Rob and Carolyn's 2009 Christmas Letter

The huge news for 2009 was the debut of FlashForward, the ABC TV series based on Rob's novel of the same name. The series is produced by ABC Studios in Hollywood, and airs Thursday nights at 8:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. Central) in the US and Canada. FlashForward has sold to over 100 markets worldwide.

Carolyn and Rob have now made three trips to Los Angeles to visit the filming, and Rob spent two weeks in November working with the show's staff writers.

FlashForward has been renewed through the end of the season, for 24 episodes. Rob is writing one of the episodes himself.

Speaking of TV, Rob also had fun hosting Supernatural Investigator, a 17-part documentary series that aired on Canada's Vision TV starting at the end of January.

In April, Rob's 18th novel, Wake, first of his WWW trilogy, was published by Ace Science Fiction in the United States and Penguin in Canada. Penguin Canada sent Rob on a cross-country book tour.

The second volume of the trilogy, Watch, comes out in April 2010, and Rob spent most of this year working on the final book, Wonder.

In December, Penguin Canada released lovely new editions of Rob's Nebula Award-winning The Terminal Experiment and his Seiun Award-winning Illegal Alien.

In February, we went to Turkey and had a fabulous time. In April, we went to Las Vegas, where Rob was guest of honor at a science-fiction convention.

In June and July, Rob was the first-ever Writer-in-Residence at the Canadian Light Source, Canada's national synchrotron; we moved to Saskatoon for those two months, and had a great time.

Also in the summer we both spent a week at Launch Pad, an astronomy workshop for writers sponsored by NASA and held at the University of Wyoming. It was very competitive to get into the workshop, and we're proud that Carolyn made it on her own merits, based on her poetry.

The audiobook of Rob's Calculating God (from Audible.com) won the Audie Award for best Science Fiction Audiobook of the Year from the U.S. Audio Publishers Association.

And his new TV pilot script Earthfall won the WILDsound scriptwriting competition, beating out 150 other entries. It had a staged reading at the National Film Board of Canada theatre in Toronto in November.

Carolyn continues to be active (along with her brother David) in the Algonquin Square Table poetry-workshop at the University of Toronto. Their workshop leader, Al Moritz, won the Griffin Award this year, Canada's top prize in poetry.

Carolyn spent two days working on an archeological dig in Saskatoon. She got covered in mud but had an amazing time. She also got to reconnect with some of her cousins in Saskatchewan.

On December 22, Carolyn and Rob celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary.

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

Rob & Carolyn's 2008 Christmas Letter

Rob and Carolyn's 2008 Christmas Letter
Robert J. Sawyer & Carolyn Clink

Rob's second short-story collection, Identity Theft and Other Stories, was published earlier this year. Said the American Library Association's Booklist, "At every opportunity, Sawyer forces his readers to think while holding their attention with ingenious premises and superlative craftsmanship."

In its March cover story, Quill & Quire, the Canadian publishing trade journal, named Rob one of the 30 most influential, innovative, and just plain powerful people in Canadian publishing." Only two other authors made the list: Margaret Atwood and Douglas Coupland.

Rob was special guest at San Diego Comic-Con this year. At 140,000 people, it's the world's largest pop-culture event. They treated Carolyn and Rob fabulously.

Carolyn and Rob also had a great time at the World Science Fiction Convention, which this year was held in Denver in August, and at the World Fantasy Convention, which this year was held in Calgary at the beginning of November. During the Denver trip, we got a wonderful behind-the-scenes tour of the NORAD Cheyenne Mountain Complex.

Audible.com is now offering six of Rob's novels as unabridged audiobooks.

Rob is hosting the 17-part half-hour documentary series Supernatural Investigator for Canada's Vision TV; it airs Tuesday nights at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time, starting on January 27, 2009.

Rob's next novel, Wake, comes out in hardcover on April 7, 2009, in the U.S. and a week later in Canada.

ABC is making a pilot for an hour-long TV series based on Rob's novel Flashforward. The pilot script was written by David S. Goyer (who wrote Batman Begins) and Brannon Braga (who worked on the last few Star Trek series); filming is scheduled to begin in Los Angeles on February 17, 2009, and, if the pilot is a success, the series should be on the air in September 2009.

Carolyn continues to enjoy the Algonquin Square Table poetry workshop at the University of Toronto. This year, she published seven poems and ran the poetry open mic at the World Fantasy Convention. She's just been named an assistant poetry editor at Chizine.com. She only golfed once, but did take yoga classes in the fall.

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site