FICTIONISTA
Two exes and their new girlfriends on double-date hell night at the rankest pizza dive in creation end up biting off more than they can chew. A bittersweet first-contact story best consumed nowhere near mealtime.
In print (Pulp Literature #32) and now FREE AUDIO at StarShipSofa!!! Narrated by bestselling author Alethea Kontis.
Very pleased to say my kooky vandalism story “Killer Biznez“ has been shortlisted for the Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence for the year’s best crime short story. Weed trays, favorite cousins, misspelled graffiti & questionable fashion apps — exciting times!
Her ceramic arm and hand and articulated fingers gleam unadulterated ivory, whiter than the snow outside already melting as it falls. . .
Some buzz has already been generating about the forthcoming 49th Parallels anthology from super-local (Yay, Ottawa!) independent publisher Bundoran Press, which the Toronto Metro describes as “an anthology around what would have happened if the country took a very different turn.” I’m happy to say my post-pandemic Vancouver story “As Mistress Wishes” will be joining the excellent lineup of these Canada-askew tales.
This one re-imagines the downtown Vancouver peninsula as a sort of steam-powered walled matriarchal city state, its society a product of the previous generation’s fierce battles over resources splitting along a strict gender divide, a world with little appreciation for nuance or inclusivity.
Mistress’s voice soothes something deep in my chest, past the industrial ceramic ribcage of my refashioning, a restless twitch in the meat muscle of my canine heart…
And of course it’s told from the dog’s perspective. Because DOGS.
More info as it materializes.
My poem “Little Red Roofs” is up today in Understorey Magazine, Issue #9. Happy to say they totally nailed it with this gorgeous accompanying photo of Deanne Fitzpatrick‘s brilliant artisan textile. Of course I totally, totally want one, because of, you know, the little red roofs.
[link http://understoreymagazine.ca/article/little-red-roofs ]
From “Little Red Roofs“:
What has brought on
my predilection for houses
with little red roofs?I never lived in one
—not to my knowledge—
but out in the world
continually reach for even
hokey nicknacks of the image:
vintage plaster souvenirs from
Amsterdam or Aruba,
country carvings of Amish barns
and tiny bisque pagodas
marked Occupied Japan.
Cover has been revealed for Those Who Make Us, an anthology of Canadian creature, myth, & monster stories including my future Canadiana sasquatch tale “The Hairy Man.”
The Hairy Man showed me his pénis today at the castle and though my maman would not have approved I looked with Great Interest and when he pushed his matted brownish hair back over his man-thing and covered it up again he waited and I knew it was hoped I would return the Favour. I did not…
I pretty much adore this story. Love it for its Edwardian ladies’ digest overtones and its bildungsroman fragile rawness. Happy to say it’s been chosen also to appear in the Exile Literary Quarterly.
Pre-order the anthology here.
Toronto-based Exile Editions has announced the table of contents for their forthcoming monster/myth anthology Those Who Make Us, which includes my post-apocalyptic love letter to Victoria, “The Hairy Man.”
Living in the Pacific Northwest gives one (if one is odd, and loves monsters and attendant mythos) a somewhat proprietary appreciation for Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch, aka hairy man, aka gogit — okay, the dude has a dozen different regional names all over the world, and was incidentally responsible for one of my favorite X-Files episodes.
I’m in absolute love with this story. It’s tangentially set in the same future-Canada as my “Drowntown” (lead story in the Prix Aurora-winning Blood & Water) and Vancouver-based matriarchal steamworks story I’m still cooking in the oven. I’m starting to sense a post-disaster Canadian mosaic novel materializing…
Am feeling so Canadian! Having been an Austinite and a Portlander for so long, I’m having a swell time embracing my Canadianity (Canadianness?), most recently with a sale to the longrunning Canadian SFF anthology series, Tesseracts.
Called a “Canadian literary legacy,” the first Tesseracts anthology was edited by SF luminary Judith Merril in 1985. By Tesseracts 20‘s release Canadian authors, editors, translators and special guests will have contributed nearly 600 short stories, poems, editorials, and forewords to the series, including Margaret Atwood, Susan Swan, and the Hugo and Nebula award winning William Gibson, Spider Robinson, and Robert J. Sawyer.
Happy to say I’m following my Tesseracts 19 appearance (“A Week in the Superlife”) with “Dear Houston” in Tesseracts 20, edited by Mssrs. Spider Robinson and James Alan Gardner. A poem this time! A very long poem…
Hellyeah! Exile’s NEW CANADIAN NOIR is a thing! Includes my Montreal noir short story “Three-Step Program.” I hereby dub this one Mo-No, a thrilling new frontier in pulp fiction.
From the release:
Old vines and older grudges tangle in the Okanagan Valley. An elderly widow, eking out a living collecting detritus, seeks to avenge the murder of her friend. A love-weary security guard clashes with bounty hunters. An ursine meth-cooker faces even stranger creatures on the frozen tundra of Nunavut. As the dead walk and the living despair, a private detective unravels a bizarre mystery. In The Exile Book of New Canadian Noir, the whole spectrum of the noir esthetic is explored: from its hardboiled home in crime fiction to its grim forays into horror, fantasy, and surrealism…
Each year, a five-member jury is charged with selecting the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. It was my great good pleasure to have been asked to serve as chair of this year’s jury, and I’m extremely proud of our consensus-derived finalists. In tandem with the juried award, the Society annually presents a Member’s Choice award called the Copper Cylinder. Congratulations to Guy Gavriel Kay and Cory Doctorow! Sunburst Award winners will be announced later this fall.
From the official release:
SUNBURST AWARD SOCIETY ANNOUNCES THE WINNERS OF ITS THIRD ANNUAL COPPER CYLINDER AWARDS.
Toronto, Ontario (September 19th, 2014) The Sunburst Award Society is pleased to announce the winners of the third annual Copper Cylinder Awards. The Copper Cylinder Award is an annual member’s choice award selected by members of the Sunburst Award Society for books published during the previous year.
The Copper Cylinder Award derives its name from the first Canadian scientific romance, “A Strange Manuscript Found in a 
Copper Cylinder,” by James De Mille (1833-1880).
The winner of the 2014 Copper Cylinder Adult Award is River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay (Penguin Group Canada – ISBN – 9780670068401).
The winner of the 2014 Copper Cylinder Young Adult Award is Homeland by Cory Doctorow (Tom Doherty Associates – ISBN – 9780765333698).
The Sunburst Award Society also confers annually the juried Sunburst Awards for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. Both awards celebrate the best in Canadian fantastic literature published during the previous calendar year.
For additional information about the Copper Cylinder Awards, Sunburst Award Society membership and the voting process: http://coppercylinderaward.ca
For additional information about the Sunburst Awards, the nominees and jurors, eligibility and the selection process: http://sunburstaward.org.
Ever wanted to ask authors weird questions online? Now’s your chance! Bitten by Books is hosting another launch, and this one includes my Lovecraft-inspired tale of eerie architecture, “In Libitina’s House.” Clipped from the site:
Join us November 13 for the world online launch event of Chilling Tales: In Words, Alas, Drown I…
For those who like their stories chilled: Canada’s maestro of the macabre, Michael Kelly, presents an all new anthology of nightmares to perturb and torment the most discerning lovers of dark fiction. 20 new spine tingling tales by iconic Canadian dark fantasy and horror writers Camille Alexa, Colleen Anderson, Kevin Cockle, Gemma Files, Lisa L Hannett, Derek Künsken, Claude Lalumière, Daniel LeMoal, Catherine MacLeod, Michael Matheson, Susie Moloney, David Nickle, Ian Rogers, Douglas Smith, Simon Strantzas, Edo van Belkom, Halli Villegas, Bev Vincent, Robert J. Wiersema, and Rio Youers, with an introduction by Michael Kelly.
