Shades Within Us wins the Alberta Book Publishing Award!

Shades Within Us: Tales of Migrations and Fractured Borders, co-edited by SF Canada members Susan Forest and Lucas K. Law and published by Laksa Media, has won the Alberta Book Publishing Award in the speculative fiction category. This award is for the most outstanding work of the Alberta book publishing industry as adjudicated by experts and publishing professionals from across Canada.

Shades Within Us is the fourth anthology in Laksa’s “social causes” series and is nominated for this year’s Aurora Award. Others in this series are the Aurora-winning Strangers Among Us, the Aurora-winning The Sum of Us, and Where the Stars Rise.

Susan Forest grew up in a family of mountaineers and skiers, and she loves adventure. She also loves the big ideas found in SF/F, and finds fast-paced adventure stories a great place to explore how individuals grapple with complex moral decisions. Her latest novel is the recently-released Bursts of Fire. Susan is also an award-winning fiction editor, has published over 25 short stories (four, including her current “For a Rich Man to Enter,” nominated for Canada’s Prix Aurora Award), and has appeared at many international writing conventions. She loves travel and has been known to dictate novels from the back of her husband’s motorcycle.

Lucas K. Law is a Malaysian-born freelance editor and published author who divides his time and heart between Calgary and Qualicum Beach. With Susan Forest, he co-edited Strangers Among Us, The Sum of Us, and Shades Within Us. Lucas is the co-editor of Where the Stars Rise with Derwin Mak. He has been a jury member for a number of fiction competitions including Nebula, RITA and Golden Heart Awards. When he isn’t editing, writing, or reading, he is a corporate and non-profit organization consultant in business planning and development.

Purchase Shades Within Us today!

“Bootleg Jesus” by Tonya Liburd

SF Canada member Tonya Liburd has a new short story out at Diabolical Plots, the popular submissions tool and online magazine. “Bootleg Jesus” is a story about religion, family, and magic. Mara lives in an isolated village where magic isn’t supposed to manifest in people. A place that’s supposed to be safe from the god-like beings who manifest particularly potent gifts. For Mara’s friend Sydney, though, it’s not at all a safe place, and for all the children it’s somewhere they are not really free.

This is an interesting coming-of-age story, exploring those age-old ideas of what it means to grow up and find you don’t match the expectations of those around you.                     – Tangent Online

 

Liburd’s opening line pulls you into a compelling fantasy tale that is both gritty and tense, set in a world where magic flows just beneath the surface of everyday life.                   – Barnes and Noble

 

It’s often difficult and complex, but it’s also very much worth spending some time with. A great read!                    – Quick Sip Reviews

 

Tonya Liburd shares a birthday with Simeon Daniel and Ray Bradbury, which may tell you a little something about her. She is a 2017 and 2018 Rhysling nominee, and has been longlisted in the 2015 Carter V. Cooper(Vanderbilt)/Exile Short Fiction Competition. Her fiction is used in Nisi Shawl’s workshops as an example of ‘code switching’, and in Tananarive Due’s course at UCLA. She is the Senior Editor of Abyss & Apex magazine. You can find her blogging at http://Spiderlilly.com, on Twitter at @somesillywowzer, or on Patreon at www.Patreon.com/TonyaLiburd.

Read “Bootleg Jesus” for free at Diabolical Plots.

Magpie’s Ladder by Richard A. Kirk

SF Canada member Richard A. Kirk’s latest book, Magpie’s Ladder, comprises stories that came to him while he was working on his visual art. Recently released by PS Publishing, a UK-based specialist publisher producing high quality, collectable but affordable signed limited editions within the field of science fiction, fantasy and horror. This illustrated book is Richard’s first collection of short stories.

A researcher’s curiosity draws her to the dream realm of the Darkling Lands.

Condemned by his own crime, an engrosser plumbs the labyrinthine depths of his firm’s building to find that he is not alone.

A giant searches for his missing brother.

A young woman opens a sealed house atop a crumbling bridge.

A young academic moves into the house of a dead professor and finds himself trapped in a dark fairy-tale.

These are five stories of yearning, curiosity, and darkness. They explore the fragile and dangerous correspondence between people and monsters.

Richard is an author, illustrator and visual artist. His fiction includes the short fantasy novel, The Lost Machine (Radiolaria Studios, 2010), and Necessary Monsters (Arche Press, Resurrection House, 2o17). He says, “Books have always been central to my life. Thinking about my literary inspiration and literary heroes lead me to authors like K. J. Bishop, Michael Moorcock, Mervyn Peake, Borges, John Banville, Brian Catling and John Crowley. These writers illuminate with their prose, but never fear the dark, qualities I’ll always aspire to with my own work.”

Find Magpie’s Ladder at PS Publishing and find more of Richard’s work on his blog.

Little Blue Marble 2018 anthology now available!

Little Blue Marble is published and edited by SF Canada member Katrina Archer, a software engineer, author, and editor.

There is only one little blue marble for all of us so far. Little Blue Marble’s goal is to bring greater awareness of the consequences and potential solutions to anthropogenic climate change. The site links to great content from around the web and publishes original articles and works of speculative fiction.

The Little Blue Marble 2018 anthology is now available. All of this year’s great stories in one spot for your reading pleasure, including works by SF Canada members Holly Schofield and Melissa Yuan-Innes. From rising tides to edible homes, weather control and tornado killers, floating city-states and plant-based humans, the anthology brings you poignant, sometimes hopeful but often biting visions of our futures living with climate change.

Help spread awareness of climate change by purchasing the anthology or via Little Blue Marble’s Patreon.

Fiction and Poetry from Lisa Timpf

SF Canada member Lisa Timpf  has been busy lately!

Her story, “A Cat’s Confession”, about a ship’s cat serving aboard the Galactic Space Ship Meech Lake plus two poems inspired by her cat, Smokey, recently appeared in the anthology From A Cat’s View. This unique anthology offers fascinating insights into the relationship between humans and their feline owners. Pick up a copy at Post to Print Publishers — it’s the purrrfect gift for cat lovers everywhere.

Her short story, “The Caller”, appears in the Future Days anthology issued by Castrum Press.

New Myths has published a story and a poem by Lisa. “Gone” is about an AI-enhanced dog looking for a missing master and “What Really Happened” is a different take on the Gingham Dog and Calico Cat. Read both for free at New Myths.

Her poem entitled “With Two Left Feet” appears in the Tesseracts anthology Nevertheless. In connection with that book’s promotion, Lisa contributed to their “Bright Spots” blog with a piece entitled “Step By Step” that draws on her recovery from knee surgery.

A sci-fi short story entitled “What Lies Beneath” was included in Nomadic Delirium’s November 2018 edition of Environmental Holocaust. The story follows the efforts of a Hamilton-based researcher to combat the spread of a virus.

A sci-fi poem entitled “History Waits to be Written” was published in Polar Borealis #7.

And her sci-fi poem “Ghost Stories” was included in the Sounds of the Night anthology from Alban Lake Publishing.

Lisa’s writing has appeared in a variety of other venues, including Star*Line, Eye to the Telescope, Thema, and Third Flatiron. Find her at http://lisatimpf.blogspot.com/.

Short Fiction from Sally McBride

SF Canada member Sally McBride is pleased to announce she has just signed a contract for a short story “The Paisley Snow” to appear soon in The Cockroach Conservatory, Vol. 1: Working Zealot’s Guide to Gaining Capital in Pre-Apocalyptic America.

As well, her short story, “My Mother’s Garden”, will appear in Exile Editions’ upcoming Food of My People anthology edited by Ursula Pflug and Candas Jane Dorsey.

And her short story, “Thank Yew Very Much”, is currently out in On Spec magazine (Vol. 28 #4).