I have a real love for Christmas specials. Or, to be more accurate, Christmas episodes. If you gave me the choice between an unknown Christmas movie and a Christmas episode of The West Wing, I’d choose the latter every single time. I watch “A Very Supernatural Christmas” every year around this time. I like what […]
New story: A Very vN xMAS Special Read More »
This Black Friday marks the advent of SFContario 4, where I will be a panelist (among many others). Here is my schedule, for anyone who may be interested. Saturday, 11:00am, Ballroom BC: “No, I’m Hero Support.” Good sidekicks aren’t just ciphers. They have back-stories that may be as rich as the main character’s. A good
My SFContario 4 schedule Read More »
A while ago, I paid for a personal genomic saliva kit from 23andMe, a California firm that screens saliva samples for a variety of known genetic trouble spots. Recently, the FDA ordered 23andMe to stop marketing the testing kits, saying that the claims made by the marketing are not backed by science, making possible a
Thoughts on being taken in by 23andMe Read More »
Recently, Angry Robot announced something I’ve known about for quite a while now: I’m writing a book called Company Town, set apart from the Machine Dynasty series. It’s about an escorts’ escort named Hwa, who takes a job bodyguarding the young heir to a family-run corporate energy empire, just as that empire colonizes Hwa’s hometown:
About my next novel, Company Town Read More »
This was Carol Riggs’ third-place contribution to Angry Robot Books’ competition to re-imagine their covers, and as it turns out, Carol also took first place, for illustrating one of Anne Lyle’s novels with an Etch-A-Sketch. An Etch-A-Sketch, people. Your own artistic talents are officially meaningless, in the face of that achievement. (Also, don’t piss off Carol.
Hey, look at this fan-made cover of vN! Read More »
“I’m just so sad,” my mom told me, when she learned Toronto Police Services Chief Bill Blair told reporters he had seen video of the mayor smoking crack cocaine. “It’s just…sad.” It is sad. It’s sad that my partner has to wonder about his mayor screaming in his face and shoving him the way he
Addicts lie: Rob Ford and the future of Toronto Read More »
Today sees the release of Cautions, Dreams, and Curiosities, another anthology from the Tomorrow Project at Intel Labs. I was asked to write a story pertaining to the White House Grand Challenges, and I focused on food security. I watched a lot of TED talks (Netflix helpfully organizes the subject headings, and there have been
New story, “Permacultures,” available now Read More »
So, this happened. I went to the Kingston WritersFest, where I was on a panel with Margaret Atwood and Corey Redekop. It was a really fun panel, but I felt kind of embarrassed about how I fumbled through my reading. Also, I didn’t sell very many books. Given that my publisher helped send me there,
More words about demos and cons Read More »
Recently, Kameron Hurley shared this piece by E.M. Kokie on the seeming dearth of language available to workaday prose writers to describe what arousal feels like in a cis female body. Said Kokie: When I found myself stuck and looking for the words, I started pulling books off my bookshelves and scanning for the romantic
Bad words: depicting female arousal in your fiction. Read More »
Over the last few days, Twitter has been all, well, a-twitter about diversity in science fiction. Most of that has to do with this piece in The Guardian, which begins thusly: Science fiction loves a good paradox. Here’s one for you: how can a genre that dreams up alien cultures and mythic races in such
iD: something from the butcher’s block Read More »