Nina Munteanu launches Age of Water podcast

Age of Water, the new podcast produced by SF Canada member Nina Munteanu and writer/technologist Claudiu Murgan interviews scientists, journalists, writers, academia and innovators who share their knowledge and opinions about the real state of the environment and what committed individuals and groups are doing to make a difference. They talk about the problems and they talk about the solutions.

We are now living in the Age of Water. Water is the new “gold”, with individuals, corporations and countries positioning themselves around this precious resource. Many already struggle with scarcity and pollution. All too soon, water—its quality, its possession, its distribution—will define a person’s security, comfort, wealth, and even identity. Water is changing everything.

The format of the podcast is a combination of chat cast and informal interview, covering everything from breaking environmental news to evergreen material. This includes human interest stories, readings of eco-literature, discussion of film and other media productions of interest.

Recent interviewees include SF Canada member Candas Jane Dorsey who talks about her award-winning stories, teaching at university, what eco-fiction means, and how writers can be “sneaky.” Listen to it here.

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist/limnologist and internationally published author of award-winning speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Her latest book, Water Is…, is a scientific study and personal journey as limnologist, mother, teacher and environmentalist. Water Is… was recently picked by Margaret Atwood in the NY Times as 2016 ‘The Year in Reading’. Nina’s latest novel, A Diary in the Age of Water, will be released by Inanna Publications in 2020. Preorder it today.

Find Nina at ninamunteanu.ca, ninamunteanu.me, and themeaningofwater.com.

And find the Age of Water podcast here.

 

New podcast, The Worldshapers

SF Canada member Edward Willett hosts a new podcast featuring interviews with science fiction and fantasy authors about their creative processes.

All writers, when they set pen to paper or post pixel to page, are shaping a world: their own private world, created from their own thoughts and imagination, joys and sorrows, hopes and heartbreaks, triumphs and fears.

It is a kind of miracle, and very writer performs it in his or her own way. In The Worldshapers, Edward Willett, himself an award-winning writer of science fiction and fantasy, delves into the creative process with science fiction and fantasy writers of every kind, seeking to better understand this magical, mystical skill…the skill of worldshaping.

Find interesting and enlightening conversations with such high-profile writers as Julie Czerneda, Tanya Huff, John Scalzi, and Robert Sawyer at The Worldshapers.

Mark Shainblum featured in Lost Heroes documentary

SF Canada member Mark Shainblum is one of several Canadian comic book creators featured and interviewed in the new documentary Lost Heroes: The Untold Story of Canadian Lost Heroes Movie PosterSuperheroes, produced and directed by Wil Pascoe.

In collaboration with comic artist Gabriel Morrissette, Shainblum wrote and co-created the Canadian superhero comic Northguard and the political humour series Angloman. He also worked on the classic Canadian comic book hero Captain Canuck and the weekly webcomic Canadiana. Shainblum is also an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer and editor, and served as president of SF Canada in 2002-03.

Lost Heroes explores the hidden history of Canada’s comic book superheroes. From Canada’s Golden Age when millions of children read the tales of Inuit goddess Nelvana of the Northern Lights, to the thrilling days when Canadian heroes returned to the newsstands and comicshops with characters like Captain Canuck and Cerebus, Lost Heroes celebrates the unique Canadian talent behind these characters and asks why can’t Canada keep its heroes?

Lost Heroes is a Middle Child Films / Farpoint Films production, and airs throughout March, 2014 on the Canadian cable channel Superchannel. It also has theatrical showings in Toronto, Winnipeg and at the Emerald City Comic-Con in Seattle.

Click here for showtimes.

 

Potential New SF on CBC Radio

Matt Watts, Greg DeClute and Joe Mahoney have completed production of a half hour pilot for a proposed new science fiction radio play series on CBC Radio called “Nightsoil: Into the Beyond of the Future of Tomorrow.”

If accepted by CBC Radio’s programming department, Nightsoil would continue the new wave of science fiction comedy begun in 2005 on CBC Radio by Matt and Joe with Steve the First, Steve the Second, and later Canadia:2056 (with Greg DeClute).

In the future, 98% of the world’s population live in a computer simulation called Next Life.  The other 2%, stuck in the real world, spend their miserable lives looking after the inhabitants of Next Life.  Nightsoil is the story of one man’s dream of entering the wondrous world of Next Life, reuniting with his childhood sweetheart, and living happily ever after.

If only Next Life were that easy…

Consistently funny, sometimes serious, yet always entertaining, Nightsoil: Into the Beyond of the Future of Tomorrow has everything: relevancy, mass appeal, and perhaps most importantly, a really long title.