“Wolf uses different genres, different voices, different cultures—in short whatever she needs to make the story work. What ties it all together is her sure-handed prose and a depth she brings to her writing, that indefinable element that rises up from between the lines and gives a good story its resonance…
—Charles de Lint
—To buy Finding Creatures & Other Stories: www.redtuquebooks.ca/pages/F-9780981065809.htm
I just got wind that anyone hoping to be there for the interview, chat, and contest on the 23rd will get 50 extra entries into the draw if you RSVP ahead of time. Here is the link: http://bittenbybooks.com/?p=10376
You still need to show up for the online event, write a comment and ask a question to be entered into the draw. To my delight there are already 20 people signed up, each eager for a story written for her. I'm so psyched! This has got to be the most fun promotion I've done.See you there!
(Oh, and I've acquired a webcam and am making bad but friendly videos for the event.. See the bottom of this post.)
Posted under Contests, Site News by Site Hostess on Saturday 19 September 2009 at 7:42 pm
UPCOMING EVENT: 9/23 Interview and Contest with Author C. June Wolf. Event starts at 10:30 am Central on 9/23. Contest runs until 11:59 pm PDT on 9/27.
Description: Join us with author C. June Wolf for an interview, chat and contest at http://bittenbybooks.com/. She is also giving away some amazing prizes to THREE lucky readers! Contest is open to readers worldwide except where noted.
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.
Prize 3: An Amazon gift card worth $40.00 CDN at the Amazon that serves your area (.ca, .com, .uk).
RSVP below and get 50 entries to the contest when you show up on the day of the event. If you don’t show up and mention your RSVP AND ask a question, you won’t be entered into the contest.
It's true.If you enter, and win, I will write you a poem or a story (after consultation with you), and send you a copy of my book. Heck, I'll even phone you up and read you what I wrote, if you like. Or you may win a gift certificate for the Amazon of your choice. (You don't even have to tell me her name.)
So, Casey, tell me more.
On 23 September I'll be doing an interactive interview with Rachel at Bitten By Books, then settling down to answer questions and chat with whoever logs in to talk with me that day. If you have some spare time I'd love to have you stop in for a blab.
When it came time to decide what treasures to give away for the contest part of the event, I thought, why not do something fun? I could give a gift bag or gift certificate - but with a gift bag, what's fun for me might be ho hum for someone else. Could I be sure I wasn't the only one who'd enjoy an Insects of the World shower curtain???
I discovered some time ago that I like writing to themes. Normally I sit down and just write. But sometimes there is a theme that attracts my attention and I decide to write a story for it. I end up in places I might never have gotten to otherwise. (No, not the St. John's jail. That was something else altogether.) I like that.
So here is what I'm offering:
One Prize: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. Plusyou will receivea 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.)
Another Prize:A personalized signed copy of Finding Creatures & Other Storiesplus a poem in the genre of your choice. Choose one element of the poem and I’ll do the rest. See One Prize above for details.
And Another Prize:An Amazon gift card worth $40 CDN at the Amazon that serves your area (.ca, .com, .uk…).
There are a number of ways you can enter the contest - I don't recall them all but they'll be posted on the day. They involve things like buying a copy of my book, blogging or tweeting about it, asking me a question - nothing too painful. So think about it. What genre would you like to test me on? Want to be in your own story? Want to hear about Giant Pandas on the moon? Whatever. Ask, and you shall receive.
I stumbled across the term "Case-Bound Book" and thought, "Eh?"
What could I do but look it up? And there on the vastness of the internet I found a wonderfully detailed site which demonstrates, with clear and seemingly endless photographs, how to make a case-bound book.
Images and text by Garry Harrison, Head, Circulating Collections Conservation, Indiana University Libraries
Web design by Jake Nadal, former Head, Preservation Department, Indiana University Libraries
(Click on this image to begin slide show.)
One of the best ways to illustrate book construction is to make one from raw materials. So that is what we will do in this section of the manual. We use some special shop tools, but since obviously not everyone has them, every attempt has been made to offer instructions for doing this with hand tools everyone is likely to have at home or can obtain without difficulty.
Our text block will be of what is called sewn-on-tapes construction. This is one of many different text block structures that work well. Our book will be what is called a casebound book, which refers to the fact that the case will be covered before it is adjoined with the text block, as opposed to after, as in, e.g., fine binding.
To facilitate convenient navigation and use, the procedural parts of this manual are presented in slide show form. As you can see above, clicking on the image shown on each treatment's front page begins the slide show.
Here are the navigational options within each slide. To view this information in illustrated form see the map image below.
Each slide offers the following capabilities:
* Thumbnail images of the entire treatment procedure are in a vertical column to the left. The progression is downward, beginning at the top and ending at the bottom. By clicking on any of these images, you can go to that point in the procedure.
* Clicking on any page's main image opens a larger version of the image in a separate window.
* Button links are provided to return to this page, to go to the next and previous slides in the series, and to go to the complete table of contents for the entire manual.
* The text is dotted with links to tools, materials, glossary terms, and other treatments. Linked text is gray in color and turns red when the pointer encounters it.
Okay. It has nothing to do with writing, but it has a BIT to do with Mr. Dressup.
This is me with my aunt's dog, Finnegan, during our weekend together in Steveston, BC. Looks cute but boy can he dig in his heels. And before you ask: Brussels Griffon.
Finally made a decision on this, the last day. I opted out. What a headache this whole thing has been. So very confusing and...unnatural...
Below you'll find two writings on the topic, the first from Access Copyright, which looks out for authors in Canada, and the second from a South African news and technology site, ITWeb.
Google Settlement Opt-Out Deadline is Today
September 4, the deadline to opt-out of the Google Book Settlement, is here. If you were wishing to opt-out of the settlement, please click here
.
By opting-out of the settlement, you will forego any revenue that may be owing to you through the settlement but you will continue to have control over your works and have the right to sue Google for any infringement of your copyright.
Please note as well that the deadline to formally object to the settlement has been extended to Tuesday, September 8 at 10:00 a.m. eastern time.
The Google Settlement is a proposed landmark settlement to lawsuits brought against Google separately by the Authors Guild and representatives of the Association of American Publishers alleging that the digitization of books for the Google Book Search program infringed copyright in the United States. The settlement will likely affect all Canadian authors, illustrators or publishers of books.
For rightsholders who don’t opt-out, you can claim a cash payment for works already digitized by Google by completing a claim form available online here
. The deadline to complete the form is January 5, 2010.
Access Copyright staff are also available to help if you have any questions on the settlement or need assistance with navigating the official Google Settlement website. Please give us a call anytime at 416-868-1620 (toll-free 1-800-893-5777) or send us an email.
[ Johannesburg, 4 September 2009 ] - Today marks the cut-off date for publishers and authors worldwide to opt in or out of the Google Book Settlement, effectively determining whether they will retain the rights over books the Internet giant plans to scan and digitise.
According to local attorney and digital publishing consultant Bertus Preller, the proposed Google Book Settlement “seeks to grant Google the valuable right to digitally exploit, forever, every non-public domain book ever published, virtually anywhere in the world”.
Bye Bye Google!
The settlement follows Google's announcement of its Book Search project in 2004, which would see the company scan and digitise millions of books worldwide to make them searchable on the Web. In 2005, the Authors Guild of America, as well as the Association of American Publishers (AAP), filed a class action suit against Google for copyright infringement. Google defended its actions as fair use.
Preller explains that, in response to the lawsuit, Google entered into a tentative interim settlement agreement, whereby it would pay more than $125 million (R945.5 million) in future royalties into a Books Rights Registry, to be distributed to the rights holders. In return, Google would obtain the right to digitise and make millions of books available online. Rights owners have until today to opt out of the proposed settlement, or opt in and submit an objection.
If the courts approve the settlement, Google will be able to scan and index millions of books without fear of being prosecuted for copyright infringement. The final fairness hearing in the US District court is scheduled for 7 October.
In a statement released after the settlement was reached last year, the AAP said: “The agreement promises to benefit readers and researchers, and enhance the ability of authors and publishers to distribute their content in digital form, by significantly expanding online access to works through Google Book Search...”
Preller believes the impacts are more far-reaching. “The settlement would dramatically impact copyright owners around the world, SA included, as it would give Google a licence to use nearly every foreign book ever published, even books that have never been published in the US.”
According to Preller, US law means the settlement not only affects the parties who filed the original suit, but also binds non-parties who the courts certify will be affected in the same way.
“In the US, once approved, the settlement will, therefore, mean that unless an author or publisher has reserved their rights by formally opting out of the settlement, they will not be able to make any claim that Google is infringing upon the copyright in their books.”
Eloise Wessels, CEO of NB Publishers, one of several book publishing houses within the Media24 group, and publishing under the imprints of Tafelberg, Human & Rousseau, Kwela and Pharos, says the group is against the settlement.
“Media24 is opposed to the Google Settlement and has in this context submitted formal objections requesting the court that will handle the fairness hearing to reject the settlement, or to decline to certify the class with respect to foreign rights holders.”
She adds that the group believes the settlement, if proceeded with in its current form, will negatively impact the book business and fundamentally change the rights of publishers and authors under copyright.
“There are very many other reasons why Media24 is opposed to the settlement,” says Wessels. ”For example, Google's definition of 'commercially available' is limited to works being available through predominantly US sales channels and not necessarily through local sales channels, such as Kalahari. This will allow Google to obtain extensive exploitation rights over our books, which by the definition in the settlement, will not be 'commercially available'.”
NB is one of several book publishing houses within the Media24 group, which also includes Jonathan Ball Publishers, Lux Verbi-BM, Van Schaik Publishers, NVA and Stimela.
Wessels explains these book divisions all produce locally-developed texts, of which few (less than 1%) would be “commercially available” in the US, according to the Google definition.
“The settlement, therefore, poses a real risk for the book publishers and authors in the Media24 group and we are acting to limit that risk.”
If a publisher or author opts in and lodges a claim in respect of a book before 5 January 2010, it will receive a share of the $45 million (R343.5 million) that Google has put aside to pay rights holders. They will also receive 63% of any revenue received by Google, for example, from advertising, or if it is made available on subscription to a library, explains Preller.
Earlier this week, the deadline for filing objections to the settlement was extended to 8 September, because of issues with the court's electronic filing system, but the opt-out deadline remains unchanged.
Well, it's out. The second ever speculative fiction issue of Room Magazine* I'm happy to say that my story "Dreamcatcher" is in there with works by many others. Those whose names are most familiar to me are Patricia Monaghan, Élisabeth Vonarburg, Mary E. Choo, and Candas Jane Dorsey. Editor Fiona Lehn interviewed Ursula LeGuin for the issue - Ursula's thoughts are always interesting - and there is a mini-interview of two authors who appeared in the 1981 SF issue, Eileen Kernaghan and Debbie Notkin. Oh, yes! Scanning the Table of Contents I'm reminded that there is a review of my book Finding Creatures & Other Stories by Bronwen Welch. I will include that in a separate post.
COVER ART In My Living Room
by Tania Alexis Clarke, 2007
Digital photo manipulation—giclée on canvas, 45.7x34.3cm (18x13.5")
Adobe Acrobat Reader
is required to view the linked files.
Click here to download the program.
Room Volume 32.2
"Speculations"
Fiona Lehn
Women have been creating speculative stories for centuries. Long before 1818, when Mary Shelley published what is now hailed as the novel upon which science fiction was founded, women looked to the stars and dreamed of other worlds, shared tales of creatures and spirits they could not see, inexplicable phenomena, and parallel universes. In many ways, Shelley’s Frankenstein merely started the modern ball rolling for women’s speculative works, soon followed as it was by Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s fantastic story “The Yellow Wallpaper” in 1892 and in 1915 by her utopia “Herland”. Men, holding the power of the press, flooded the fantasy and science fiction genres with male-centered works, but in the latter half of the twentieth century, women burst onto the speculative scene in great number:
...True to the speculative tradition, this issue breaks some turf, starting with our commissioned writers, Élisabeth Vonarburg and Candas Jane Dorsey, two of Canada’s premier feminist science fiction writers. Ms. Vonarburg’s “The Museum of Impermanence” appears in its original French and in translation by Room’s Clélie Rich, marking the first time that Room has published a story in both of Canada’s official languages. Meanwhile, Candas Jane Dorsey’s “First Contact” explores the alien via a sexual encounter, going where no Room issue has gone before. In addition, we are thrilled to present a conversation with one of the most accomplished science fiction and fantasy writers of all time, Ursula K. Le Guin, in which she shares her thoughts on speculation, writing, and women.
...In 1981, Room magazine (then Room of One’s Own) published an issue dedicated to science fiction and fantasy, edited by Susan Wood. Wood received three submissions each day, significantly more than I, nearly thirty years later, received. Does this mean our need for speculation has decreased? Has speculative literature been subsumed into mainstream literature? Perhaps neither, perhaps some of both; nevertheless, I see a need for literature that pushes beyond the constraints of our reality, our culture, and which creates new realities, different cultures, other worlds—literature that questions and liberates, poses solutions and provides an escape, for women, for the marginalized, the colonized. Kind of sounds like feminism, doesn’t it? And not unlike feminism, speculative literature has always given me a sense of hope and a feeling of belonging. And that’s what Room is all about. To those of you who may be embarking upon your first speculative experience and to those who know your way around the speculative universe, I say, Welcome, be unafraid, this is where you belong.
Bios
Tania Alexis Clarke is a Vancouver-based visual artist and owner of Side B Design Studio (www.side-b.ca). Her digital work focuses on photo manipulation. As a painter, she uses various media on canvas such as acrylic paints, ink, linocut, and textiles. Her work often depicts relationships between mechanical and organic elements.
“In 2007 I created a series of photo manipulations using the liquify tool in Photoshop. In My Living Room is the first image in this series. I use pixel information like a painter’s palette to transform bland photographs into energized, dreamlike images. I approach all my work with a meditative process and strive to create impulsive images which tap into my subconscious. I create every piece in one sitting to avoid breaking momentum.”
Candas Jane Dorsey lives in Edmonton and writes speculative fiction, mainstream fiction, and poetry, earning awards such as the Tiptree and Aurora. She has co-edited four collections of speculative fiction, the latest being Land/Space: an Anthology of Prairie Speculative Fiction. Dorsey recently received the prestigious Alberta Centennial Medal for achievements in arts and culture.
As of 2009, Ursula K. Le Guin has published twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, three collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry, and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. Her recent publications include a volume of poetry, Incredible Good Fortune, and the novel Lavinia.
Vancouver writer, editor, and musician Fiona Lehn has volunteered with Room magazine since 2007. Her first novella, The Assignment of Runner ETI, won third place in the 2008 Writers of the Future international speculative fiction contest. When time allows, she sits on the beach or works on her website www.droidfingers.com.
Élisabeth Vonarburg’s most recent work includes The House of Justice (Book Five of her award-winning Queen of Memory series), and a translation of Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay. She will be the French-speaking Guest of Honour at Anticipation, the 67th World Science Fiction Convention, to be held in Montreal in August this year.
*(Room Magazine, formerly Room of One's Own), named for Virginia Woolf's essay of the same name. "The title comes from Woolf's conception that, 'a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction' (page 4). It also refers to any author's need for poetic license and the personal liberty to create art." Wikipedia)
If there were more stars I would definitely give them to this book. Robert Belenky and Gody Boursiquot have, in winning the trust of these girls living on the streets of Port au Prince, Haiti, and bringing their words, brief and crystalline, to readers around the world, have done a great service. Vivacity, pride, despair, and intelligence are expressed together in an amalgam of interview answers laid out as a long poem: The Song of Champ de Mars.
Bravo.
Do I have a dream? Oh, yes! Let me explain it to you.
My dream is to see everyone happy and in good health.
My dream is to see all the lost children find their mothers.
My family doesn’t know that I sell my body
for the taste of bread.
But, yes! I have a dream. It is a beautiful dream.
Perhaps you didn’t know…
A dream is at the center of my tired heart.
I want a loving heart, an ardent power, a simple life.
I sense myself,
The creative energy,
The wonder in my breast,
The mystery of my terrible times.
No one does anything for me. But day after day, I am
more magnificent. Each day is unique. Each night is a
secret that protects the joy of the sun that is within me.
The street reduces me to a sheet of paper they will soon
burn. But I protect myself with a poetry of beauty. I make it penetrate the eyes of passers by. I offer this
beauty in my pleading smile.
The funds raised by the sale of Bob's book go directly to Godfroy Boursiquot and Corde Enfant Haitien -- CODEHA. CODEHA works with young people on the streets and in rural communities in Haiti, and is a community-based and inclusive organization which I have supported for years.
Gody
Big Bad Bob
Donations to support CODEHA's work can be sent directly to:
Godfroy Boursiquot
CODEHA
15951 HT
6140 Pétionville
Haiti
or contact me and I can put you in touch via email.
Below, Bob introduces Gody. It takes a while for the English translation to kick in but hang on; it'll come.
If you are interested in joining Bob and Gody in Haiti try contactingVolunteers for Peace and sign up for their next trip there. Or just follow the link to read one group's experiences there.
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RSVP
WoW what great prizes!! RSVP!!
Can’t wait to find out more about this Author =)
I love the idea for this contest.
That is actually sort of neat, prize 1, though I really doubt I have the luck for that.. But RSVP!
RSVP! It sounds so exciting!
RSVP
Oh my God, the prizes are amazing!!!!!! This is will be awesome! Thank you so much for doing this!
Love the idea to help another good author write in the genre I love.
would love to win the 1st prize as it would make my sister green with envy lol
RSVP
RSVP Those are some wonderful prizes.
RSVP
sounds like fun, I’ll be there.
rsvp
This is my RSVP. Will be there.
I’ll be here
RSVP!!! Awesome prizes, would love to win!
I really like this competition idea…how bloody marvellous. Count me in.
*Kate is sending her RSVP loud and clear*
I’ll be here for sure
RSVP
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Wow! So cool! Actual people! I look forward to talking with you all on Wednesday.