighbourhood

juncoes still visit bushtits still visit

coyotes and raccoons gone

ravens saw those great silver-sided leaves

settled down in the midst of city racket

to make their nest

in those days

when the clawing began within

i stood at my window and watched the trees

breathed with them for them

with the hesitating breeze

how I sorrowed at being unable to save

even one

Casey Wolf

Grandview Cut, Vancouver

Story Sale: "Eating Our Young"

Happy news!

I've sold my story "Eating Our Young" to Chase Enterprises Publishing for publication in their new horror anthology, The Speed of Dark. There is still time to submit if you are interested--the deadline is 30 December 2012, at midnight.

"Eating Our Young" is a sad and grim allegory about the way families can unthinkingly consume their members, not out of hatred so much as out of an angry reflexiveness that, once settled into, seldom allows for compassion or heartfelt connection with those around us. It's told from the perspective of the youngest members of one particular family, Kenda and her brother Kenny.

I'll keep you posted as details arrive--publication date and all that jazz. Meanwhile, here is an excerpt from the story:

Morning arrived with the shout of her biggest sister, Enid. “Up! School! Come make our lunch!”

Kenda tripped on tangling sheets as she leapt to the door. All seven kids would stampede to the washroom but she was closest and with luck might not have to wait.

Too late. Enid was mean again and wakened James before the rest. He was the biggest boy and Enid’s favourite and slower in the bathroom than anyone. Kenda faltered at the closing door. “Can I come in, Jamie?”

“Wait your turn, Turd-Drop.”

She sighed and looked at the bristling line of bigger kids squeezing toward her, and remembered Kenny last night. It was not going to happen to her today. She ran back to her room and began to change clothes, then climbed out the window, down the rose trellis, to the dirt. No one guessed her use of the garden. Here behind the rose she yanked her shorts down, piddled, and covered the pee before climbing the trellis again. At the window she listened, peeking cautiously over the sill.

The door had drifted open. Children cried and shouted, doors slammed, water ran. Enid yelled orders. Kenda wanted to climb back in and burrow in the blank oasis of the laundry-room where she and Kenny slept. (Her idea. They’d been sneaking in to sleep together on piles of laundry for so long nobody thought about it anymore.)

No one was in the room.

 The Speed of Dark is being put out by the same folk who published Writers on the Wrong Side of the Road, in which I placed three stories (one co-authored with Paivi Kuosmanen -- the "a" should look like this: ä). 

The ebook version of WotWSotR is currently available for a mere $0.99.

P.S.! The gentleman in the photo above actually has nothing to do with the story. His was just the scariest face in my photo library when I stumbled there at 7 AM in search of an appropriate pic. Wouldn't want an actual pic of the content of this story. Although... I could make something...

Story reprint (online)

Hello. A wee post to let you know that my short story "The Brídeog" has been reprinted on the blog Brigit's Sparkling Flame. B's S F is devoted to information regarding the goddess and saint named Brigit (among other spellings), who features in my story. This is their first fiction publication.

Casey Update (including stories! and play!) & VCon 37

Not a lot to report. Cancer apparently gone, site slowly healing, and I am back into life full tilt. Perhaps a little too fully tilted. But so much attracts me! There's a three day retreat this week with monks and nuns from Plum Village. It is focussed on healing, which seems not a bad topic for me. I look forward to it. I am also busy critiquing a pile of stories for VCon, preparing for our play, taking classes at Inspire Health, etc...

I started a wonderful class on Roman Britain at SFU Continuing Ed. That lit a candle under me to get out Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars and reread various papers on Celtic studies that I have in my files. I'm starting to lead my sangha every few weeks, am active at yoga again, and then there are all those nieces and nephews... And yet!

In the midst of it all I managed to get two new stories into circulation (and one older one that I had let drift). So out there in the mail system is a Scottish ghost story ("In Days and Nights The World Is Spent"), an allegory concerning cannibalism ("Eating Our Young"), and a story about David Bowie's mum ("Mother of the Star").

I'm also gearing up for the new session at the Kyle writer's group, which starts next week. Last year, when I was able to go, I used that time for polishing a collection of poems I have written, and I will be doing that again this year, so likely I won't be doing much more story writing this year.

Not to be forgotten, the last weekend of this month is VCon 37, which I'll be attending with my nephew Theo Campbell. The Pallahaxi Players Readers Theatre is putting on our second show, "And Then Some" by Matthew Hughes. Matt's work appears regularly in Fantasy & Science Fiction, and he is the author of The Damned Busters, Tales of Henghis Hapthorn, and The Other.

This story will be in an upcoming issue of Asimov Magazine, but we get a sneak preview at VCon. Besides being general dogs-body for the performance, I get to play, er, the sound effects... Be there or be square, my friends.

Casey

Spring Fling

Started just before last week's surgery:

So with all this cancer stuff going on writing and critiquing activities went on the back burner. But the flame simmered still, and now, three weeks after my resurrection, I have been attending a variety of writing groups, writing and brushing up on poems, and doing marathon critiques of other people's writing to catch up on what I've missed.

I've also signed up for a novel revision class (Reverse Outlining by Lois Peterson at Port Moody Library, 23 June), to see if I get inspired to resurrect my shelved tome.

Cool conjunction of worlds: I've started at the Callanish Writes, a writing group for people who have been through the Callanish Society cancer retreats. It is wonderful. We gather for three hours, do a brief meditation and read two or three prompts (also known as poems and quotes) and then write together (each our own thing) for a period of time.

This time we wrote for ten or fifteen minutes, then had the opportunity to read aloud (twice) what we had written. You have the choice of whether to hear responses and the responses are from the heart, not the head. It isn't a critiquing group, but a place to find expression and to connect with others around our experience. Obviously there were tears but there was much laughter as well and I loved it. Also the lunch. Callanish does good lunch. There will be, I think, a book at the end of this--at least in previous years Callanish has published a collection of some of the pieces written by the group. So let me know if you are interested.

Looking forward, VCon 37 (28-30 September – Sheraton Vancouver Guildford) will have a Pallahaxi Players Readers Theatre despite my own difficulty in writing a play this year. In my stead the lovely and talented Matthew Hughes is writing a play based on one of his current works of speculative fiction. (To Be Revealed.)

And after the surgery...

Not a whole lot more to add to that, naturally. My stomach is settling after the third and (please!) final surgery and here's hoping the site heals well and quickly so I can get back to that wildly active and deeply rewarding life. Oh, wait. It's still deeply rewarding. And hey, I kind of like it not being wildly active. Hmmmm...

Hugs!

Casey

Callanish and All

The last few months have seen an almost complete dropoff in my literary activity. I was about a quarter of the way through the second draft of a book of poetry when I received a diagnosis of cancer. This flung me into an extraordinary period of activity and learning, and the sudden need to be very gentle to myself. At first I responded by writing poetry about the new situation, but that soon ebbed. There were other things I needed to do and experience more than I needed to write.

On Thursday I'll have my second and hopefully final surgery. No need, apparently, for chemo or radiation.

I am extremely lucky to live where I do. Despite the many faults of our medical system, in Vancouver I have access to excellent cancer specialists, among the best in North America, paid for by medicare. I would never be able to afford this care without it. There is an integrative cancer health clinic -- Inspire Health -- that provides enormous amounts of information and support. And the Callanish Society leads retreats for cancer patients four times a year. I attended one last month and was touched very deeply by the wisdom and care of the women who led it and by those who attended. The effects are enduring and I am in a far better position now to face both the cancer and the surgery than I was in mid-December when I found out. My friends and family, yoga and Buddhist communities, have been wonderfully supportive and kind.

As Nancy Hopps says at the end of her various guided visualizations (for cancer, surgery, etc) -- "For this, and so much more, I am grateful."

Casey

3 Story Reviews -- Reading on the Wrong Side of the Road

Leigh M. Lane reviews Writers on the Wrong Side of the Road story by story at her blog, The Cerebral Writer. My stories being many, they get the eyeball several times, with varying degrees of welcome. The one she liked the least appears to have been disliked because of the genre; the one she likes the most " resets the bar". I can live with that.
 :  ) 



“The Cenotaph” by Casey Wolf – 4.25 stars

Past and present collide when a camper stumbles upon a long-forgotten memorial.

A thoughtful commentary on perspective and war, this story does a great job at showing the fears and expectations that arise when one considers leaving for war. Some of the shifts are a little jarring, but may be intentional in an attempt to pull the reader into the protagonist’s confused state of mind. Overall, this is a very good story.

 “Triona’s Beans” by Casey Wolf and Paivi Kuosmanen – 2 stars

A young girl goes on an intergalactic adventure with little people that look like feathered beans.

I had great difficulty getting through this story, which reads like a very young children’s fantasy. This story does not belong in a dark speculative fiction anthology.

 “Pronghorns” by Casey Wolf – 5 stars

A double suicide goes to “Plan B” when initial plans go awry.

“Pronghorns” is a darkly brilliant commentary on life and death. It is well-written, gripping, and has a shockingly profound ending. This is one of those stories that resets the bar.

"Claude" on Beam Me Up! Podcast

Today Paul Cole uploaded Beam Me Up!, his weekly SF radio show on WRFR. "Claude and the Henry Moores" is the feature story. It was fun to read, and Paul has added Stirring Music to the sound track to fun it up yet more.

I really like Paul's show. He finds weird fannish music (like this week's "Cube Land"by Laura Shigihara), chats about science and SF news, and features one or two short stories a week. Have a listen!

"Invicta" Available at The Link Online

My story "Invicta" is now available for free download as part of the Nov./Dec. issue of The Link magazine.

"Invicta" tells the story of a woman who lives...through the library.


http://www.the-link.ca/issues/NovDec2011.pdf

sorry! this link is broken. i'll provide the story on this blog. look at the Pages here.

Writers About to Appear on the Wrong Side of the Road

The anthology _Writers on the Wrong Side of the Road_, edited by Clayton Bye and Sassy Brit, is about to hit the shelves. Well, the internet shelves. It is mostly being targetted at online audiences, but you can buy the book in paper or e-format. If you are a local yokel (Vancouver) and want a copy, save on postage by ordering along with me when I get my copies. I have 3 stories in the book: "The Cenotaph", "Pronghorns", and "Triona’s Beans" — that last with Finnish author Païvi Kuosmanen.

You can preorder paper or e-book at http://shop.claytonbye.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=65

Shipping commences 25 November 2011.

Sorry for the lack of a hyperlink. Blogger has gone completely weird. I haven't been able to control my post details in weeks.

At Last! Mrs Zaberewsky Meets the (little) Screen!

For a taste of "This is for Mrs Zaberewsky", as performed by the Pallahaxi Readers Theatre at VCon 36, click away below or go to YouTube and view it on Steph St Laurent's channel. Unfortunately, the camera boobled half way through, but you get a good dose of our humble homage to the late Michael Coney and his staple of yester-VCons, The Lonely Cry Readers Theatre.

Virginia O'Dine of Bundoran Press as Narrator.
Steph St Laurent as Wikta.
Theo Arnott Campbelll as Mrs Zaberewsky and Droodla the alien.
Rhea Rose as Mrs Jablonski, ramp, and Unglubump the alien.
Casey Wolf as prompter (and of course author).

Popcorn permitted but not supplied. Enjoy.

Middlemarch (with kitties)

Another reading (YET another reading) video: the first pages of the awesome Middlemarch by George Eliot.



And then try this take on the book. Unusual, to say the least!

Mike Coney Reading (by Casey)

There's something happening here... What it is ain't exactly clear. I have only 2 functions I can control in this post, typeface and images. What happened to all the others???

Regardless! I've posted my latest reading on YouTube, this time of the opening pages of Mike Coney's Pallahaxi Tide (Hello Summer, Goodbye in England, Rax in the US). I read another scene from that in a previous post called "Listen To This!", but I can't link to it for reasons stated above. The url is this: http://cjunewolfden.blogspot.com/2011/10/listen-to-this-vcon-36.html

Now, let's see if I can embed the video, shall we?

Upcoming Releases & Latest Video

Hello, dear friends!

There should be two new releases this month, if all goes according to schedule, and another in December. I have also posted a couple more videos to YouTube (including one in which I sing, of all things.)

Paul Cole is putting the mood music to my podcast of "Claude and the Henry Moores" and plans to have it on air at WRFR and online at Beam Me Up! by the end of the month. For those who can't wait to hear it you can read it on this blog or in my book Finding Creatures & Other Stories. But if you like being read to I suggest you hang on and listen to the podcast.

My story "Invicta" will appear online in the next issue of The Link. I'm excited about this. It is my small contribution to the fight to save the public library system. And my mum will be pleased.

"The Coin", a story about a Haitian streetkid named Likner, has been accepted for this year's issue of the literary journal Lived Experience, brainlovechild of “elder hippy” Van Andruss of Yalakom, BC. Issue 11 of Lived Experience should be out in December. "The Coin" first appeared in Tesseracts 9, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Geoff Ryman.

And last but by no means least, one of my latest additions to the readings series I am putting up on YouTube: Mary Renault's Fire From Heaven, about the young Alexander the Great:

Beowulf: the Readings

Well heck if I know why the video is so huge. Better you should go watch it on YouTube where it is acting quite normal.

Listen To This! @ VCon 36

Finally figured out how to upload a podcast to this blog -- turn it into a video. So, fresh from the FintanSparky YouTube channel, my VCon 36 podcast, Listen To This!

Check out the last posting for more info on Listen To This!

VCon 36: Play, Workshops, Readings...FUN!

Art by Artist VCon 36 Guest of Honour
Jean-Pierre Normand

I had a great time this weekend at VCon 36.

I used to come as a fan and very much enjoyed the panels and schmoozing, going to readings, attending the masquerade and dance.

Then I started coming as a guest. This was both cool and nerve-wracking. I am, believe it or not, shy. I'm nervous speaking to an audience without a chance for rethinks and edits. And I don't manage well trying to get a word in edgewise on a panel where great talkers have hold of the mike.

On the other hand, I love doing readings. Serious or silly. (Obviously, if you have looked at my YouTube channel.) I love doing critiquing. I love encouraging other people to be really silly.

So I have slowly figured it out. Stay off pontificate-y panels. Get reading panels put on the program. Write a silly play. Get people to act it out. Critique people's stories. Goof around. Get to know people. Have fun. Be fun. And forget about My Work.

That is what I did this weekend. I worked my butt off, but I worked at things that give me energy and great pleasure. The workshop participants got pages of carefully thought out notes. The Pallahaxi Players performed the stage version of "This is for Mrs Zaberewsky" brilliantly to an appreciative, and appropriately guffawing, "crowd". Steph St Laurent was over the top as Wikta, the frustrated actress who is taken to an alien planet to be a star. Virginia O'Dine made a wonderful Narrator, as I knew she would from her performances at Turkey Readings of earlier years. Theo Campbell was hilarious as Droodla, the alien director, and Mrs Zaberewsky herself. And Rhea Rose truly rose to the occasion (and lowered to it) as Mrs Jabłoński, Unglubump the aspiring actroid, and well, a ramp. (I had not dreamed anyone could bring such subtlety to the role of spaceship ramp.)

On Sunday Ian Alexander Martin and I presented Listen To This ! Listen To This! He opined and I read favourite passages from works by Avram Davidson, Eileen Kernaghan, Don Marquis, and Mike Coney.

At noon I worked with Fran Skene (whose baby it is), Eileen Kernaghan, Virginia O'Dine, and a crowd of willing victims to produce the Turkey Readings. A quarter at a time, we raised $150.55 for the Canadian Unity Fan Fund (CUFF). (Nothing next to the $650ish raised for Aunt Leah's Place at the Closing Ceremonies by auctioning off Normand's drawings and a personalized copy of Author GoH Larry Niven's new book. But not bad for goofing around for an hour.)

And finally I joined Ian Alexander Martin, Sandra Wickham, and Jaymie Matthews in reading pages 189 from a variety of different books. The books were concealed from the audience members, who had to decide whether they would be interested in reading the whole thing before being told what books they were listening to. (I read from House on the Strand by Daphne DuMaurier, Five Children and It by E. Nesbit, Path into the Unknown: The Best of Soviet Science Fiction, edited by Judith Merril, and The Ghost Pirates by William Hope Hodgson.) Of course, we readers didn't know what the others were reading from, either, so we got to enjoy the gosh wow of the surprise, ourselves.

By the end of it all I was most happily read out.

I got to attend only a little of the programming (what I habitually refer to as paneling, which I think is actually something you put on the walls of your rec room). I heard Dave Duncan read, I got to the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, saw a stitch of the Costume Masquerade, and so on. My main priority beyond meeting my commitments to the concom was to hang out with my nephew Theo and have conversations with other folk, whether in the Dealers Room or over tea or flying down the hall.

A fun, fun time. I look forward to next years VCon.