Author: Holly Schofield

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“Venus and the Milky Way” by Rhea Rose

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SF Canada member Rhea Rose’s latest short story, “Venus and The Milky Way”, is now out in Triangulation’s Dark Skies anthology. Who is holding the stars hostage? Don’t we all have the right to star-filled nights? Do you miss our Milky Way Galaxy arcing overhead? Explore answers in these creative tales of human (and alien) reaction to the yin-yang of darkness and light. Journey with us into darkness, for only there can we see the light. Don’t we all have the right?

Rhea Rose has published many speculative fiction and poetry pieces: Evolve, Tesseracts, 1,2,6,9,10,17, Transversions, On Spec, Talebones, Northwest Passages, Masked Mosaic, and Dead North. She has received honorable mentions in the Year’s Best anthologies and was reprinted in Christmas Forever (edited by David Hartwell) and twice made the preliminaries for the Nebula Award. She edited poetry for Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing and for many years hosted the Vancouver Science Fiction and Fantasy (V-Con) writers’ workshops. She is a teacher of creative writing and a graduate of CW ‘84. Her recent works include: Second Contact, Clockwork Canada, Art Song Lab and three Indie novels, The Final Catch: A Tarot Sorceress series. Twice an Aurora nominee, Rhea has a MFA in creative writing.

Find her at www.rheaerose.weebly.com and find Dark Skies here.

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News from Colleen Anderson

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SF Canada member Colleen Anderson has had several bits of good news lately.

She has been selected as Guest of Honour at The Creative Ink Festival speculative fiction convention in Burnaby, BC in March, 2020. The Creative Ink Festival is a three-day event full of inspiring panels, presentations and workshops. Designed to be inclusive for all levels of writing, the festival is a chance for writers to have the opportunity to chat with industry insiders in a relaxed and supportive environment. Readers have the chance to meet their favourite authors and find out about the authorial process.

Colleen also had two new publications, with twinned stories appearing recently in Thrilling Words Spectulative Fiction Publishing. “Nautilus” is free to read on the Thrilling Words website. “Heartstrings”, a second story in the same setting, is available to supporting members.

Colleen is a three-time Aurora Award finalist and was longlisted for the Stoker Award in fiction. She placed in the Balticon, Rannu, Wax and Crucible poetry competitions and has performed her work before audiences in the US, UK and Canada. Colleen has been a poetry and fiction online editor, slush editor for Chizine, and also co-edited Canadian anthologies Playground of Lost Toys (Aurora nominated) and Tesseracts 17, and her solo anthology Alice Unbound: Beyond Wonderland, was published in 2018. A Body of Work was recently published by Black Shuck Books, UK. Some of her work is in nEvermore!, Beauty of Death, Shoreline of Infinity, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, OnSpec, Polu Texni, The Future Fire, and Cemetery Dance.

Colleen has a BFA in Creative Writing and has received grants from the BC Arts Council and the Canada Council for writing. The Horror Writers Association granted her a partial scholarship to attend Stokercon in 2019. She is working on several collections of poetry, a couple of novels, and marketing more anthology ideas. Once in a while she still does freelance copyediting, and used to copyedit for New York publishers and companies. Her blog about writing and life can be found at www.colleenanderson.wordpress.com, and she sometimes invites guest authors to write about their works as well.

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“Bootleg Jesus” by Tonya Liburd

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SF Canada member Tonya Liburd has a new short story out at Diabolical Plots, the popular submissions tool and online magazine. “Bootleg Jesus” is a story about religion, family, and magic. Mara lives in an isolated village where magic isn’t supposed to manifest in people. A place that’s supposed to be safe from the god-like beings who manifest particularly potent gifts. For Mara’s friend Sydney, though, it’s not at all a safe place, and for all the children it’s somewhere they are not really free.

This is an interesting coming-of-age story, exploring those age-old ideas of what it means to grow up and find you don’t match the expectations of those around you.                     – Tangent Online

 

Liburd’s opening line pulls you into a compelling fantasy tale that is both gritty and tense, set in a world where magic flows just beneath the surface of everyday life.                   – Barnes and Noble

 

It’s often difficult and complex, but it’s also very much worth spending some time with. A great read!                    – Quick Sip Reviews

 

Tonya Liburd shares a birthday with Simeon Daniel and Ray Bradbury, which may tell you a little something about her. She is a 2017 and 2018 Rhysling nominee, and has been longlisted in the 2015 Carter V. Cooper(Vanderbilt)/Exile Short Fiction Competition. Her fiction is used in Nisi Shawl’s workshops as an example of ‘code switching’, and in Tananarive Due’s course at UCLA. She is the Senior Editor of Abyss & Apex magazine. You can find her blogging at http://Spiderlilly.com, on Twitter at @somesillywowzer, or on Patreon at www.Patreon.com/TonyaLiburd.

Read “Bootleg Jesus” for free at Diabolical Plots.

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Ecology of Story: World as Character by Nina Munteanu

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Ecology of Story: World as Character is the 3rd guidebook in SF Canada member Nina Munteanu‘s acclaimed “how to write” series for novice to professional writers. Learn the fundamentals of ecology, insights of world-building, and how to master layering-in of metaphoric connections between setting and character.

Praise for The Fiction Writer, Book 1 of this series:

The Fiction Writer is at the top of the required reading list for my Writer’s Workshop students. With its engagingly direct, conversational style and easily accessible format, it is a veritable cornucopia of hands-on help for aspiring writers of any age…the quintessential guidebook for the soon-to-be-published. –Susan McLemore, Writing Instructor, Glynn Academy

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She currently teaches writing at the University of Toronto and George Brown College. Her non-fiction book Water Is…–a scientific study and personal journey as limnologist, mother, teacher and environmentalist–was recently picked by Margaret Atwood in the NY Times as 2016 ‘The Year in Reading’. Her latest novel, A Diary in the Age of Water, will be released by Inanna Publications in 2020.

See an excerpt on Nina’s website and be sure to purchase Ecology of Story: World as Character soon!

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2019 Sunburst Award Longlist!

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Two SF Canada members are on the Sunburst longlist for 2019. The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is an annual award celebrating the best in Canadian fantastika published during the previous calendar year.

Edward Willett‘s Worldshaper [Penguin Random House Canada] is in the Young Adult novel category. One of Saskatchewan’s most prolific authors, Edward has published more than 60 books of science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction for children, teens and adults.  Willett also hosts The Worldshapers podcast, which focuses on the creative processes of other fantasy and science fiction writers.

Dominik Parisien’s “The River Street Witch” [Alice Unbound, Exile Editions] is in the Short Story category. Dominik is the co-editor, with Navah Wolfe, of Robots vs Fairies, and The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales, which won the Shirley Jackson Award and was a finalist for the World Fantasy award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Locus Award. He also co-edited Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction with Elsa Sjunneson-Henry. Dominik’s fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Quill & Quire, The Fiddlehead, Exile: The Literary Quarterly, as well as other magazines and anthologies. His latest publication is a poetry chapbook, We, Old Young Ones. He is a disabled, bisexual, French Canadian. He lives in Toronto.

The Sunburst Award official shortlist will be announced in late June, and winners will be announced in the fall of 2019.

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Canadian Dreadful released!

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Two SFC members have stories in Dark Dragon Publishing’s latest release, Canadian Dreadful.

Colleen Anderson’s deeply psychological tale “Sins of the Father” brings attention to the long term repercussions of violence, not only on the victims of violence, but on the family of the person who is perpetrating violence. Colleen has been twice nominated for the Aurora Award in poetry. She has co-edited Tesseracts 17 and Playground of Lost Toys, which was nominated for a 2016 Aurora Award. Alice Unbound: Beyond Wonderland is her first solo anthology (Exile Editions, April 2018). Over 150 of her poems have seen print in such venues as Grievous Angel, Polu Texni, The Future Fire, Polar Borealis and many others. Her fiction collection, A Body of Work was published by Black Shuck Books, UK last fall, and her poetry chapbook Ancient Tales, Grand Deaths and Past Lives is available through Kelp Queen Press.

Pat Flewwelling’s “Nowhere Time” is dark fiction and “not the Canada you are accustomed to.” Pat writes dark fiction of all kinds, from short stories like “The Great Inevitable” in Expiration Date (Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, ed. Nancy Kilpatrick) and “Cyphoid Mary” in Alice Unbound (Exile Editions, ed. Coleen Anderson), to full-length novels like Blight of Exiles, Plague of Ghouls, and Scourge of Bones (Tyche Books, 2015, 2016, 2017 respectively). Forthcoming works include the fourth novel in her Helix series, Sedition (Tyche Books, 2019). On the side, she also runs a travelling bookstore, is a co-editor at ID Press, and works full-time as a senior business analyst.

In the pages of this anthology, you will discover a dark landscape that will challenge your perspective. From sea to shining sea, stories of a darker Canada will arise, and within them all a kernel of truth. Stories of sacrifice, cannibalism, ghosts, and mystical forests, the authors will plunge you into the country that is Canadian Dreadful.

“CANADIAN DREADFUL showcases some of Canada’s best voices in horror fiction. This anthology is a harrowing tour of the northern landscape that will leave you both dazzled and terrified.” ~David Morrell, New York Times best-selling author of Murder as a Fine Art

Find Canadian Dreadful on Amazon and at Dark Dragon Publishing.