My dad grew up reading Edgar Rice Burroughs in the thirties, so as an adult he checked out the second-hand bookstores for his favourites and brought them home for my brother to read. That’s how I first got hooked on science fiction. So when I saw A Princess of Mars had been made into a movie, I knew it would be the perfect film for IFWA members to see as a group. We all went tonight, and it was great. Action and CGI. I read several in the Tarzan series, of course (my favourite was Tarzan the Terrible), one in the Pellucidar series and Thuvia, A Maid of Mars, but never A Princess of Mars. However, Gary tells me the movie follows the book fairly faithfully. Had fun!
Reconnected with Kensington Writers
Had a great meeting tonight with my Kensington Writers’ Group–critiqued two chapters from the beginning of a novel and caught up with the amazing things the group is up to. Naomi Lewis has a collection coming out this summer, for which she has already won an award by the publisher! Governor-General’s Finalist, Shenaaz Nanji has finished the first draft of her next novel, but says she wants to do another pass before she lets us read it for critique–sounds like a fascinating premise, and I can hardly wait to read it.
Rainforest was awesome!
Aside from writing (and submitting) a complete short story and making a good start on a second, travelling to Washington to write with other like-minded people has been great. This is my fourth year at the Rainforest, and it was great to meet up with old friends and acquaintances, and meet new authors as well. My two daughters were completely starstruck that I met one of the writers for “Portal.” Good times!
Submitted two stories
Here I am on my writers’ retreat in Banff, with six other writing friends–including Robert J Sawyer–and I have submitted the story I wrote last week, plus one other that I had edited but not submitted, last fall. So many deadlines coming up around the end of this month! So, I am putting on a real short-fiction push!
More Reviews
It is so cool to google “Analog Science Fiction reviews” and catch new reviews that have come up for “Turning It Off” in December, and “The Most Invasive Species” in April, and find ***+ out of **** or 4.5/5, as well as the reviewers’ kind words.
So, of course, I put them on my website–but !!! sometimes the website can be really tough to update. Pages go missing or show up under the wrong menu, and then can’t be deleted, or the entire review has to be re-typed rather than cut-and-pasted because some hidden command inside of it makes the website reject it… grrr! So if my site looks a little funny right now, don’t worry–the material is all there under one heading or another. I just have to get the menus straightened out. Email has gone to my guru!