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Cover art reveal: Star Song, coming soon from Shadowpaw Press

Shapers of Worlds, the Kickstarted anthology featuring work by some of the first-year guests on my podcast, The Worldshapers, will likely be the next Shadowpaw Press title, but I’m also working on others, including a young-adult science fiction novel called Star Song…and here’s the cover art! (Dan O’Driscoll is the artist–he does covers for Bundoran Press, so he …

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The Worldshapers podcast an Aurora Award finalist again for Best Fan Related Work

I’m very pleased to announce that my podcast, The Worldshapers (“Conversations with science fiction and fantasy authors about the creative process”) has, for the second year in a row, been nominated for the Aurora Award for Best Fan Related Work–an award it won last year! (That’s the very nice trophy in the photo.) The Aurora …

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FUNDED: a Kickstarter for an anthology of short fiction from some of today’s top science fiction and fantasy authors

My Kickstarter campaign to fund Shapers of Worlds, an anthology of short stories from some of the authors who were guests my Aurora Award-winning podcast, The Worldshapers, in its first year, was a great success, raising $15,700 CDN, well above the original goal of $13,500. As a result, the anthology is full-steam ahead, heading for an August …

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A new seven-sentence short story

Last night, as part of my ongoing gig as writer-in-residence at the Saskatoon Public Library, I led a large group of writers through the Seven-Sentence Short Story exercise, created by science fiction and fantasy author (and former English teacher) James Van Pelt. I’ve used this as an exercise several times now in writing classes and …

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An interview with me from the Saskatchewan Writers Guild newsletter, Freelance

The latest issue of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild newsletter, Freelance, features this interview with me… What drove you to science fiction writing? Like most writers of science fiction and fantasy, I became interested in it because it was what I read. I have two older brothers, both of whom read in the genre, so those …

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First official description of The Moonlit World

Here’s the first official description of The Moonlit World (which I’m still in the process of writing, but this covers it nicely). The Moonlit World should be out in September 2020, shortly after Master of the World comes out in mass-market paperback. Of course, you should start with Book 1, Worldshaper. Fresh from their adventures …

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Booklist calls Master of the World “highly amusing…fun…great”!

Hard on the heels of a great Publishers Weekly review for Master of the World, Book 2 of my Worldshapers series for DAW Books, comes another terrific review, this one from Booklist: Reviewer Emily Whitmore writes: “Watching Shawna navigate and understand the Verne world is highly amusing and fun for readers familiar with his oeuvre. …

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Publishers Weekly says Master of the World delivers “thrills aplenty”

The first review of Master of the World, Book 2 in my Worldshapers series, is from Publishers Weekly, and it’s a good one (not starred, like the review for Book 1, Worldshaper, but still great): “In 2018’s Worldshaper, Shawna Keys discovered that she was a Shaper, capable of manipulating entire worlds to suit her will, and …

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I’m the next Saskatoon Public Library Writer in Residence!

I’ve known about this for a while, obviously, but it just became official today with the sending out of a press release by the library. Which I humbly (or, possibly not-so-humbly) copy below: SPL announces Edward Willett as 2019/20 Writer in Residence One of Saskatchewan’s most prolific authors, Edward Willett, is looking forward to sharing …

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Watch my magical, fantastical play-with-music, The Music Shoppe, on YouTube!

At the end of April, Regina Lyric Musical Theatre presented my fantastical play-with-music, The Music Shoppe, in four performances at the Shumiatcher Theatre in the MacKenzie Art Gallery. The response was fabulous–people loved it, gave it standing ovations, told me how much they’d enjoyed it, etc. However, only a limited number of people were able to see it …

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New cover for Worldshaper mass-market paperback!

The mass-market paperback version of Worldshaper comes out in August, and DAW Books has taken the opportunity to redesign the front cover, to tie it in more closely with Master of the World, Book 2, which comes out in September. It also now boasts about the Publishers Weekly starred review, which I heartily approve of. …

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“A startlingly good book of poetry for teens…a gem!”

A great review of my collection of fantastical poetry, I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust, illustrated by my niece, Wendi Nordell, is now online, after previously appearing only in print in Resource Links, which reviews books for school libraries. Exerpts… “In April 2016, Saskatchewan’s then–poet laureate Gerald Hill sent members of the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild …

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