Constellary Tales now out!

I’m chuffed to have a story in the inaugural issue of Constellary Tales, a new pro SF venture for short fiction.

“Reaching Up, Reaching Back” is a flash piece about a relationship that’s not between parent/child, siblings, lovers, enemies, or friends–an experiment on my part. I hope you enjoy it.

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Outside the Box!

What do you get when you cross Canadian downhome humor with wannabe superheroes in an alternate universe? You get my latest story, “Thinking Inside the Box”!

Fantasia Divinity’s Out of your Shadow anthology focuses on the “heroes behind the heroes” and is available in print and ebook.

Worlds Await!

I’m pleased to have a story in the next volume of Dreaming Robot’s Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide. This anthology series offers vividly futuristic adventures featuring diverse characters. Its stories will appeal to middle grade readers, teens, and grown-ups who dream of future worlds.

The fourth volume in this series, which contains my story, “Fluffy Pets are Best”, got a starred review from Kirkus. Get it from Dreaming Robot today — it makes a great Christmas gift!

The upcoming volume, the fifth in the series, contains my story, “Woomie Saves the Day”. Follow a young girl as she has an adventure with her annoying little brother on a spaceship. When things get dangerous, Kayla has to learn not to freak out. Can the cute little aliens help her find a solution?

Please help fund the 2019 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide anthology – 24 amazing science fiction stories for girls, boys and robots of all ages – send a copy to your local library today. The Kickstarter is now on: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/815743020/young-explorers-adventure-guide-volume-five-sf-ant

Thanks!

Lost in Spaaace!

In 2015, I was requested to write a story for the China-based SFComet contest. It became a tale of twins who learn to harness quantum entanglement enabling them to travel through interstellar space, only to find themselves enslaved by aliens.

After the story was translated, it was voted on by the large Chinese readership and it came in second, due to one single solitary vote.

“Connecting through the Cosmos” was recently reprinted in the 5th volume of the exciting Insignia series of Asian SFF and is in good company, sharing the anthology with eight other science fiction stories, all of which have Asian characters or settings.

A Dangerous Thing

How much is a “little” knowledge? And how dangerous is it? That usually depends on the situation. In my latest story, now out in The Dark City Crime and Mystery Magazine, a young woman heads out on an adventurous road trip through the Rockies in the dead of winter. When trouble occurs, she has to dig deep into her knowledge banks.

You can find “A Little Knowledge”, along with four other fine stories, here.

You never know who you’ll meet in the mountains…

A very long time ago, in a previous life, I worked for the provincial Forest Service. One day, my colleague and I had driven to a remote logged-over area after the tree planters had left, in order to do some inspections. Due to his error, we were stranded there until we came up with an old-school solution.

My latest story, “Uphill All the Way”, is loosely based on that incident plus, naturally, a certain fantastical addition. It appears in Schreyer Ink’s Canadian Creatures, an anthology of eight “monster” themed stories, each with a uniquely northern twist. Order in Canada here and the US here.

Brace for Impact

Let me tell you about a bear, a famous grizzly bear around Banff known as Bear 148. She was in and out of various news stories for quite a while, after several close encounters with humans. As this article says: When grizzlies mix too freely with people, the grizzlies usually lose.

According to Bill Hunt, a Parks Canada resource conservation manager, Bear 148 “…showed a very moderated response…tolerating less than ideal human behaviours time and time again.”

Despite this, she didn’t last long. Bear 148 was shot and killed by a hunter in 2017 when she wandered outside park boundaries. She was one of the last few bears legally killed before British Columbia ended grizzly trophy hunting last November.

As we hurtle toward the tech-driven future, and brace against a dozen major and minor impacts everyday, we need to figure out how to be better stewards of this little blue planet.

I was thrilled to learn that my story about a bear caught in a rapidly changing world has won Communitech‘s story contest that forms part of the True North conference happening this week in Waterloo, Ontario. This international conference is focused on issues at the intersection of society and technology, as a force for good in the world. It’s inspiring to be a small part of this very worthwhile endeavor.

“Bear #178” is dedicated to Bear 148, may she rest in peace.