Rising Tides, Reflections for Climate Changing Times

This recently released anthology, Rising Tides, edited by Catriona Sandilands, contains more than forty pieces of climate change fiction, creative non-fiction, memoir, and poetry.

I’m proud that my work, “Five Ways to Talk about Twisted Oak Moss”, is among pieces that “emphasize the need for intimate stories and thoughtful attention. These stories parallel the critical issues facing the planet, and imagine equitable responses for all Canadians, moving beyond denial and apocalypse and toward shared meaning and action.”

Rising Tides…(contains)…words of sorrow, words of loss, words of concern and fear. But also, words of connection to trees, to ice, to nature. We need these words to apprehend the changes coming upon us. I commend Catriona Sandilands for bringing together this diverse group of people that honoured climate change through these words.
—Dr. Catherine Potvin, Canada Research Chair in Climate Change Mitigation and Tropical Forest (Tier 1)

Rising Tides is available from Caitlin Press and your local bookstore.

The Future of Work is the work of the future

The Copia Institute (the think tank arm of Techdirt) set out to examine the nature of work and the future of work, with the end goal of helping to invent some better futures beyond the “gig economy apocalypse”, and more specific futures than “it’ll be okay”. They brought together a collection of thinkers: entrepreneurs, technologists, activists, journalists, philanthropists, lawyers, academics, who came up with a variety of different scenarios. They then gave those scenarios to a bunch of science and speculative fiction authors…including me.

The Working Futures anthology contains 14 stories, including two of mine. Some are upbeat and optimistic. Some, not so much. Many are deeply, deeply, in between: stuck in a world where “it’s complicated” is a fair way to describe things. All of them help paint possible pictures of what work might mean in the future.

Techdirt had some kind words to say about my stories:

“Trash Talk” by Holly Schofield explores the kind of job that probably doesn’t get much attention when people talk about “the future of work”: jobs that require manual labor. Many people seem to assume that those will just be entirely automated away but, as this story explores, it’s possible that we’ll just enhance humans with machines, rather than replacing them altogether. And sometimes that might create some, well, tricky situations.

— Techdirt, October 11, 2019

 

“Generation Gap”, by Holly Schofield. This is Holly’s second story in our collection and among the many things we loved about it was how it really painted a picture of a potentially very different world — which held the possibility of being beautiful, but also possibly terrifying. Or perhaps something in between. And it raises questions about how our future world will connect with the past.

— Techdirt, October 14, 2019

You can find a discussion of this fascinating topic and of this anthology at Boing Boing. And you can pick up a copy (kindle or paperback) of Working Futures at the Working Futures website.

Shut Down Strangers & Hot Rod Angels, an anthology inspired by the music of Bruce Springsteen

The summer I was nineteen, far back in the day, I worked for a government agency and traveled with a crew in a station wagon across Ontario. We had only a couple of cassette tapes to listen to — both of them were Bruce Springsteen albums. At first, I wasn’t into the music at all but, by the end of the summer, Bruce would become one of my all-time favorite musicians. The poetry in the lyrics and the depth of emotion in the music are a sweet combination. When I saw a submission call for a Springsteen anthology, I knew I had to write a story.

In the editor’s words: The best thing about this anthology is that you can’t pin it down as one thing. Much like Bruce’s music, the 38 poems, 14 CNF pieces, and 25 stories in Shut Down Strangers & Hot Rod Angels cover a wide range of modes and moods. There are pieces on identity and family, grief and spirituality, and all kinds of love—lost love, doomed love, almost-love, beautiful healing love, love you clutch onto like a lifeline when everything else slips away. There are pieces on the distance between the American dream and the American reality, and geographies that span the country and the globe. There are hard luck antiheroes, girls who cruise, and plenty of shut down angels and hot rod strangers. There is weirdness and whimsy and things that go bump in the night: ghosts and vampires, cryptids, chickens running games of chance. There is sadness and darkness in here, yes (I guess there’s just a meanness in this world), but there is also hope and light. And running through each and every piece there is an undercurrent of music, and of Springsteen’s spirit—a fire, a spark, a sound we can make our own.

Get Shut Down Strangers & Hot Rod Angels, including my story “Nowhere Radio”, by pre-ordering at Bone & Ink Press today!

Adventures of Gals and Gizmos!

My latest publication is in fine company in this 4th volume of the Brave New Girls series. From interstellar escapades to near-future locales, this anthology of sci-fi stories has something for everyone. Girls who use their mechanical acumen to save interstellar colonies and design super-powered armor. Young women who apply their knacks for numbers to finding criminals and solving environmental problems. Ladies who use brainpower and intellectual skills to defeat zombies, space pirates, evil aliens, and more.

My new story, “Bound, Determined”, features zebras, terraforming, indentured servitude, and a certain plucky young woman.

The 2nd volume, Brave New Girls: Stories of Girls Who Science and Scheme also contains a story by me. Pick up a copy of that: here.

Pick up a copy of volume IV today for your child or your local library. Brave New Girls: Adventures of Gals and Gizmos is available in ebook and print. Proceeds from sales are donated to a scholarship fund through the Society of Women Engineers.

Let’s show today’s girls that they, too, can be tomorrow’s inventors, programmers, scientists, and more.

Very Far to Fall

Mystery/crime short stories used to be all about the clever puzzle with only small glimpses into human nature. Nowadays, they can be so much more.

My latest crime story, in the format of a police transcript, appears in The Dark City mystery magazine. “Long Way Down” is about how far a woman can fall after society has shaped her perceptions.

My previous story for The Dark City, “A Little Knowledge”, is in Volume 3, Issue 3. “Long Way Down” is in Volume 4, Issue 4 at Magzter. Pick up a copy today!

Tesseracts 22 now out!

I’m very pleased to have a story in the 22nd issue of this iconic Canadian speculative fiction anthology.

Tesseracts 22: Alchemy and Artifacts, edited by Lorina Stephens and Susan MacGregor, is “a collection of twenty-three stories based on actual historical artifacts combined with fantastic historical fiction. The stories meld culture, concept and incident into a rich collection of ‘what if’ speculations that provide warnings yet revel in the cultural celebrations we continue to observe today. They are the touchstones that resonate with all who listen to and learn from the past.”

The ebook is available now and the print book will be out in September.

My story, “Holding Our Own”, is based on a well-known catastrophe with an added fantastical element. It’s one of the most challenging stories I’ve ever written.

Order the ebook of Tesseracts 22: Alchemy and Artifacts from Edge Publishing today!

Working the Room

The Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC has a long and venerable history. One incident is rather (in)famous — spoilers here. When Atthis Arts announced a unique anthology theme — short fiction covering just five minutes and taking place in a specific fictional hotel — I knew I had to write something based upon that incident. It shifted on me, as some stories do, and became something quite different.

As Stormcove editor E.D.E. Bell says of the anthology editing process: “Hotel Stormcove turned into its own character…an interdimensional anchor that serves as both a location for amazing stories [and] a metaphor for refuge, compassion, and connections.”

“Diffidence in White and Gray” is just one of many fine stories in this hefty anthology. Pick up a copy of Five Minutes at Hotel Stormcove today at the Atthis Arts website.

(photo courtesy of Fairmont Empress Hotel)