Strangers Among Us Anthology

Got my contributor's copy of Strangers Among Us in the mail yesterday. Pretty pleased with the production values, and the company I am keeping in this anthology. The anthology will be officially launched August 12, 2016 at When Words Collide Festival in Calgary (at which, coincidentally, I am Editor Guest. I'm told as Editor Guest I get to do a 15 minute reading, so will have to see if I can maybe read this one..though it might be a little long.)

I had hoped to immerse myself in reading the stories by my fellow contributors this afternoon, but Tigana snatched it out of my hands as it came out of the packaging and ran off with it first. (That's her bookmark you can see sticking up from the book—I had to borrow it back to take the photo...)

Copyright Law Changes and the Decline of Canadian Publishing

I have been reacting in various listserve discussions to articles like this one in the Globe and Mail which purport to show that the recent changes in Canadian copyright law are robbing authors of their royalties and killing off publishers. It is, of course, pure nonsense. Correlation is not causation, and the confabulation of copyright changes and troubles in textbook and other publishing is often a deliberate attempt by corporate lobbyists to grab off more than their fair share of the writer's revenues. Michael Geist has written a much better researched and argued piece on the topic than I could, so I refer you to his column "False Alarms: Examining the Misleading Claims About the State of Canadian Publishers". Highly recommended.

Story Cliches

I was considering submitting a story to Strange Horizons Magazine and happened upon this list of "Stories We've Seen Too Often" attached to their "Guidelines" page. I was laughing heartily at the hopeless hackneyed ideas of these unsophisticated and unimaginative beginners. . . when I realized that the story I intended to submit was #5 on the list.

*Sigh*

Clearly there is no point submitting this story to any SF venue if my plot is #5 (on a list of 51) SF cliches.

There is nothing for it but to throw it out. . . to CanLit markets. (Well, might be new idea to their editors!)