Category Archives: Books

Books by others; whatever I’m reading.

Toronto, Day 129

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Last week was full of petty frustrations and upheavals, nothing huge, but enough to put a glower on my face, from time to time, and shadow my attention to the many things, big and small, that were lovely and delightful about the week.

Some of the things that were, at times, overshadowed by the grump: The launch for Priscilla Uppal’s new book Projection: Encounters With My Runaway Mother was really fun, and the book is, in part, about movies. Each chapter is named for a film: it starts with Blade Runner and there’s a Throw Momma from the Train chapter. Very promising!

On Saturday we went with Linda Carson to check out Hop Day before making and devouring a delicious fall feast together.

Here’s one of the Hop Day attendees confronting a painting I really liked; it’s called Orphan:

A fellow Art Hop attendee confronts a painting card Orphan.

I finished a story, and am quite pleased with it. The construction dudes seem to be on the verge of finishing our courtyard, and have not only turned on the water feature but have added gorgeous blue lights to it. And Bird TV is back on the air–the sparrows have found our suet feeder and the cats are wildly attentive.

Even the iO7 upgrade offered a bit of fun and entertainment.

Toronto, Day 124

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It’s been quite chilly in the mornings for a couple now, on the order of six or seven degrees when we leave the house at 7:30. Breezy, too. It’s easy to forget how windy Vancouver isn’t. I’ve broken out the tights and sweaters and am happy to see them. Summer having been so much warmer here, it feels like a long time since I saw the stuff.

Tonight we are headed to a book launch with Michelle; she’s got a friend named Priscilla Uppal who has a book out, Projection: Encounters With My Runaway Mother. It’s at a bar called No One Writes to the Colonel, which somehow sounds like a place where they check your cool at the door before deciding whether to let you in. Though I see it’s also a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novella.

Super Stories of Heroes & Villains is out next month!

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SuperHeroes_BookpgeOur move from Vancouver had just started to build up a little momentum this spring when I sold Claude Lalumiere my story “Faces of Gemini” for the Super Stories of Heroes and Villains anthology, and even though I’ve been reposting Claude’s interviews and articles about the book, which contains stories by George R.R. Martin, Camille Alexa and Jonathan Lethem, among others, I’d entirely forgotten to let you all know.

“Faces of Gemini” initially appeared in Girls Who Bite Back: Witches, Mutants, Slayers and Freaks. It’s about being dumped, and picking up the pieces. Plus, also, super heroes and villains!

Here’s a snip:

Gemini nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The horde had thundered into Stanley Park at dawn, killing everyone they found. The barbarians’ weapons had been primitive, but pitted against a scattering of unarmed joggers, tourists and kids, they had done plenty of damage. Dozens of civilians had been murdered before Crucible had arrived to contain the threat.
“So…” Leela said. “Bad guys gone now?”

The book will be out in September.

Toronto day 76

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Kelly and I went to a book launch for Ryan North’s Choose Your Own Adventure Hamlet graphic novel, To Be or Not To Be on Monday. It was a massive event–the signing was happening outside a pub, and across the street, people were getting their pictures taken in quasi-Elizabethan dress. At some point a three-man theater troupe did a fifteen-minute version of Hamlet which was pretty hilarious.

(It was odd, too, because the other play we’ve been to since arriving here was also a literary adaptation where a couple people played all the roles, this time of Pride and Prejudice.)

The last week or so has held a pleasing mix of delights: I am poking away on two short stories at once. I am not sure where either of them is going, but that’s part of the fun. I am back at the mentoring gig as of yesterday and am so glad to have resumed that part of my life and routine. My current Creating Universes students are chatty and engaged, passionate about SF books, and a thoroughgoing delight. I had lunch with Peter Watts yesterday, have hung out with my sister a couple times, and am looking forward to the next ChiZine reading at Augusta House.

There has been lots of yoga, and there will be more tonight.

The coming weekend is a long weekend, just as it is in B.C., and we’re going to check out the Simcoe Day festivities at Fort York, for no better reason than that it’s a ten minute walk from our place.

Happy August, everyone!