Playgroung of Lost Toys
Page 27
In our society, we associate youth with possibility. We look at childhood as a time of perpetual becoming, as though our children are clay that can be moulded by their encounters with the world. Our toys, so intrinsically connected to the social idea of youth, are invested with similar notions of possibility – the multifaceted, many-sided, still mouldable and changeable nature of reality. Toys reflect our social ideas, but they also have the power to transform them.
As a society, we pretend that old dogs can’t learn new tricks, but Playground of Lost Toys reminds us that we are always able to learn new tricks if we learn to play and take advantage of the learning, changing, reality-warping potential of play as a creative activity.
AUTHORS’ BIOGRAPHIES
Karen L. Abrahamson has had short fiction appear in Realms of Fantasy, Paradox and Strange Horizons, as well as in a variety of anthologies, most recently in Fiction River: Fantastic Detective, Special Edition Crime, and Universe Between. Her novels span high fantasy to romantic suspense, but lately it’s mysteries that have caught her fancy. Author of the unique Cartographer Universe series, she drives urban fantasy in a whole new direction with a magic system that changes the landscape with a thought. “With One Shoe” represents another example of how Abrahamson likes to blur genres in her fiction. She was born in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan, grew up travelling, and now makes the Fraser Valley of British Columbia her home. Discover more of her writing at www.karenlabrahamson.com
Nathan Adler is a writer who works in many different mediums, including drawing and painting, audio, video and film, as well as glass. Nathan was the first place winner of the 2010 Aboriginal Writing Challenge. He has had his writing published in Redwire, Canada’s History, Shtetle, Shameless, Kimiwan Zine, and as a part of the Ode’min Giizis Festival. He currently works as a glass artist, is writing a sequel to his first novel, Wrist, and is doing an MFA in Creative Writing. He is a member of Lac Des Mille Lacs First Nation, and lives in Mono, Ontario.
Colleen Anderson has published over 200 pieces of fiction and poetry. She has been a freelance copy editor, and was co-editor for Tesseracts 17. She was twice nominated for the Aurora Award, long-listed for the Stoker Award, and has received honorable mentions in the Year’s Best anthologies. Some of her new and forthcoming works are in nEvermore!: Tales of Murder, Mystery and the Macabre, Best of Horror Library, Exile Book of New Canadian Noir (Exile Editions) , OnSpec, Second Contact, Our World of Horror, Polu Texni and Clockwork Canada (available 2016 with Exile Editions). She was born in Edmonton, grew up in Calgary and now lives in Vancouver. You can find her at: www.colleenanderson.wordpress.com
Lisa Carreiro rises before dawn to spin the chaos in her head into stories before morphing into a humble office drone. Her short fiction has appeared in On Spec, Tesseracts 11, and Strange Horizons. She’s currently working on the final edits to a novel. She lives in Kitchener, Ontario.
Kevin Cockle is the author of over twenty stories published in a variety of markets. He has also produced work as a screenwriter (earning a screen credit in 2015 for the short film “The Whale”), sports journalist, and technical writer to fill out what would otherwise be a purely finance-centric resume. His debut novel Spawning Ground is slated for a 2016 release. He lives in Calgary, Alberta.
Geoffrey W. Cole is a science fiction writer, writing instructor and engineer. He has published more than twenty-five short stories in publications such as On Spec, Clarkesworld, Intergalactic Medicine Show, EscapePod and Imaginarium 2012: The Year’s Best Canadian Speculative Writing. His stories have been translated into Spanish, Italian, and Romanian. Geoff is completing a Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing at the University of British Columbia, where he also teaches writing. He lives in Toronto with his wonderful wife, his son, and giant hound. Geoff is a member of SF Canada and SFWA. Visit Geoff at www.geoffreywcole.com
Christine Daigle is a neuropsychologist, coffee aficionado, and Scrabble demon living in the Great White North (in southern Ontario, where it’s actually quite sunny). Her first co-written sci-fi/ fantasy novel, The Emerald Key, was released this year by Ticonderoga Publications. Her short works have most recently appeared in Apex Magazine, Grievous Angel, and the Automatons & Airships anthology (under Christine Purcell). She is an active HWA member.
Joe Davies has appeared in The New Quarterly, The Missouri Review, eFiction India, Queen’s Quarterly, ELQ/Exile: The Literary Quarterly, The Capilano Review, Stand Magazine, Planet: The Welsh Inter-nationalist, Descant, Rampike, Crannog and other magazines, as well in the anthology They Have to Take You In, edited by Ursula Pflug for Hidden Brook Press. He lives in Peterborough, Ontario, with his wife and three kids.
Linda DeMeulemeester has been published in zines, magazines and anthologies, most recently, Exile Editions’s Dead North: Canadian Zombie Fiction. Her spooky children’s series, Grim Hill, has been translated into French, Spanish and Korean. Wandering Fox, an imprint of Heritage Books, is republishing the award winning books with The Secret of Grim Hill launching October of 2015. After a long day outdoors as a free range kid, a favourite childhood pastime of hers was story time. Brothers Grimm revealed Faery was a dangerous place, and she suspected an old-fashioned leather-bound book of rhymes brimmed with magical incantations. She lives in Burnaby, British Columbia.
Candas Jane Dorsey is a writer of sometimes-award-winning novels (including Black Wine), short fiction (including Machine Sex and other stories) and poetry in a career that also encompasses literary editing; book and magazine publishing; teaching/course development for literary and professional writing classes; advocacy and action in community, arts and social justice; and freelance writing/editing. “The Food of My People” is in part an homage to her godmother Cobbie, in part a nod to her extended family, and in part honours the memory of the best pie on the planet (her mom’s) and a fiendish red jigsaw puzzle. Flapper pie recipe: http://tinyurl.com/FlapperPie. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
DVS Duncan was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and now lives in New Westminster with his lovely wife and a troublesome tomcat. He holds degrees in English and Landscape Architecture but it is life that has taught him the most. His stories are all true, though not factual. Make of that what you will.
Rhonda Eikamp is originally from Texas and now lives in Germany. When not writing fiction, she works as a translator for a German law firm. Her stories can be found in Daily Science Fiction, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and The Journal of Unlikely Cartography. She recently helped annihilate science fiction in the special Light-speed issue “Women Destroy Science Fiction.” Find more stories at: http://writinginthestrangeloop.wordpress.com
Chris Kuriata lives in the Niagara Region of Ontario. As well as editing documentaries about murderers, tent revivals, and hockey, his short fiction has appeared in many fine magazines.
Claude Lalumière is the author of Objects of Worship, The Door to Lost Pages, and Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes and the editor or co-editor of fourteen anthologies, including Masked Mosaic: Canadian Super Stories and The Exile Book of New Canadian Noir (Exile Editions). Originally from Montreal, he’s now based in Vancouver. claudepages.info
Catherine MacLeod lives and writes in Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, where she also spends too much time watching “The Protectors” on YouTube. Her publications include short work in On Spec, Nightmare, Black Static, Tor.com, and several anthologies, including Fearful Symmetries and Chilling Tales: In Words, Alas, Drown I.
Rati Mehrotra was born and raised in India, and now makes her home in Toronto. When not working on her magnum opus – a series of fantasy novels based in a fictional version of Asia – she writes short fiction and posts updates on her blog http://ratiwrites.com. Her short stories have appeared in Apex Magazine, AE – The Canadian Science Fiction Review, Urban Fantasy Magazine, Abyss & Apex, and many more. Follow her on Twitter @Rati_Mehrotra
Derek Newman-Stille researches representations of disability in Canadian Speculative Fiction while completing his PhD at
Trent University,in Peterborough, Ontario. Derek runs the Prix Aurora Award-winning website Speculating Canada interviewing authors and reviewing Canadian spec fic out of a love of the genre and because it makes it easier to meet his favourite authors. Derek has written in academic and non-academic fora such as Mosaic, The Canadian Fantastic in Focus, Quill & Quire, and Accessing the Future.
Dominik Parisien is an editor, poet, and writer who lives in Toronto. He is the co-editor, along with Navah Wolfe, of several upcoming anthologies for Saga Press, and the editor of Clockwork Canada (Exile Editions) due out in April of 2016. He was also an editorial assistant for various anthologies, including The Time Traveler’s Almanac (Tor), Sisters of the Revolution (PM Press), and The Bestiary (Centipede Press). His fiction and poetry have appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, Shock Totem, Ideomancer, Lackington’s, Imaginarium 2013: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing, and other venues. You can find him online at: https://dominikparisien.wordpress.com/ and Twitter @domparisien.
Ursula Pflug is the award winning author of the novels Green Music (Edge/Tesseract), The Alphabet Stones (Blue Denim) and Motion Sickness (Inanna), illustrated by SK Dyment. She penned the story collections After the Fires (Tightrope) and Harvesting the Moon (PS), and edited the anthology They Have To Take You In (Hidden Brook), a fundraiser for mental health. Her YA novella, Mountain, is forth-coming from Inanna. She has taught writing workshops in Toronto, Campbellford, Peterborough, Maynooth, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; at Trinity Square Video, Loyalist College, the Campbellford Resource Centre, Trent University and elsewhere. She lives in Norwood, Ontario.
Alex C. Renwick lives mostly in the Pacific Northwest, mostly in Vancouver (the real one). Her short story collection Push of the Sky (written as Camille Alexa) was an Endeavour Award finalist and an official reading selection of Portland’s Powell’s Books Science Fiction book club. Her most recent tales of noir, myth, and oddness have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazines, Clockwork Phoenix, and New Canadian Noir (Exile Editions). More at alexcrenwick.com
Robert Runté is Senior Editor with Five Rivers Publishing, a free-lance development editor at SFEditor.ca, an associate professor, critic and reviewer. He was co-editor of Tesseracts 5, wrote the SF&F entry for the Encyclopedia of Canadian Literature, has won three Aurora Awards for his SF criticism, but aside from one story in the first issue of On Spec Magazine in 1989, has only recently started writing fiction. Having finished the first draft of his own first novel, he is the first to concede that reviewing or editing a novel is a lot easier than writing one. He lives in Lethbridge, Alberta, with his wife and two daughters.
Shane Simmons is a multi-award-winning screenwriter and graphic novelist whose work has appeared in international film festivals, museums and lectures about design and structure. His best-known piece of fiction, The Long and Unlearned Life of Roland Gethers, has been discussed in multiple books and academic journals about sequential art, and his short stories have been printed in critically praised anthologies of history, crime and horror. He lives in Montreal with his wife and too many cats. Shane on the web: eyestrainproductions.com. Shane on twitter: @Shane_Eyestrain
Kate Story is a writer, performer, and choreographer originally from Newfoundland. Her first novel Blasted (Killick Press) received the Sunburst Award’s honourable mention for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, and was longlisted for the ReLit Awards. Her second novel, Wrecked Upon This Shore, has been called “magical and moving” (Jessica Grant, Come Thou Tortoise). In 2015 Kate was the recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award for her work in theatre. Recent publications include “Yoke of Inauspicious Stars” in Carbide Tipped Pens and “Unicorn” in Stone Skin Press’s 21st century bestiary, Gods, Memes, and Monsters. Look for her story "Equus" in Exile Editions’ upcoming Clockwork Canada. www.katestory.com
Meagan Whan writes and lives in Ontario. She loves all forms of creative expression. Though she has never unearthed a die, she did dig up a porcelain figurine of a hound dog. “The Die” is her first published story.
Melissa Yuan-Innes dedicates this story to her son Max and four of his caregivers: Liz, Gisèle, Aly and Tanya. Before Melissa became an emergency doctor and writer, she slept with a plethora of stuffed animals, including one named D’Arcy Oliver Theodore Shostakovitch Yuan-Squirrel. Melissa’s stories have appeared in Nature, Writers of the Future, Tesseracts 7 and 16 and the Aurora Award-winning anthology The Dragon and the Stars. She also writes mysteries, including one shortlisted for the Derringer Award, under the name Melissa Yi. She left Montreal to hang out in the countryside of Eastern Ontario. Discover more of her crazy life at www.melissayuaninnes.com
Exile’s $15,000
Carter V. Cooper
Short Fiction
Competition
FOR CANADIAN WRITERS ONLY
$10,000 for the Best Story by an Emerging Writer
$5,000 for the Best Story by a Writer at Any Career Point
The 12 shortlisted are published in the annual CVC Short Fiction
Anthology series and ELQ/Exile: The Literary Quarterly
This annual competition open in October & November details at: www.TheExileWriters.com
Exile’s $2,500
Gwendolyn
MacEwen Poetry
Competition
FOR CANADIAN WRITERS ONLY
$2,000 for the Best Suite of Poetry
$500 for the Best Poem
Winners are published in ELQ/Exile: The Literary Quarterly
This annual competition open in October & November details at: www.TheExileWriters.com
THE EXILE BOOK OF SERIES:
NEW CANADIAN NOIR
Edited by Claude Lalumière and David Nickle • Number Ten 22 stories that showcase the Canadian noir imagination, expressed across genres and geography.
THE STORIES THAT ARE GREAT WITHIN US
Edited by Barry Callaghan • Number Seven
Over the last 60 years, Toronto has been turned upside down and inside out – and the city’s storytellers have given vibrant voice to the city’s character s.
THE EXILE BOOK OF YIDDISH WOMEN WRITERS
Edited by Frieda Johles Foreman • Number Six
2014 WINNER of the Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award: The first collection of Yiddish writing to emphasize the work of Canadian-Yiddish women writers, like Chava Rosenfarb, Rachel Korn and Ida Maze.
PRIESTS, PASTORS, NUNS AND PENTECOSTALS
Edited by Joe Fiorito • Number Five
Mary Frances Coady, Barry Callaghan, Leon Rooke, Roch Carrier, Jacques Ferron, Seán Virgo, Marie-Claire Blais, Hugh Hood, Morley Callaghan, Hugh Garner, Diane Keating, Alden Nowlan, Alexandre Amprimoz, Gloria Sawai, Eric McCormack, Yves Thériault, Margaret Laurence, Alice Munro.
NATIVE CANADIAN FICTION AND DRAMA
Edited by Daniel David Moses • Number Four
Tomson Highway, Niigonwedom James Sinclair, Joseph Boyden, Joseph A. Dandurand, Alootook Ipellie, Thomas King, Yvet e Nolan, Richard Van Camp, Floyd Favel, Robert Arthur Alexie, Daniel David Moses, Katharina Vermette.
CANADIAN DOG STORIES
Edited by Richard Teleky • Number Three
“Twenty-eight stories that run the breadth of adventure, drama, satire, and even fantasy, and will appeal to dog lovers on both sides of the [Canada/US] border.”– Modern Dog Magazine
CANADIAN SPORTS STORIES
Edited by Priscila Uppal • Number Two
Clarke Blaise, George Bowering, Dionne Brand, Barry Callaghan, Morley Callaghan, Roch Carrier, Mat Cohen, Govier, Steven Heighton, W.P. Kinsella, Stephen Leacock, Barry Milliken, L.M. Montgomery, Susanna Moodie, Margaret Pigeon, Mordecai Richler, Guy Vanderhaeghe and more.
20 CANADIAN POETS TAKE ON THE WORLD ~ Mulitlingual
Edited by Priscila Uppal • Number One
20 Canadian poets translate the works of Nobel laureates through classic favourites. Each poet provides an introduction to the translated work.
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