Category: Prix Aurora Awards

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Shades Within Us wins the Alberta Book Publishing Award!

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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!

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2018 Aurora Awards Ballot Announced

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The Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association has announced this year’s Aurora Award ballot for works done in 2017 by Canadians. We are very pleased to note that numerous SF Canada members are included in the ballot in various categories:

In Best Young Adult Novel, S.M. Beiko (Scion of the Fox)

In Best Poem/Song, Rhea Rose (Cruising Glaciers)

In Best Related Work, Spider Robinson(Compostela (Tesseracts 20)), Susan Forest and Lucas K. Law (The Sum of Us: Tales of the Bonded and Bound), and  Lucas K. Law (Where the Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy)

In Best Artist, Samantha M. Beiko (cover for Laksa Media)

In Best Fan Writing and Publications, Krista D. Ball (Reflections on Community and Gender in Canadian SFF), and Ron S. Friedman (Science literacy for Science Fiction Readers and Writers)

In Best Fan Organizational, Marie Bilodeau (executive, Can*Con), and Marie Bilodeau (co-chair, Chiaroscuro Reading Series)

In Best Fan Related Work, S.M. Beiko (Business BFFs podcast)

As well, various members are associated with other nominated projects and anthologies.

Voting has begun and will end on September 8, 2018. The awards ceremony will be held at VCON 42, October 5-7, 2018, in Richmond, BC (www.vcon.ca). If you would like to join CFFSA to be eligible to vote on the shortlisted nominees, you can do so at their website: www.prixaurorawards.ca.

Congratulations to all the finalists!

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Five Rivers Publishing round-up

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SF Canada member Lorina Stephens, publisher and senior editor of Five Rivers Publishing, shares some news:

Five Rivers’ cover artist, Ann Crowe, has been shortlisted for a Prix Aurora Award for Best Artist, for her cover for Timothy Gwyn’s fascinating young adult SF novel, Avians.

D.G. Valdron’s grim-dark fantasy novel, The Mermaid’s Tale, was shortlisted for the Kevin Van Rooy Award for Genre Fiction, through the Manitoba Book Awards.

Lorina Stephens’ historical fantasy novel, Shadow Song, is now available in audiobook.

Lorina Stephens’ spec-fic novel, Caliban, is now available in print and eBook.

Michael Skeet’s novel, A Poisoned Prayer is now available in audiobook.

Ann Marston’s Western King is now available in audiobook.

Aaron Kite’s A Touch of Poison is now available in audiobook.

D.G. Laderoute’s 2014 Prix Aurora shortlisted Out of Time, is now available in audiobook.

SF Canada congratulates Five Rivers Publishing on its recent tenth anniversary and its ongoing contributions to Canadian speculative fiction.

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2017 Aurora Awards Ballot Announced

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The Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association has announced this years’ Aurora Award ballot. We are very pleased to note that twelve SFC members are included in the ballot in various categories:

In Best Young Adult Novel, Edward Willett (Door into Faerie) and James Bow (Icarus Down)

In Best Short Fiction, Robert Runté (“Age of Miracles”) and Hayden Trenholm (“Marion’s War”)

In Best Related Work, Dominik Parisien (Clockwork Canada: Steampunk Fiction), Hayden Trenholm (Lazarus Risen), Susan Forest (Strangers Among Us: Tales of the Underdogs and Outcasts), and Lucas K. Law (Strangers Among Us: Tales of the Underdogs and Outcasts)

In Best Artist, Samantha M. Beiko (cover to Strangers Among Us: Tales of the Underdogs and Outcasts),  and Jim Beveridge (covers and poster art)

In Best Fan Organizational, Samantha M. Beiko (co-chair, Chiaroscuro Reading Series: Winnipeg), Sandra Kasturi (co-chair, 2016 Toronto SpecFic Colloquium), and Sandra Wickham (chair, Creative Ink Festival, Burnaby)

In Best Fan Related Work, Ron S. Friedman (Villains and Conflicts presentation, When Words Collide, Calgary Comic Expo, and File 770)

Voting begins July 15th and will end on September 2nd. This gives CSFFA members plenty of time read the many books and stories. Canvention 37 and the Aurora Awards will be hosted this year in Halifax, NS, during Hal-Con 2017. If you would like to join CFFSA to be eligible to vote on the shortlisted nominees, you can do so at their website: www.prixaurorawards.ca.

Congratulations to all the finalists!

 

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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. 

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SF Canada Awards $1000 to Tanya Huff

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JLTrudelTSHuff2013AJean-Louis Trudel presents Tanya Huff with a ceremonial cheque.
(Photo by Jonathan Crowe)

The Aurora Award for Best Novel, accompanied by the SF Canada Award of $1000, was given to Tanya Huff in Ottawa on October 6, 2013 for her fantasy novel The Silvered, published by DAW Books. Born in Nova Scotia but now living in rural Ontario with her wife Fiona Patton, Tanya Huff is one of Canada’s most important and best loved fantasy authors. Since her first professional sale to Amazing Stories in 1985, she has published over thirty books and a number of short stories. Her “Blood Books” series was adapted as the television series Blood Ties in 2007. Her award-winning novel features magicians and shapeshifting werewolves united against a steampunk empire, and has been well received by readers and critics alike.

The 2013 Conference on Canadian Content in Speculative Arts and Literature played host to the 33rd national Canadian convention of science fiction and fantasy, also known as Canvention. Ten other Aurora Awards were announced. The fantasy adventure Under My Skin (in the “Wildlings” series) by Charles de Lint won the Aurora Award for Best YA Novel. Published in On Spec, the fantasy tale “The Walker of the Shifting Borderland” by Douglas Smith won the award for best short fiction. David Clink’s poem “A sea monster tells his story” in The Literary Review of Canada won for Best Poem or Song. The webcomic Weregeek by Alina Pete won the Aurora for best graphic novel while the award for best related work went to the anthology Blood and Water edited by Hayden Trenholm for Bundoran Press. Finally, Erik Mohr received the Aurora Award for Best Artist, honouring his covers for ChiZine Publications. The remaining Aurora Awards went to fans contributing to the speculative fiction community across Canada, and the Aurora-Boréal awards for works in French were given out earlier this year in Montreal.