It’s that time of year again. Again? Yeah. Feels weird. But good-weird.
The Aurora Awards eligibility lists are now up, and I have a story and two poems on those lists!
In the Best Short Fiction Category, you will find my short story “The Beekeeper,” which was published in Through the Portal: Tales from a Hopeful Dystopia, edited by Nina Munteanu and Lynn Hutchinson Lee, by Exile Editions, December 31, 2024. ISBN: 9781990773341, pp 178-191.
This story is not available online, but if you get in touch with me, melanie dot marttila at gmail dot com, I can send you a pdf copy.
If you select either linked title, you can download the pdfs of both issues (or any other issue you’d like to read) for free.
If you’re Canadian who loves science fiction and fantasy and can spare $10 for an annual membership in the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA), please consider joining so you can nominate. You don’t even need to nominate me. There are so many fabulous Canadian authors. This is not a zero-sum game.
You will see, front and centre, two options: Not a member yet? and You are a member?
Select the option that applies to you and follow the directions.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
I acknowledge with respect that I am in Robinson-Huron Treaty territory, that the land from which I write is the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe and home of Atikameksheng Anishnawbek and Wahnapitae First Nation.
February’s the month I emerge from winter hibernation. Yes. I’m a bear.
Life in general
The light is visibly returning. Even so, most of the days are overcast. It’s still unseasonably warm, with a lot of days above zero degrees Celsius and not as much precipitation as I’d like. Yes, Phil doesn’t have to shovel as much, but I’m worried about the coming year.
Not a lot of snow means a dry spring, unless it rains every day, and even then, it may not be enough to prevent forest fires from sparking. Last year was bad. I expect this year to be even worse.
Work is work. I’m back on the albatross of a project (I’ve been working on it since spring 2022) but the end (for now) is in sight. There’s always maintenance, and the wholesale revision of the other modules in the curriculum, but it should be off my plate by the end of March.
I’m taking a self-funded leave from the Victoria Day (May 2-4, we call it, even though the holiday Monday rarely falls on the 24th) long weekend until the Canada Day long weekend in July. It will be nice to have a stretch off. I want to do some gardening. I want to go swimming. I want to see what diurnal cycle my body naturally settles into. I want to just enjoy myself for a while.
I also want to see if I can dive into one or two new creative projects, revise a novella, and see what I can get done when I’m not spending eight hours a day working for someone else. It’s been seven years—well, six and a half years—since I’ve taken a self-funded leave. It’s the first leave of this nature I’ve taken since being diagnosed as autistic and, most of all, I want to learn if I can adjust my life and the routines I’ve established so they support me better.
We’ll see how things go.
The month in writing
I’m still working on Reality Bomb revisions. My focus changed a bit this month, however. I signed up for Suzy’s Developmental Editing Mentorship in February program and continued to revise and under the auspices of that program.
We did meet on February 1st to review my most recent submission. I’m to the point in the novel where I’m basically rewriting the second half of the second and all of the third act. I had expected to have a rough go with this critique, but it was a lot better than I expected. I’m learning!
As ever, though, learning is never a straight line.
I’ve given up on trying to track my revisions on the spreadsheet. Now that I’m in the second half of the novel, I’m completely rewriting most of it. It’s hard to compare a sprawling, meandering draft with the tighter rewrite. I’m eliminating whole chapters, combining chapters, and making the whole more cohesive. I’m figuring out when to show and when to tell.
I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to get some interest when I query, later this year.
I paid for my annual membership to the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association and submitted “Psychopomps Are Us” to the nomination list for the 2023 Aurora Awards. I also submitted the story to The Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Two, for consideration.
I submitted my final report for the mentorship microgrant I was approved for through The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC).
I applied for TWUC National Reading Program funding and event funding from the League of Canadian Poets (LCP) for my poetry launch.
I tossed my hat into the My Personal Odyssey ring again. I’ll find out some time in March if I’ve made the cut this year.
My associate membership renewal for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) came due in February.
And I continue to work on the launch, and arranging reviews, readings, and so forth for The Art of Floating.
The venue is booked! It will be in the Studio Desjardins of Place des Arts, at 7 pm on April 6th, 2024. Now to get the livecast details in place so I can start promoting in earnest.
Kim Fahner has agreed to a brief casual conversation about my poetic journey to start the launch. I’m so happy she’s agreed to help me out. She’s been such a central figure in my poetic life.
Now … I have to think about what I want to wear. I don’t have any nice clothes left after I lost weight back in 2021. The prospect of some new clothes is pleasing, but I hate shopping with a passion.
My publisher confirmed a book signing at Chapters on April 13th from 11 am to 2 pm.
On the 23rd, I received a lovely email informing me that my application for The Writers’ Union of Canada’s National Public Reading funding was approved!
My poem, “Time and Tide,” was published in Polar Starlight 13 on February 24th.
And I submitted some more poetry to a themed issue of one of Canada’s best known literary journals. I’m not hopeful, to be honest. They had over a thousand submissions (!)
Filling the well
February 1st was Imbolc, but I was so dysregulated at the time, I didn’t get around to lighting my altar or doing my usual, quiet observation until the 2nd (!)
The new Rowan moon in Aquarius (and beginning of the Year of the Dragon!) was on the 9th. I observed with a guided meditation. It was overcast up here, which it usually is this time of year.
I’m a Rooster and this is what the Year of the Dragon brings for me: Your careful nature and attention to detail will strengthen during Year of the Dragon 2024. You’ll be good at handling difficult tasks with care.
Bodes well, methinks!
The full Snow moon in Virgo was on the 24th. It was overcast, but I got a lovely picture of the moon a couple of days before the full. I again observed with a guided meditation.
As I mentioned earlier, I signed up for Suzy Vadori’s developmental editing course from the 5th to the 29th. Virtual meetups were twice a week, with asynchronous training in between. The course gave me more insight into Suzy’s methodology, and I used the month to once again review the draft-to-date.
I attended the Wordstock and Sulphur open mic night at Books & Beans on the 7th. It was standing room only, but I got to read some of my more recent poetry (i.e., stuff that’s not in The Art of Floating) and promote my launch.
The first Success Series webinar from Free Expressions, “Neurolinguistic Programming for Writers” with Beth Baranay was on the 8th. I was dysregulated and watched the recording. NLP, or neurolinguistic programming is all about changing the connections in your brain to learn, improve, and form and break habits. Beth applied NLP techniques for both authors and their characters. We didn’t quite get to habits, but the grounding is there.
On the 9th, Authors Publish presented a webinar on “The Art of Writing Immersive Worlds,” presented by Cat Rambo. Still dysregulated. Watched the replay. The webinar felt intimate, and Cat is always a good presenter.
I signed up for a Freedom to Read Week event co-sponsored by TWUC and the LCP on the 22nd featuring Farzana Doctor and Gary Geddes. It was a lovely evening.
Then, I signed up for a Black History Month poetry reading featuring Ian Keteku, Asiah Sparks, and Damini Awoyiga. Black poets rock, y’all!
On the 29th, there was another Free expressions SSW, “Character Dynamics” with Damon Suede. Because I opted to go to the poetry reading, I watched the replay.
In non-writing-related events, I attended a Toronto Public Library Black History Month presentation about “Reframing History: Newfoundland and Labrador & the Black Atlantic.” Bushra Junaid, Afua Cooper, and Camille Turner each presented pieces of Black history in Newfoundland and Labrador. Compelling and poignant.
I also had an appointment with my therapist on the 28th. I’m trying to work through the idea that I feel, at least recently, that I’m always on the cusp of burnout. I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that it might just be part of life.
What I’m watching and reading
I finished watching the first season of Citadel (Amazon). A second season has been green lit, but I don’t know if I’ll watch it. I was left confused more than anything. Madden and Chopra-Jonas have zero chemistry and even Stanley Tucci couldn’t save it.
Next, I finished watching Little Bird (Crave). Touching and compelling story about a family divided by the 60s Scoop coming together to heal.
Then, I finished watching the third (and final) season of Res Dogs (Disney +). Bear finds his way home after missing the bus. We get some backstory of the Dogs’ parents and elders, and the series ends with Elora meeting her father (Ethan Hawke) and his kids and the Dogs coming together around the funeral of one of their elders before the ancestor says goodbye, Elora heads off to university, and Bear’s mom leaves for a new job. Bear’s in a good place.
I finished watching the first (and only) season of First Kill (Netflix). It was inspired by a short story by V.E. Schwab and is essentially a modern, queer, and supernatural retelling of Romeo and Juliet. Juliette is the youngest daughter of a legacy vampire family who are pressuring her to make her first kill. In fact, she’s on medication to “take the edge off” her bloodlust and the last thing she wants to do is kill anyone. Calliope is the youngest daughter of a monster hunting family and eager to make her first kill. When Juliette and Calliope fall in love…a whole bunch of people die. The series ended on a weird cliffhanger and wasn’t renewed, so we may never find out what was going to happen. Unless Schwab wants to turn it into a comic or something?
Then, I roped Phil into watching The Marvels (Disney +) with me. It was fun. I loved Goose and the flerkin kittens. I loved Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan. The rest was okay. It wasn’t as bad as reviews led me to believe, but it was like everyone was too tired to make the film as good as it should have been. I mean, it has the name of the studio in its title. You’d think someone would have cared enough to make it at least as memorable as Iron Man.
When I watched Captain America and The Avengers (each for the umpteenth time) shortly thereafter, I was reminded of the kind of story Marvel is capable of telling. Neither is perfect, but they were both so much better than recent Marvel efforts.
Then, I finished watching the adaptation of Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See (Netflix). Loved! Even though it’s a WWII story, the series (and therefore Doerr’s novel) offers a unique perspective. Marie, a blind Parisian girl, and Werner, a German orphan, are bonded through their love of “The Professor,” who broadcasts educational radio programs. During WWII, the two meet in Saint Malo, a coastal French town, where Marie now broadcasts for the French resistance and Werner is a radio operator in the occupying German army. The Americans are coming to liberate the town, but can they do it before Werner is forced to track down Marie for his commander, who has a sinister motive for finding Marie?
I watched The Hate U Give (Amazon). It was a gut punch, but in the best way. Starr Carter is in the passenger seat when her friend Khalil is shot and killed by a police officer. The movie and the book it’s based on by Angie Thomas are a good reminder that systemic racism kills tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Black people a year. Black lives matter.
I finished watching (most of) the first season of The Irrational (network). Alec Mercer is a behavioural psychologist who helps solve crimes. This season focused on Alec’s backstory of being caught in a church bombing. As the season progresses, the man convicted of the bombing proves to be innocent, uncovering a conspiracy that Alec has to unravel to serve justice and gain closure.
Then I finished watching the second season of the new Quantum Leap (network). The third season is still up in the air. I wasn’t too certain about the 3-year time jump after the first season finale. The Quantum Leap project has been shut down, Ben is thought to be dead, and Addison moves on. But Ian hasn’t given up, and when they find Ben, the team regroups, including Addison’s new love interest. Things get sorted out in the end, but I think the uncertainty of the network series machine means that they had to have a self-contained story arc, just in case. Things felt contrived. I’ll leave it there. Still enjoyed it and will watch season three if it comes to fruition.
My first read of February was Zen Cho’s Black Water Sister. Closeted and broke, Jess returns to Malaysia with her family after living in the US for most of her life. She has a degree from Harvard, but that hasn’t translated into success, or even a job. Then, she starts to hear a voice in her head, her recently dead grandmother, Ah Ma, who’s set on getting her revenge on a mob boss. Dark, but very good.
Then, I finished William Gibson’s The Peripheral. I realized I had the ebook after I watched the Amazon series. Once again, it’s an interesting exercise to compare a novel and its adaptation, to see what creative decisions were made and why. Having said that, I enjoyed both equally, though I must say that I’m not as fond of book Flynn as I was of series Flynn. And, of course, Amazon cancelled the series.
Next, I read The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco. As a child, Tea (pronounced tee-ah) accidentally resurrects her brother and discovers she’s a bone witch, or necromancer. Feared and ostracized by her family and community, Tea is taken under the wing of a more experienced bone witch who whisks her and her brother away to a foreign land to be trained as an asha. This book is the beginning of a trilogy and is very much just the set up for the rest of the series. Although there is a framing narrative told by a bard, whom Tea has asked to tell her story, it doesn’t give much away. One thing is clear, though; The Bone Witch is a story of revenge.
I finished reading Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Turning Leaves. In this sequel to Moon of the Crusted Snow, Nangohns, daughter of Evan Whitesky, begins to see the signs that her people are beginning to exhaust the natural resources around their isolated northern community. She then embarks on a long journey south with her father and several other members of the community. They need a new place to settle. Or an old place. Their ancestral home on the shores of Lake Huron. The problem is, they still don’t know what happened when the lights went out over a decade ago. And the last scouting party they sent south four years ago never returned.
Then, I turned to poetry. Kim Fahner lent me a stack of collections she thought might be in my poetic wheelhouse. I started with Bernadette Wagner’s this hot place. The sections of the collection are named Maiden, Mother, and Crone, and Wagner recounts her life on the prairies in verse. She has a talent for lovely subversions. Verra nice.
I also finished The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty. A retired pirate captain is lured back into the world of supernatural high seas adventure when a northern sorcerer abducts a young scholarly girl. Nothing is as it seems. I’ll leave it there. You should read this.
Next, I listened to Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury. A brilliant supernatural mystery told in dual timelines. Daisy can see the dead. When her mother inherits a mansion just outside of Timmins, they both see it as their opportunity for the life they want. For Daisy’s mother, Grace, it’s to finally be free of the ghosts (figurative and literal) of her past. For Daisy, it’s the chance to escape from her mother’s narcissism. But the mansion is haunted. And now people are dying. Ten years in the future, Brittney, co-creator of the podcast “Haunted,” wants to uncover the secrets of the mansion, which her abusive mother calls the “miracle mansion.” She wants to tell the story of a forgotten Black girl but gets more than she bargained for. LOVED.
Finally, I listened to C.S. Lewis: Writer, Scholar, Seeker, an Audible Original based on The Great Courses series of lectures by Sorina Higgins. Interesting insight into one of my favourite authors.
And that was the month in this writer’s life.
Until next month, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
Welcome to November, the month of NaNoWriMo and American Thanksgiving! As a Canadian, I’m legally obligated to specify American Thanksgiving, as Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving the second Monday in October (former American Columbus Day and now Indigenous Peoples’ Day).
The lovely weather continued through the first two weeks of October—I got out onto the deck again!—but over the Thanksgiving weekend, we had tonnes (again, Canadian, therefore metric) of rain and below seasonal temperatures. But no snow, thanks the powers that be. Well, there was snow, but it melted as soon as it hit the ground.
This was followed by another stretch of above-seasonal temperatures, though with persistent cloud cover and often rain. Phil put away the patio furniture by this time and put the garden to bed for the year.
Life in general
I’ve continued to struggle with dysregulation. I think I’ve been walking on the thin edge of burnout since summer. Also, what I thought were brand new seasonal allergies was, in fact, a persistent sinus infection. It went subclinical over the summer but came back with a vengeance at the end of September.
I was quite sick over the weekend of the 14th and tried to make an appointment with my doctor on Monday, but he was booking in-person into November, so I went to the walk-in clinic and came home with antibiotics and a corticosteroid nasal spray. I may also have brought home another virus from the crowded waiting room.
What followed was a miserable stretch of days while the meds took hold and started to do their thing. I worked (day job and writing), though slowly. The nights were the worst. Gravity works, and infection drains everywhere (ears, bronchus, etc.). I tested for covid twice this time. Both negative, but damn. This was the sickest I’ve been in years.
And then I gave it to Phil 😦 Fortunately, he recovered in a day and a half.
The month in writing
For most of the month, I was once again focused on my new inside outline for Reality Bomb. Having finished writing it out by hand, I then transcribed it. And adjusted the cause-and-effect flow still further, ‘cause I can’t seem to get it nailed down the first (or even fifth) time. Once that was done, I moved onto my next submission.
I’ll have to circle around to do revisions next month (for my NaNo Rebel Combo).
Before the illen truly took hold, I also managed to write 8 poems and 1,392 words on a short story. I’ll take the win!
I applied for a mentorship microgrant from The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC) and the funds were approved in time for them to be applied to my next six-session package with Suzy. While I’ve paid my next session, I won’t meet with Suzy again until November. This is a good thing. I’ll need the rest of October to get RB reorganized and in shape to resume coaching.
I delivered my fiction writers in the schools visit early in the month. I think it went well. A few students shared their ideas and some of what they’d written. And they asked questions. Mrs. Belanger was helpful and accommodating. I dared to be imperfect, and it paid off.
I submitted some poetry to Polar Starlight and Polar Borealis and two of my new poems were accepted for publication in 2024. Grateful to Graeme and Rhea for their continued dedication to Canadian speculative poetry.
I received edit notes for the short story that was shortlisted. The publisher still has final say, even after I’ve done the requested revisions, so there’s no guarantee, but I’m hopeful.
Filling the well
The vine new moon in Libra was on October 14th and I observed it with a guided meditation. The day was cloudy, so I didn’t get to see the partial eclipse (all of the annular eclipse we’d see up here in northeastern Ontario), but I watched the NASA broadcast.
The full Hunter’s Moon in Taurus fell on October 28th this year. There was also a partial lunar eclipse. Of course, it was overcast again. And I watched the partial lunar eclipse on the Time and Date YouTube channel.
And Samhain (my birthday) was three days after that. It was, as usual, a quiet day. I took it off, Phil made me a full breakfast (pancakes, eggs, and bacon), and we had a Greek feast (souvlaki, lemon potatoes, rice, tzatziki, pita, and salad) in the evening. Phil made me a banoffee pie. We invited my mom.
As usual, we had no trick or treaters. The are I live in is on the commercial side and kids don’t see it as a viable source of candy. More importantly, their parents don’t see our area as a convenient on to take their kids to. There is a subdivision not far away, and they tend to pack up their kids and go there.
Still, Phil bought a box of chocolate bars “just in case,” and now I’m trying to consume them before he eats too many of them.
Because we received our retro pay, I got myself a new computer. My old one was giving me a CMOS error message every morning on startup. So that’s what I spent the three days leading up to my birthday doing—setting up my computer and making sure all of my documents and pictures and music were transferred over.
Well, the pictures weren’t an issue, because they were backed up on the cloud, but the rest had to be zipped and backed up and copied over. But, in the process, Phil set up a back up server for us. Now, everything’s sorted, and I have a lovely new computer that should last me for a few years.
I started Finnish classes through the Sudbury Finnish School in anticipation of drafting The Fenwoman’s Tale. Eight weeks through October and November. I also returned to the free version of Duolingo to supplement the classes.
I attended the DAW Library Fantasy Book Buzz with Julie Czerneda and Bradley Beaulieu on the 5th. It was a lovely discussion.
The next and final Free Expressions Donald Maass webinar, “Narrative Drive for Sagging Middles and No-plot Novels” also took place on the 5th. Due to timing, I watched the replay. It was a helpful webinar, because my protagonist in my current work-in-progress is trapped in one way or another for a good portion of the book. It’s challenging to maintain agency, but it’s a challenge I set myself.
I registered for a TWUC webinar, “Three Things Agents and Publishers Must See in Your First 30 pages” on October 11th. Barbara Kyle is a great presenter and has a lot of knowledge to impart.
I attended the virtual version of Can-Con from the 13th to the 15th. I didn’t catch all the virtual sessions, but I watched everything I could. An excellent con, as always.
The FOLD Academy offered another webinar on “Writing from Desire and Body” by Linh S. Nguyen on the 14th. Because it was on the same day as Can-Con, I watched the replay once it was posted. It was more of a workshop than a webinar, with practical exercises to encourage you to be present in your body and write what you feel.
I attended Waubgesig Rice’s Sudbury book launch for Moon of the Turning Leaves on the 16th. In person, even! I got a signed copy of the book!
I had registered for the Anne Szumagalski Lecture with Joshua Whitehead back in September, but it was rescheduled to October 20th. A compelling presentation about paranoia as an effect of colonialization and marginalization.
I signed up for “Writing Characters Who Practice Non-Standard Religions” by Nisi Shawl from Writing the Other. The course ran from Oct 28th to Nov 5th. It was a good refresher of being respectful of everyone’s spiritual beliefs.
Thanksgiving was a relaxed affair at my mom’s and the immediate family gathered for ham, scalloped potatoes, turnip puff, jellied salad, and Greek salad. There was apple and blueberry pie for dessert.
I signed up for another Pat Tallman event on mastering motivation. It was mostly practical information and familiar, but it’s always good to refresh and rededicate.
Later in the month, she offered a bonus workshop on forgiveness. Forgiveness is hard, especially forgiving yourself.
What I’m watching and reading
I’ve had a realization. The less I write about something (book, movie, or series) the more I want y’all to experience it for yourselves.
I watched The Whale (Amazon). A lovely, but desperately sad movie that gave me similar feels to Leaving Las Vegas. Charlie is a morbidly obese virtual college instructor who is dying of congestive heart failure (what my father died of, so extra feels there) and refuses to go to the hospital. As the days pass, more and more clues about Charlie’s trauma are revealed. I won’t spoil it. Brendan Fraser earned his awards.
Phil and I finished watching the first season of One Piece (Netflix). Phil says it’s pretty faithful to the manga and anime. It was fun and kind-hearted, which we can all use more of.
We also finished watching the second season of The Wheel of Time (Amazon). They took us on a journey. It was excellent, in my opinion.
The first book I listened to was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, narrated by Michael York (BBC). The last time I’d read the book was in high school and, to be honest, I didn’t remember much of it. It’s a scathing commentary on a society that is technically utopian but as is usual with utopias, if you scratch the surface, there are flaws. While I appreciated the ending focusing on the tragedy of John Savage, I was left wondering what the ultimate fates of the other two main male characters were. And I was somewhat disappointed that Huxley focused on the dissatisfaction or difference in his male characters only. It seems that there are no alpha females dissatisfied with the utopian world they have been given.
Then, I read A Crown So Cursed, by L. L. McKinney. It’s the third in the Nightmare-Verse series and an urban fantasy retelling of Alice in Wonderland. I really enjoy these books, even if they are young adult. McKinney has made the protagonist’s mother a feature rather than a bug, and in this novel, her grandmother gets in on the action, too.
Next was Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse. A tragic tale of two sisters in a world shaped by angels and demons. When fallen Mariel is accused of murdering one of the virtues, her sister Celeste becomes her advocatus diaboli to defend her. Celeste sacrifices everything to prove Mariel innocent, even when it becomes apparent that Mariel did everything she is accused of and more.
I read Alaya Dawn Johnson’s Library of Broken Worlds. It was a challenging read (in the best way). A lot of dense ideas and rich world building in this tale of a secondary artificial intelligence created to kill a god.
Finally, I listened to the Audible production of Jim C. Hines’ Terminal Alliance. This one was a lot of fun. In a post-apocalyptic world in which humans have gone feral and have been given a second chance by an alien “cure,” Lieutenant Marion “Mops” Adamopoulos leads a rag-tag team of human janitors to clean up after a nefarious conspiracy leaves them the only crew capable of sorting out the mess.
And that was the month in this writer’s life.
Until next month, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
Always Looking Up 