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Advice for young writers
I bid farewell to the hallowed halls of Michael A. Riffel High School yesterday as I wrapped up my writer-in-residency there with some final meetings with individual students. As I work with young writers more and more, I find that my writing advice, as far as technique goes, keeps boiling down to the same few …
Never talk about religion or politics
At a dinner party in Litchfield, Conn., Publisher’s Weekly reports: As entrées were being enjoyed, a McCain supporter and an Obama supporter, having exhausted their verbal arguments, lunged at each other with fists flying. Eventually the kitchen staff came to the rescue and separated the two men, but not before some blood was shed and …
This is your brain on Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock, James Vermiere wrote in the Boston Herald on the occasion of the centenary of Hitchcock’s birth in 1999, “delighted in terrifying audiences by manipulating them…More than any other filmmaker, he was a master at messing with our minds.” “Wait a minute!” I hear you cry (if I happen to be sitting behind you …
"The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination"
J.K. Rowling speaks at Harvard’s commencement: Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its …
Yes, I’m still alive…
…I just haven’t been blogging. Busy, busy busy busy, is why. And what have I primarily been busy with? Well, I’m currently the writer-in-residence at Michael A. Riffel High School here in Regina. This is a program sponsored by the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, and it’s been an interesting experience. I’ve primarily been doing classroom presentations–more …
007’s gadgets no longer just fiction
A few years ago, I decided my cinematic education had been sadly lacking and I decided to watch all of the James Bond movies in sequence. (I was single then.) Somewhere in the Roger Moore era I petered out, partly because I was finally running into films I had seen in theatres, partly because…well, some …
Marseguro now available from Canadian Science Fiction Book Club
The Canadian version of the Science Fiction Book Club is now offering Marseguro, in hardcover, for just 20 cents–assuming you choose it as one of the first five books you get for a dollar when you join for the first time. If you’re already a member, you can get the hardcover version for $13.99. Don’t …
Toronto Reading: Centennial
Last night’s reading at the Centennial branch of the Toronto Public Library was certainly very different from the one the night before. We had a small (but high-quality!) crowd at the Beaches, Candas and I, in a quiet, intimate setting. At the Centennial branch, Alison Baird (that’s her reading in the picture at right) and …
Toronto Reading: The Beaches
I know, I know, I’ve hardly been blogging at all for the last little while, except for posting my science columns. I went to Winnipeg for KeyCon and didn’t say a word about it. I’ve seen all kinds of interesting science articles and haven’t commented or linked. I’ve been a bad, bad blogger. But I’ll …
Tinnitus: the sound of silence
“The Sound of Silence” is not just a title of one of Simon and Garfunkel’s biggest 1960s hits, it’s also an ironic reality for millions of people who never experience real silence–because they hear noises all the time. It’s a condition called tinnitus, and it’s one of the most common hearing afflictions around. The Tinnitus …
Talking cars: Knight Rider lives!
Remember those 1980s cars that used to tell you “Your door is ajar”? Even aside from sounding like someone who only knows the punchline but not the setup of an old joke (“When is a door not a door?”) those voices annoyed almost everyone. Which is why, for many years, most cars didn’t talk. But …
My latest live walk and vlog
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