Speculating Canada: Canadian Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy

October 21, 2013

Quote – Loneliness into Perverse Pride

“My loneliness turned itself inside out and I grew myself a kind of perverse pride.” -Phyllis Gotlieb – Tauf Aleph (In Tesseracts)

Quotes Comments: 0

October 19, 2013

Clear Cut Future

A review of Susan J. MacGregor’s Evergreen (in Urban Greenman. Edited by Adria Laycraft and Janice Blaine. Edge, 2013). By Derek Newman-Stille The quest for self-discovery can be painful and difficult and often people who seek to discover themselves encounter questions that they don’t want answered, murky areas that they fear to look too deeply into. When Cat’s grandmother does...

Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

October 17, 2013

Quote – Part Spirit, Part Flesh

“She felt both light and heavy, part spirit, part flesh.” -Nalo Hopkinson – Brown Girl in the Ring. (Grand Central Publishing, New York, 1998)

Quotes Comments: 0

October 15, 2013

Cripping the Light Fantastic: Disability and Speculative Fiction

A Brief Exploration of Disability in Speculative Fiction By Derek Newman-Stille This post will explore some of the notions we examined in my panel at Can Con on Disability in Canadian SF. The panel went extremely well, and I hope to be able to share some insights with Speculating Canada readers who were unable to make it to Can Con....

Editorials/Teaching Comments: 3

October 11, 2013

Quote – Money Doesn’t Matter Enough to Kill Ourselves Over

“Work and money still matter, but not enough to kill ourselves over; not when so many things are waiting to do it for us.” -Catherine MacLeod – Hydden (in Tesseracts 14: Strange Canadian Stories)

Quotes Comments: 0

October 9, 2013

Quote – Need Collective Stories

“People are losing touch with themselves and with each other. They need stories because they really are the only thing that brings us together. Gossip, anecdotes, jokes, stories – these are the things that we used to exchange with each other. It kept the lines of communication open, let us touch each other on a regular basis.” -Charles de...

Quotes Comments: 0

October 7, 2013

Prix Aurora Award Winning Website Speculating Canada

Yesterday, much to my excitement, Speculating Canada won the Prix Aurora Award. In the extreme of excitement at the Award Ceremony, I was only able to give part of my acceptance speech, so I wanted to place it here in a format that all of you could read and see so that you can know how much you, the readers, have...

Editorials Comments: 6

October 4, 2013

SF Versus Oppression

A Review of OnSpec #92 Vol. 25, No. 1 By Derek Newman-Stille Speculative fiction is a genre of possibilities, potentialities, and change. It is therefore surprising that most SF tends to replicate patterns that support hegemonies – heterosexism, sexism, ableism, ageism, racism. When one sees how much bias can be replicated in SF, it is exciting when a volume like...

Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

October 2, 2013

Mistaken Behaviours

A review of Liz McKeen’s “A Season Begins” in OnSpec #92 Vol. 25, No. 1 By Derek Newman-Stille War is a confusing thing, like cultural contact in general. Liz McKeen’s “A Season Begins” explores the interactions of two alien lives – one primarily land-based and one aquatic. Both species’ see the other as a threat due to their fundamental bodily...

Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

September 29, 2013

Can Con Updates!

Can Con is coming up soon in Ottawa on October 4-6th (and you can find out more about it at http://www.can-con.org/ ). The diversity of activities this year is absolutely amazing with sessions on writing, academic analyses of literature and literary themes, author readings, book launches…. and even a few singing events (seriously!). Prepare for discussions of AI, comics, enhancing...

News Comments: 2