Evohe! Lackington’s Issue 5

Lackington’s Issue 5 is bursting with beldams, so I suppose it’s anagram-ably fitting that the cover features a god of bedlam, the magnificent Dionysus. Lackington’s covers aren’t commissioned to match issue themes,* but this one worked out, in a way. My friend, the equally magnificent Derek Newman-Stille of Speculating Canada, had done interior artwork for the magazine before, and when I asked him for a cover, our mutual love for all things Dionysian resulted in an image I couldn’t be happier with. Thank you, talented one! I hope you never stop painting. (Readers: check out Derek’s portfolio. ‘Tis beauty.)

*I give each cover artist only two instructions: that the image feature books and that it give some sense, even if just fleeting or symbolic, of the late eighteenth century, in honour of the magazine’s namesake. I’m always delighted to see how each artist interprets that request.

Lackington’s Issue 4 Is Now

Lackington’s Issue 4 was sent to subscribers and went on sale October 28, and now it’s free to read for everyone on the website (please do consider supporting us if you’re a happy reader). This issue contains five stories that tell of “institutions” material and otherwise, and has already garnered some wonderful attention from reviewers I admire. Charlotte Ashley wrote up Penny Stirling’s remarkable experimental piece about a parliament of birds for Apex Magazine‘s “Clavis Aurea” review series, while Amal El-Mohtar, over at Tor.com‘s “Rich and Strange” review series, has expounded on the connections between two pieces of science fiction I am proud to have been able to include in Lackington’s: Rose Lemberg’s “Stalemate” and Kate Heartfield’s “Bonsaiships of Venus.” These readers are the market we work for, so our satisfaction runs deep. It fills me with wonder to discover such impressive fiction in the submissions box and to have that fiction noticed and written about so beautifully and perceptively after the fact. I don’t think these thrills will ever wear off.

Lackington’s Issue 4
Charlotte Ashley’s Apex Magazine review
Amal El-Mohtar’s Tor.com review

 

Femme Fatale Interview on CKCU-FM

Today I got to chat about editing and genre-writing from a feminist slant on CKCU-FM’s Femme Fatale with host Lilith Nuttal. I’ve become a bit of an evangelist about “active editing” and admit I like to talk about it at every opportunity — and will continue to do so until editors’ inboxes are brimming with submissions from a diverse population that feels 100% welcome. Until writers of colour stop getting rejections from editors who tell them their setting isn’t “Western enough.” Until stories about straight white dudes are no longer seen as “apolitical” and somehow more genuine. The work, it’s bloody ongoing. But meanwhile fun radio interview on a great and storied station that’s holding its annual funding drive! If you have a few spare pennies, please consider helping CKCU meet its goal. It’s been a fixture in this community, and on the Canadian arts scene, since forever.

Click here for the full interview (starts about 8 minutes in).

Can-Con 2014

I’ll be participating on four panels at Can-Con, October 3-5. I was delighted to be asked for some ideas about panels this year, one of which is close to my heart: a discussion about the place of poetic, experimental, or maximalist prose styles in SFF fiction today (“Stop Counting Adjectives”). It’ll also be fun to jog my expertise about the history of execution and representations of execution on the “Crime and Punishment” panel. I’m looking forward not just to the discussions but to the overall gathering, which brings friends in from out of town for conversations, readings, and amazing South Asian suppers. My schedule is below; I’ll also be in the Dealer’s Room at times, staffing the Postscripts to Darkness table with co-editor Sean Moreland and cover artist extraordinaire Cherry Valance.

The Canadian Writers Blog Tour

I have been Chosen. By one James K. Moran, an Ottawa writer and friend. James nominated me to be the next stop on the Canadian Writers Blog Tour. I’m not sure where it originated or how long it’s been going on, but all I have to do is take a week to respond to four questions, paste them on the internet, and pass the torch. Here’s me being obliging:

Mini-Interview at The Future Fire

The very kind staff of The Future Fire posted mini-interviews of its Issue 30 authors on their Facebook page. The questions relate to my story “No Chimeras,” which TFF was kind enough to publish and illustrate. It was a pleasure, and here are the results:

TFF: What does “No Chimeras” mean to you?
RR: “No Chimeras” is a reminder to myself to distinguish between productive imagination and castles in the air — because I have a problem managing that distinction in my own head. But it also vilifies the utilitarian, anti-arts mandate that creeps into politics from time to time, today and going back to the ancient world.

TFF: What are you writing next?
RR: I’m working on two novels simultaneously right now (is that wise?). One is a post-apocalyptic story set in real-world Ontario, Canada in the near future; the other is an epic secondary-world fantasy — without a whit of magic (or chimeras) in it, so I’m not sure how that will fly.

Excerpt: “His antennae droop, and so does his head, and Osheen waits to see if the chimera will succumb to instinct, turn away from the cave, and return to hiding somewhere in the ravening valley. Many do — many more are deterred from shedding by Osheen’s words once they stand or coil or hover in the mountain cave, wary of the white wire, of the map, of odds.”

Guess What? Issue 3