Category: Member News

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The Meaning of Water

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water-is-pbook-coverFrom Nina Munteanu…

For those of you in the Toronto area and interested in the environment and water, I am hosting a Water Event and book launch of my recently released book “Water Is…” on June 12th (Sunday) at Islington Golf Course (1-5pm) in Etobicoke (near Islington and Dundas W).

Just to entice you, we start with a blessing of Mimico Creek–known to be unruly at times–by a Mississauga nation knowledge keeper. That will be followed by a short talk about Mimico watershed by a TRCA naturalist. Then we move inside to mix and meet. Councillor Tovey will talk about the coolest things he is doing about city planning and water. Then we will have some awesome poetry. Tasnim Jivaji will exhibit her water art and bazillion other interesting people will be there … including you.

Bring family, friends, anyone who cares about water… Then let Debby know with an RSVP: debby@mdgassociates.com.

Writers are encouraged to bring their work and promo material; there will be a show and tell table and plenty of time to mix and share.

In some very important ways, this book is my life’s work and the culmination of a lifetime of work, play and dedication. If you want to know more about “Water Is…” you can visit www.TheMeaningOfWater.com

Or go straight to this page: https://themeaningofwater.com/water-is/

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Jo Beverley (1947 – 2016)

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Contributed by Paula Johanson

JoBeverleyWith the passing of our friend and SF Canada member Jo Beverley, we have lost a Canadian writer active in both romance and science fiction genres. Unlike most authors of historical romances set in England, Jo Beverley was actually English by birth though of Irish descent. She kept her Lancashire accent even after thirty years in Canada, and her marvelously good manners were warmed with good humour.

As a child Jo began writing as soon as she could string sentences together. Her juvenilia includes a romance novel set in medieval times, which she wrote in an exercise book when she was sixteen. It’s my hope that in this day of e-books and annotated manuscripts, a smart publisher will make that early novel available with commentary!

She earned a degree in English history from Keele University in Staffordshire, where she met Ken Beverley. They were married shortly after graduation, while she worked in youth employment and he became a scientist.

In the mid-seventies, she and Ken moved to Canada where they gained dual citizenship. It took attending a talk at a library to get her seriously writing the manuscript that became her first historical romance. Until the 1980s she hadn’t thought of writing as something ordinary people did, but then things came together in her life to let her apply herself seriously to her writing.

After raising their family in Ottawa, Jo and her husband moved to Victoria, BC, during the time that SF Canada members knew her best. She made us welcome in their home, and was a generous colleague among fellow writers. Visiting her home was a pleasure for SF Canada people in Victoria. In later years when her posts would come on our listserver or on Word Wenches blog, recommending markets or useful programs, it was easy to remember her saying similarly helpful things in the yard of her Oak Bay home or the haunted house in Fairfield. She took a spin on my three-wheeled bike one day, her first ever on a cycle.

Among authors of historical romance, she became a legend, a bestselling author with multiple awards. Publishers Weekly called her “today’s most skillful writer of intelligent historical romance.”

In addition to her four stories of science fiction and fantasy, her romance works included over forty-seven novels and eighteen novellas, a few of which included charming light touches of a fantasy element such as a sheela-na-gigh carving which granted wishes but at a price. “The SF side of romance (as opposed to paranormal such as vampires etc) has been neglected,” as Jo observed. She was pleased to see that Canadian publishers might be waking up to the importance of popular fiction.

In 2009 she and Ken returned to England. By 2012 she had survived cancer and moved on to new writing projects. Until the last months of her life, Jo was an active participant in her circles of romance writers and science fiction writers. Among other projects, she was making electronic content to supplement her print books. Their sons and grandchild still live in the Ottawa area, and Jo and Ken were planning to return to Canada; but her cancer returned. She passed away Monday, May 23, 2016.

A detailed note on Jo’s passing has been written by her friends on the Word Wenches blog. Ken appreciates all the cards he has received, and has told the SF Canada people: “But I’d rather you just ‘posted a card’ to the Wenches memorial page:
http://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_wenches/2016/05/in-memoriam-jo-beverley.html
There will be a family and other friends memorial page set up soon — a link to it will be posted on the Wenches page when it is up and running.”

 

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Reading and Discussion

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CyclingtoAsylum-readingMontréal SF writer Su J. Sokol will be reading from her Sunburst nominated novel, Cycling to Asylum, at Perfect Books at 258 Elgin Street in Ottawa on Sunday, May 29th at 2:30. Entry is free and a short discussion will follow the reading. If you are in the Ottawa area, please stop by and welcome this new SFCanada member!

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Dave Duncan Inducted Into CSFFA

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Dave-Duncan-miniSF Canada is pleased and proud to congratulate founder member and honorary lifetime member Dave Duncan on his induction into the Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association’s Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame was established to recognize “outstanding achievements that have contributed to the stature of Science Fiction and Fantasy” in Canada.

With over fifty science fiction, fantasy, young adult and historical titles to his credit, Duncan has entertained and enraptured readers with such series as A Man of His Word, The Seventh Sword, and his King’s Blades novels, as well as The Great Game and many standalone works. Hailing originally from Scotland, Duncan has lived all of his adult life in western Canada, working as a petroleum geologist before embarking on his writing career. His books have been translated into fifteen languages and he has been known to write under the occasional pseudonym.

Read more about Dave Duncan’s work and feast your eyes on his wonderful Maps collection at his website at www.daveduncan.com.

Congratulations from all of us at SF Canada!

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Unguilded by Jane Glatt

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Unguilded by Jane Glatt published by Tyche Books

Mage Guild wants to enslave her. Can Kara survive among the Unguilded?

At sixUnguilded_frontteen Kara Fonti still has no magic. But Mage Guild, the most powerful of all the Guilds in Tregella, has a use for her – they will force her to bear children for men who do have magic. Arabella Fonti, to protect her own status within the guild, pushes her daughter to do the unthinkable – run away to live outside the guild system.

But unguilded are not welcome in Tregella, especially on the magical chain of islands of the capital Rillidi. In increasing danger of being arrested or killed, Kara finds refuge on Old Rillidi, the original island that was neither created by magic nor controlled by one of the guilds.

On Old Rillidi, Kara discovers true friends, makes a home for herself, and learns more about her strange ability to “see” magic. But the Mage Guild will not let her go, and it is here where she feels safest that Kara is betrayed . . .

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Joël Champetier (1957-2015)

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Contributed by Jean-Louis Trudel

After a hard fight with acute leukemia, diagnosed after the Boréal convention in May 2014, Joël Champetier passed away early Saturday morning, May 30, in a palliative care unit in Saint-Tite, Québec, a few kilometres away from his home in Saint-Séverin de Proulxville.  He was 57 years old.  

A long-time member of SF Canada, Joël Champetier was the author of eight novels, seven young adult books, and nearly thirty short stories.  In terms of genre, his works ranged from science fiction to fantasy and horror, often combining great humanity with understated originality in tone and approach.  His novels included the science fiction adventure La Taupe et le Dragon, published by Tor in English translation in 1999 as The Dragon’s Eye, the suspenseful La Mémoire du lac [The Lake’s Memory], the off-beat fantasy opus Les Sources de la magie [The Sources of Magic], and the horror thriller La Peau blanche, which inspired the identically-named feature-length movie La Peau blanche (also known as White Skin and Cannibal in English markets, winner of a Toronto International Film Festival award in 2004), for which Champetier also authored the screenplay.

A guest of honour at the World Fantasy Convention in 2001, he won multiple awards as a writer (seven Prix Boréal, two Aurora Awards, and two Prix Jacques-Brossard, formerly known as the Grand Prix de la science-fiction et du fantastique québécois).  He won quite a few more as the editor for many years of Solaris, one of the world’s oldest active SF magazines (founded in 1974).

 

(A picture of Joël Champetier in 2008, at Readercon 19, a Boston-area convention.  His strange taste in head covering may or may not be a deliberate artefact of the photographer’s fancy, but the shirt reflected his own taste for colourful clothing.)

Born in Québec’s Abitibi region in 1957, Joël Champetier worked for a few years for his father’s company in the field of electrochemistry before devoting himself to a full-time writing career after publishing his first story in 1981.  He went on to publish more stories as well as novels and a collection of his short fiction, Cœur de fer [Heart of Iron].  He co-edited the anthology Escales sur Solaris (1995) to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Solaris magazine.  In 2014, in spite of his deteriorating health, he helped to oversee the publication of the fortieth-anniversary issue of Solaris, which included a story of his own, “Pour son œil seulement” [For His Eye Only],  that earned him his last Prix Boréal only three weeks before his passing.  He lived in Montréal, Ville-Marie, and Gallix before moving to the village of Saint-Séverin, near Shawinigan, almost twenty years ago.  He was married to Valérie Bédard, MD.  To many in Québec, he was an inspiration as a writer, as an editor, and as a friend.