Tag: WRITING

Lester Young Podcast Live @ Starship Sofa!!!

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Yes, here it is! Tony  at Starship Sofa has posted this week’s podcast, which includes a wonderful dramatic reading by J.J. Campanella of my Asimov’s novelette “Lester Young and the Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues.” The cover art for this issue is an excellent scene from the story by artist Skeet Scienski (who also has an audio segment on genre art!) — I’m blown away by that art, man! — and the story is introduced by Sheila Williams, the editor of Asimov’s SF! (I also do a little outro on the background for the story.) There’s also poetry by Bruce Boston, and …

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John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Nominated!?!?!

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Actually, I found out a few days ago, and believe you me, it was hard to keep it secret. But the Hugo and Campbell nominations have been announced now, so I can finally stop keeping it secret how honoured I am by my nomination for the Campbell Award 2009. I’m blown away. Thanks to all the people who saw fit to nominate me! It’s nice to see the competition there includes some familiar names, including fellow Canadian Tony Pi and the very impressive Aliette de Bodard. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and squee! until I’m red …

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Weekend Update

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Well, I managed to work out on Saturday morning, before meeting up with my friend Mike from Jeonju. We hung out for the weekend: good food, lots of good conversation, a little beer. It was a pretty good weekend, and I’m feeling more settled for the week to come, though it will be hectic. I think the break I took today from exercise (beyond walking down to the station and walking home again later) was good for me, as my body seems to have recovered from the past two weeks of hard exercise, except for the pain in my abdominal …

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Drive-By Update

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Life is so utterly hectic that I’ve barely had time to relax, let alone write any of the posts I was planning to this week. However, I’ve now really gotten into the swing of this office hours thing. (Of course, so are my students — I had two visitors last week and appointments with two more this week — so we’ll see how far I get with getting anything else done here.) I was joking with the secretaries this afternoon that having office hours like this is a bit like prison: gotta do the time, after all, and all that’s …

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Diet Soap #3! (Get One Free!)

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Diet Soap #3 is finally out! It includes my poem “Tian Ju Zhao,” which is the first poem ‘ve published in ages. (Though a couple more will be showing up in a future issue of Diet Soap.) There’s a heck of a lineup too, including none other than Howard Waldrop! You can pay to download or get a print copy at Lulu, but there’s a special offer on, at least at the time of writing, where you can request a free copy of the current issue in PDF format (presumably to see whether you like it enough to subscribe). Might …

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Got a Kick Out Of…

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A few things I got a kick out of in the last few days: Seeing a drunken old man jogging in place on the express commuter train out of Seoul. He jogged for ten or fifteen minutes, stopped, rolled his head around for a while, then jogged some more. I seemed to be the only person taking any notice at all of his performance. It was amusing. Seeing my name on a few of the “Here’s who I nominated!” lists for the Hugos and Campbell Award. I didn’t see a lot of these, but I saw a few, which is …

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噬 (shì)?

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I’m looking for a Mandarin word I could use as a translation of “devour.” It ought to have a visceral feeling, though it’s a word used by a Chinese ghost hunting the Japanese bioweapon experimenter who killed him with bubonic plague (or some similar horrific illness) in Manchuria back during the war. It’s the final finishing touch on a story I want to send out as soon as possible, maybe even tomorrow. I’ve tried a few online dictionaries but I don’t know any Mandarin at all, so I don’t trust any of the results. I’ve emailed/twittered a few Chinese speakers, …

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Worthwhile Stuff For Your Ears and Eyes

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Here is some worthwhile stuff to check out, while it’s at the front of my mind: Ears First, a couple of excellent stories in podcast form, by my pals from Clarion West: Pesudopod‘s rendition of the very dark story “The Greatest Adventure of All” by Ian McHugh Beneath Ceaseless Skies‘ rendition of Tina Connolly’s fantasy “The God-Death of Halla” (and other excellent stories are available on the same page) Eyes A short article giving even more context to the context I provided for my story “Cai and Her Ten Thousand Husbands” has been posted over at his excellent blog Gusts …

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Workshops for You (If You’re Anything Like Me)

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Here I am, fresh back from Sobaeksan (writeup coming soon on the SOAO workshop, I promise!), and already I’m looking for more astronomy immersion. (Though, this time, in English, so I can understand more of it!) Launch Pad is, as of yesterday (well, to me, as it’s the 16th of February here and now) looking for applicants. Twelve lucky people — writers, whether of science, SF, film scripts, or other things — will be selected to get a crash course on astronomy out in Laramie, Wyoming. It’s an excellent opportunity. Find out more, and apply, at the Launch Pad website. …

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Databased & V-Day

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Well, a friend sent me a link for the The Ultimate Guide to Modern Writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy, which was compiled by Avi Abrams and explained in this post at Dark Roasted Beans. I was shocked to find myself in it. Shocked in the sense of being hit by a wave of, “Oh, crap, I need to get some more stories submitted out there soon!” The semester looms, and I have tons to do before then. Ah well, for now, I’ve other things to take care of. But I was chuffed to know I warranted entry into a …

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