Robert J. Sawyer

Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Science Fiction Writer

2013 Year in Review

by Rob - December 23rd, 2013.
Filed under: Milestones.

Of course, I’ll always remember 2013 as the year I lost my younger brother Alan Sawyer to lung cancer. But it was also a good year in a lot of ways, including:

  • Marking my 30th anniversary as a full-time self-employed writer

  • Having my 22nd novel Red Planet Blues published in hardcover (bringing to two million my total number of published science-fiction words) and my 21st novel Triggers reissued in paperback

  • Having Penguin Canada send me on the largest book tour they did for any author in 2013, hitting eleven cities

  • Hitting #3 on the fiction bestsellers list in Maclean’s: Canada’s National Newsmagazine with the Red Planet Blues hardcover and hitting #1 on the paperback bestsellers list in Locus: The Magainze of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field with the Triggers paperback

  • Getting commissioned by Copperheart Entertainment to adapt my novel Triggers into a feature-film screenplay

  • Having my short story “Flashes” adapted as a stage play at the Vancouver Fringe Festival

  • McMaster University holding the conference Science Fiction: The Interdisciplinary Genre in my honour

  • Giving one of the annual Darwin Lectures at Cambridge University

  • Giving keynote addresses at the Lockheed Martin Center for Leadership Excellence in Bethesda, the Association of Professional Engineers & Geoscientists of Saskatchewan annual general meeting in Regina, and the Mensa Education & Research Foundation colloquium in Dallas, plus being the closing speaker at IdeaCity 2013 in Toronto

  • Being brought to China for the launch of the Chinese editions of Triggers and Factoring Humanity

  • Being Guest of Honour at Celsius 232 in Spain and Can-Con (the 2013 Canadian National Science Fiction Convention) in Ottawa

  • Reading for the International Festival of Authors in Thunder Bay; headlining Word on the Water in Kenora; being Featured Author at Word on the Street Saskatoon; being Featured Author at ImagiNation Writers Festival in Quebec City; and being a Guest Author at Book Lover’s Ball in Toronto

  • Receiving the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal from the Governor General’s office

  • Receiving the first Lifetime Achievement Aurora Award from the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association given to an author in 30 years, and becoming only the fourth author ever to receive this honour

  • Receiving the “Most Popular Past Guest” award at Keycon 30 in Winnipeg

  • Being a finalist for the Ontario Library Association’s Evergreen Award for Most Popular Book by a Canadian Writer, for Triggers

  • Being the cover boy on the Shanghai Review of Books

  • Teaching Master Classes for the Manitoba Writers’ Guild and Lakehead University



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