Author: Holly Schofield

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Seeds and Other Stories by Ursula Pflug now out!

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SF Canada member Ursula Pflug‘s latest collection, Seeds and Other Stories, is now available from Inanna Publications.

In these stories seers and vagabonds, addicts and gardeners succeed and sometimes fail at creating new kinds of community against apocalyptic backdrops. They build gardens in the ruins, transport seeds and songs from one world to another and from dreams to waking life. Where do you plant a seed someone gave you in a dream? How do you build a world more free of trauma when it’s all you’ve ever known? Sometimes the seed you wake up holding in your hand is the seed of a new world.

“Pflug’s excellent third story collection (after Harvesting the Moon) showcases her mature, rich, and immersive storytelling. The stories reflect Pflug’s characters’ resilience in the face of 27 disparate apocalypses, united by motifs of seeds and gardening and a striking juxtaposition of hyperrealism with delicate fantasy.”

—Publisher’s Weekly starred review

An award winning short fiction writer, Ursula has published over seventy-five short stories in professional genre and literary publications in Canada, the United States and the UK, in print and online. From 1979 till the present her work has appeared in magazines and anthologies including Now Magazine, Quarry, Tesseracts, Leviathan, The Nine Muses, Strange Horizons, Fantasy, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Nemonymous, Back Brain Recluse, Transversions, The Antigonish Review, Write, Bamboo Ridge, The Best of Strange Horizons, Prairie Fire and many others.

Get your copy of Seeds and Other Stories today!

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New Short Story from Krista D. Ball!

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SF Canada member Krista D. Ball has a short story in the recently-released Swashbuckling Cats: Nine Lives on the Seven Seas anthology. Published by Tyche Books (Tyche’s acquisitions editor is SF Canada member Margaret Curelas), the anthology features thirteen “tails” of adventure-loving cats, puns, and fun.

If you think cats and water don’t mix, think again.

Plunge into worlds of piratical cats: some selfish, some mischievous, all fond of hitting the catnip stash. From ships on the deep blue sea, to ships flying through the depths of space, and even visiting from beyond the veil, these cats are determined and on a mission.

One Reddit reviewer said “The Perfect Kibble” is “…a light-hearted and humorous read that made me chuckle…”

Krista D. Ball combines her love of the fantastical, an obsession with Jane Austen, and a history degree from Mount Allison University to bring both writers and muslin lovers a new and unique reference guide. Krista was born and raised in Newfoundland, where she learned how to use a chainsaw, chop wood, and make raspberry jam. She lives in Alberta these days. Somehow, she’s picked up an engineer, two kids, six cats, and a very understanding corgi off ebay. Her credit card has been since taken away. You can find her causing trouble at http://kristadball.com

Get your copy of Swashbuckling Cats from Tyche Books today!

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A Diary in the Age of Water by Nina Munteanu

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SF Canada member Nina Munteanu‘s latest publication is A Diary in the Age of Water. The novel, published by Inanna Publications, follows the climate-induced journey of Earth and humanity through four generations of women, each with a unique relationship to water. It explores identity and our concept of what is “normal”—as a nation and an individual—in a world that is rapidly and incomprehensibly changing.

Launched in Toronto in June as an online event, Nina’s novel is already attracting attention. Watch a recording of the launch here.

“Evoking Ursula LeGuin’s unflinching humane and moral authority, Nina Munteanu takes us into the lives of four generations of women and their battles against a global giant that controls and manipulates Earth’s water. In a diary that entwines acute scientific observation with poignant personal reflection, Lynna’s story unfolds incrementally, like climate change itself. Particularly harrowing are the neighbourhood water betrayals, along with Lynna’s deliberately dehydrated appearance meant to deflect attention from her own clandestine water collection. Her estrangement from her beloved daughter, her “dark cascade” who embarks upon a deadly path of her own, is heartwrenching. Munteanu elegantly transports us between Lynna’s exuberant youth and her tormented present, between microcosm and macrocosm, linking her story and struggles-and those of her mother, daughter, and granddaughter-to the life force manifest in water itself. In language both gritty and hauntingly poetic, Munteanu delivers an uncompromising warning of our future.”
—Lynn Hutchinson Lee, multimedia artist, author, and playwright

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist and novelist. Her novels include: Collision with Paradise; The Cypol; Angel of Chaos; Darwin’s Paradox; The Splintered Universe Trilogy; and The Last Summoner. In addition to eight novels, she has authored award-winning short stories, articles and non-fiction books, which were reprinted and translated into several languages throughout the world. Her short work has appeared in Beautiful BC Magazine, Cli-Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change, Chiaroscuro, Hadrosaur Tales, Pacific Yachting, Strange Horizons, Nowa Fantastyka, among others. Recognition for her work includes the Midwest Book Review Reader’s Choice Award, finalist for Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Award, the SLF Fountain Award, and The Delta Optimist Reviewers Choice Award. Nina’s latest non-fiction book, Water Is…—a scientific study and personal journey as limnologist, mother, teacher, and environmentalist—was picked by Margaret Atwood in the NY Times. as her #1 choice in the 2016 “The Year in Reading.” She lives in Toronto. www.ninamunteanu.ca

Order A Diary in the Age of Water today!

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In Veritas by C.J. Lavigne now out!

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SF Canada member C.J. Lavigne has just released her first novel, the urban fantasy In Veritas, published with NeWest Press.

“Things that are and are not, she thinks, and the dog is a snake.”

In this fantastic and fantastical debut, C.J. Lavigne concocts a wondrous realm overlaying a city that brims with civic workers and pigeons. Led by her synesthesia, Verity Richards discovers a hidden world inside an old Ottawa theatre. Within the timeworn walls live people who should not exist—people whose very survival is threatened by science, technology, and natural law. Verity must submerge herself in this impossible reality to help save the last traces of their broken community. Her guides: a magician, his shadow-dog, a dying angel, and a knife-edged woman who is more than half ghost.

With great empathy and imagination, In Veritas explores the nature of truth and the complexities of human communication.

C.J. Lavigne was born in Kingston, ON, but grew up all over Canada, from Comox, BC to Barrington Passage, NS. Since 2007, she has divided her time between Ottawa, ON, and Red Deer, AB, where she currently resides and works as a professional communications scholar who writes on television, gaming, and popular culture; at other points in her life, she’s been a barista, tech support supervisor, marketing manager, freelance editor, and—briefly—radio DJ. Wherever she is, she probably has a cat with her, and she’s never terribly far from her next coffee.

Find In Veritas at Amazon, Chapters, and Kobo. Find C.J. Lavigne at www.cjlavigne.com.

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Spring/Summer 2020 Webinar Series!

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In light of the impact of COVID-19 on our community of writers across Canada, SF Canada and Canadian Authors have jointly decided to offer a series of webinars at no charge to all writers, whether or not they are members of either organization.

These six webinars are:

 

 

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Climate fiction by Holly Schofield

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Climate change (and how it relates to the pandemic) is on everyone’s mind these days, and trends in speculative fiction have quickly reflected that. Climate fiction, also called Cli-Fi, is a subgenre of Eco-Fiction in that it involves the direct or indirect effects of climate change in an ecologically focused story.

SF Canada member Holly Schofield’s short stories about climate change usually take the optimistic approach. Her first cli-fi story was published way back in 2013 in Perihelion. In “Hurry Up and Wait”, an apocalypse survivor is initially happy that he finally is being left alone by society and, well, you can guess how long that lasts. You can find it reprinted in Into the Ruins.

Holly’s stories take place in various locations. “The Knells of Agassiz” (published in the Water anthology heads up north to help preserve Canada’s glaciers. “One Bad Apple” (SciFutures’ City of the Future anthology) journeys to an inner city food forest. “Home on the Free Range” (Analog) examines a complex ecosystem on an exoplanet from the point of view of a farm worker. In the fourth volume of the middle grade Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide, a young girl sneaks out of her habitat home to take an adventurous walk on an alien world because “Fluffy Pets are Best”.

Science always plays a role. “The Weight of the World” (Cli-Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change) and the forthcoming “Handful of Empty” (The Way of the Laser anthology) are both about food security under very different circumstances. “Wicked Problem”, (Utopia SF Magazine) has a scientist and her daughter dealing with an actively dangerous climate-changed environment. In “Bear #178” (Winner of Communitech’s True North contest), a tech-enhanced grizzly bear solves the problem of her shrinking habitat in a disastrous way.

Both “The Call of the Wold” (Solarpunk Summers) and “Halps’ Promise” (just released in Solarpunk Winters) take a lighter turn regarding the workings of two very different intentional communities.

“A Distant Honk” (The Unlikely Coulrophobia Remix anthology) takes a humorous look at how feral clowns might adapt to climate change and how we might adapt along with them. “Stewardship” (Unsung Stories) is in a similar vein, a cautionary tale about environmental protection gone wrong.

Some of Holly’s stories are quite serious. “Five Ways to Talk about Twisted Oak Moss” in the Rising Tides literary anthology, examines our past and future environment, using moss colonies as a metaphor for larger habitats.

Holly Schofield travels through time at the rate of one second per second, oscillating between the alternate realities of city and country life. Her short stories have appeared in Analog, Lightspeed, Escape Pod, and many other publications throughout the world. Find her at hollyschofield.wordpress.com