Writer & Editor
You may not have heard of Brok Windsor or Johnny Canuck, but back during the Second World War they were part of Canada’s Golden Age of comic books. Comics from the U.S. were deemed “non-essential” imports under wartime legislation and as such were not allowed into Canada. But kids were already hooked on superheroes, adventure comics, humour books and more. So a homegrown Canadian comic book industry was born — and it lasted until the end of the war.
It’s been hard to sit on this one, as I was very very keen to submit a story to Kneeling in the Silver Light: Stories From the Great War. That was way back in November 2013, but now editor Dean M. Drinkel has released the table of contents, so I can announce that I have a story, “The Wolves of Vimy” in this collection.
Kneeling in the Silver Light is published by The Alchemy Press and released in time for FantasyCon, held this year in York.
Writing and submitting a story for Long Hidden has changed the way I approach speculative fiction. Probably not enough, but it’s a start.
If you’re not familiar with Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, click on over and see what it’s all about. One of the purposes of the anthology edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older, published by Crossed Genres, is to put marginalized people at the centre of the story, with the added context of real-world history blended with speculative elements.
A big part of the reason I wanted to submit a piece to Long Hidden was I wasn’t sure I could do it.
Award-winning short story writer Douglas Smith has been called “one of Canada’s most original writers of speculative fiction” (Library Journal), and this fall he brings readers a deeper story in his novel The Wolf at the End of the World.
Howdy! In case you’ve been waiting to get a look at Tesseracts 17, the book launches today (woohoo!). Even better, if you like to hobnob/pester/lurk near authors, Bitten By Books is hosting an online launch in which writers included in the annual anthology of Canadian speculative fiction will be available to chat with visitors and answer questions. Also, if you like free books, there’s a chance to win $50 Amazon gift card.
The event is now live and you can see what’s going on by clicking here.
I’ll be taking part after 2:30 p.m. Central Time, but I’ll try to pop in before then as well. The event runs until noon Thursday. Hope to see some of you stop in and say hi!
Great news: WolfCop is now a reality. Writer/director Lowell Dean and his filmmaking team managed to advance through multiple fan-voted rounds of CineCoup’s development-spurring competition. When they made it into the Top 5 finalists in the inaugural CineCoup Film Accelerator, I had hope they might make it all the way — and on June 10, they did.
