The deadline for nominating for the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards (“the Auroras”) is fast approaching. Online ballots must be cast by Monday, March 17, 2008 (one week from today). Any Canadian may nominate, and there is no charge to do so. The online ballot is here. A comprehensive list of eligible works to […]
I’ll be participating at the Gartner IT Security Summit in Washington, DC, in June 2008. When Gartner’s Victor Wheatman approached me about putting together a panel of SF authors for the summit, we quickly came up with a dream-team list, and were delighted by who said yes: Sigma chair Arlan Andrews, plus Greg Bear and […]
Some of my upcoming events for 2008: Reader and PanelistInternational Conference on the Fantastic in the ArtsOrlando, FloridaMarch 19-23, 2008http://www.iafa.org PanelistAd Astra 2008Toronto, OntarioMarch 28-30, 2008http://www.ad-astra.org PanelistEerieCon 2008Niagara Falls, New YorkApril 18-20, 2008http://www.eeriecon.org Book Launch for Identity Theft and Other StoriesBakka-Phoenix Books697 Queen Street WestToronto, OntarioSaturday, May 10, 2008, at 3:00 p.m. PanelistKeycon 25The 2008 […]
I’ll be interviewed this coming Monday, March 10, 2008, at 1:00 p.m. on CBC TV Toronto’s program Living in Toronto about my novel Rollback — and I’ll be recommending some other good SF reading, too. The segment with me was recorded a little while ago at Toronto’s Bakka-Phoenix Books, and also features the lovely Chris […]
In 2006, I was a participant at the inaugural Science Foo Camp (or SciFooCamp; “Foo” is short for “Friends of O’Reilly,” the giant computer-book publisher). The event was co-sponsored by O’Reilly and the journal Nature (which published one of my stories back in 2000 — “The Abdication of Pope Mary III,” a little number called […]
McNally Robinson, Canada’s second-largest bookstore chain, has bestsellers’ lists for Winnipeg, Calgary, and Saskatoon. Right now the Rollback paperback is #7 on the mass-market list (combined fiction and nonfiction) in Calgary, and it’s #1 in Saskatoon. Here’s the Saskatoon list: #1. RollbackBy Robert J Sawyer – $8.99 #2. JumperBy Steven Gould – $9.99 #3. The […]
Woohoo! BookNet Canada’s BNC SalesData service has just released its list of the top 20 Canadian fiction titles for the two weeks ending February 24, 2008. BookNet tracks actual point-of-sale purchases at over 650 bookstores across Canada. The top five Canadian-authored fiction titles for the last two weeks are: 1. Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen(HarperCollins […]
Penguin Canada has just announced the hiring of the person who will be my Canadian editor — and will head up the commercial-fiction publishing list for the company. (I copied the job listing here back in January.) Laura Shin, formerly a Senior Editor at Harlequin — where she worked on crime, fantasy, and women’s fiction […]
You gotta take this with a grain of salt, ’cause I’m one of the few people on the planet who likes the Thunderbirds live-action film … but I also really like 2005 theatrical Bewitched film. I’d seen it before on an airplane, but Carolyn hadn’t, so we watched it on DVD tonight. Like the live-action […]
Yesterday, Carolyn and I had three friends from high school over for a game of Trivial Pursuit, some ordered-in Swiss Chalet barbecue chicken, and watching some stuff on our big-screen TV. The friends were Carolyn’s brother David (one of my best friends quite separate from being my brother-in-law), Ted Bleaney (known to fans of my […]
Writers live at the mercy of publishers who often take unconscionably long times to pay, but in all my 29 years selling my work professionally, I think a new record for lateness was reached this week. One full year after it was due, Pearson Educational Canada sent me a cheque for a reprint of one […]
I start most mornings by treadmilling for half an hour. I’ve got a portable DVD player with a 10-inch screen mounted on my treadmill’s control panel, and I watch sitcoms to pass the time. And I’ve just recently finished watching the third and final season of Arrested Development, a wonderful series about a rich family […]
