LINKS

Some Canadian SF&F authors, organizations and databases

• Many authors' websites can be found on the Sunburst Awards Links page
• The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy (part of the Toronto Public Library system)
• SF Canada
• Canadian SF Works Database

Some prizes for speculative fiction that Canadians are eligible for

• Sunburst
• Prix Aurora Awards
• Le Grand Prix de la science-fiction et du fantastique québécois
• the SFSF Prix Boréal, given out by the La Société de Fantastique et de Science-Fiction Boréal Inc. at the annual Congrès Boréal.
• Writers in BC and the Yukon are eligible for the Endeavour Award. From its site: "Many of the best science fiction and fantasy writers in North America live in the Pacific Northwest. The Endeavour Award was funded by Portland [Oregon]-area writers and readers of science fiction and fantasy in 1996.... The Award honors the authors of distinguished science fiction or fantasy books, either novels or a single-author collections of stories, created by writers living and working in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, British Columbia, The Yukon, and Alaska)."

Some upcoming SF conventions

• Ad Astra in Toronto, April 9–11
• EerieCon 12 in Niagara Falls, NY, April 23–25
• Polaris 24 in Richmond Hill, ON, July 16–18
• AussieCon 4, the 68th World Science Fiction Convention, in Melbourne, Australia, September 2–6
• World Fantasy Convention 2010 in Columbus, OH, October 28–31
• SFContario in Toronto, November 19–21

Some Lit/culture blogs I read regularly

• A Commonplace Blog
• Anecdotal Evidence
• Bookdwarf
• Bookninja
• Bookslut
• Nigeness
• "Whatever," SF author John Scalzi's immensely entertaining and thought-provoking blog, for which he won a Hugo

Science blogs

• Biology in Science Fiction
• Cocktail Party Physics
• Cosmic Variance: Random Samplings from a Universe of Ideas
• The Frontal Cortex, among the multitudes at scienceblogs.com

Humorous sites

• Overheard in New York, and its sister sites Overheard at the Beach, Overheard in the Office and Overheard Everywhere: Very funny (foul-language warning), and even funnier if you read the overheard dialogue first, then the headline over it.
  
  From Overheard in the Office, July 17, 2007:
  

  Teacher in Arlington, Virginia: "I'm reading this book that will teach you all the Italian you'll ever need to visit Canada!"
  
  And the headline is...
  
  More of a Pamphlet, Really
  

  From Overheard Everywhere (but the exchange took place in New York), September 10, 2007:

  Tourist lady, very slowly: Uhhh, can you... Um, excuse me, can you... um, tell me where... that place downtown... I think it's, ummm...
  
  Lady suit, interrupting: Christ on a crutch! What are you, Canadian or retarded?!
  
  And the headline is...
  
  Um... Yes?

  Sent in from "Ottawa, Canadia" to Overheard in the Office, October 23, 2007:

  Consultant on phone: You need to set corporate goals. Without goals, you're like a boat on the water.
  
  And the headline is...
  
  Sailing in Search of the Rest of Your Simile
  

  If dialogue is submitted from Canada, the source-line is altered to "Canadia" before it's posted by the people who run the site—an in-joke to which Canucks are not privy—and remonstrative e-mails are merely rendered anonymous and dumped into the page "Urgent Communiqués from the Giant to the North".


From Overheard in New York, January 27, 2008:

Canadian girl, about Project Runway: It really irritates me every time she says "auf Wiedersehen." I mean, get over yourself.

American girl: Yeah, that's how we feel every time you say "Kraft dinner."

And the headline is...

K.D. Lang: So That's What My Initials Stand For!

From Overheard in the Office, December 20, 2007:

Professor (at the University of North Texas): So, what did you think of the reading?

Student: Well, when I read the first part, I was like, "Dang!"

Professor: Um...

Student: And when I read the last part, I was like, "Dang! I mean, dang!"

And the headline is...

Why Professors Drink

From Overheard in New York, June 20, 2009:

Somewhat large woman: And then the orangutan started totally groping me!

Passerby, stopping: You've got my attention.

And the headline is...

Do You Mind? This Is a Primate Conversation.

• Refresh thyself with multitudinous yuks: Behold the winners of the 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which is an international literary parody contest that seeks bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Among the categories for submission are fantasy fiction, science fiction and vile puns. The deadline for each year's contest is April 15.
  
  Among other deathless tomes, Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–73), he whose name is immortalized by the bad-fiction contest, wrote an SF novel called The Coming Race (1870; reissued 2007 by Hesperus Press), about a superpowered vegetarian people, the Vril-ya, who live in deep caverns amid plans to emerge and destroy mankind. According to the Times Literary Supplement of June 29, 2007, the novel "helped to form a number of the stock tropes of popular culture; it also, by inventing a magic substance called vril, provided Bovril with a snappy name. The novel itself is dull, however; its unfortunate narrator hero spends the entire book nodding enthusiastically while his captors explain to him their superiority in all things."
  
  Bulwer-Lytton's fame also lives on in the town of Lytton, the "rafting capital of British Columbia." When B-L was the British Interior Secretary, he was responsible for building many roads in Western Canada and in Australia. (Who knew?)

Writers' sites

• Places for Writers; the link is to their "calls for submissions" page.
• A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, the blog of mystery/thriller writer J.A. Konrath (author of Whiskey Sour, Bloody Mary, Dirty Martini, etc.).
• The Virtual Clarion Workshop. From the site: "Established in 2006, the Virtual Clarion Workshop is the online version of the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshop at UCSD. Operated and overseen by the Clarion Foundation and Clarion co-founder Kate Wilhelm, Virtual Clarion is designed for writers who find it impractical to attend the six-week UCSD [University of California at San Diego] program, as well as for Clarion alumni who wish to continue their writing education online." I'm a member of this workshop.
• The Critters Workshop, "an on-line workshop/critique group for serious writers of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror."

Folk dancing

• I mentioned this topic in About Me, and FAQs. As of September 2009, I'd been dancing for 34 years, and teaching for a great part of that. See the first topic on my Other Writing page for articles of folk dance/ethnology interest. I'm steadily adding to the supply.
• International (as opposed to "ethnic") folk dance: I belong to the Ontario Folk Dance Association (OFDA) and am on its executive. During my stay at California's Stockton Folk Dance Camp in July 2009, I volunteered to help with syllabus work.

Collecting

• Art: I've attended the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition in Nathan Phillips Square (City Hall, downtown Toronto) for many years, and picked up some of my favourite art there, sold directly by the artist. This is where I met watercolour artist David McEown, a number of whose works I have. He teaches, too. He's a member of the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour, and many other Society members attend the Outdoor Art event as well.
• I have many small watercolours by Vermont artist Robert Sydorowich.
• Among other artists whose work I collect are Brian Atyeo (linked to the gallery where I bought his work), Gisèle Comtois, Art Cunanan, Alain Lacaze (a painter/engraver, now living in Quebec City), Alan Ho, Nell LaMarsh (whom I first met folk dancing), Margaret Roseman, Yaohua Yan, Jan Peng Wang and Charles Spratt. The watercolour of Charles Spratt that I own reminds me of the Eastern Ontario hamlet where my mother grew up (Easton's Corners). Spratt painted the work in the Eastern Townships, Quebec.
• Costumes: I own dozens of original ethnic costumes, mostly from Europe but some from Mexico and Asia. To the right are gold-embroidered Ottoman shoes.

Environment/Wildlife

• Climate change: The David Suzuki Foundation
• PollutionWatch
• Toronto and Region Conservation Authority
• Toronto Wildlife Centre, which has grown into Canada's busiest wildlife centre since opening in 1993. One of the three red-tailed hawk chicks born at Queen's Park in 2007 was taken to TWC after it broke a leg in June. (Its leg was so badly broken, in addition to nerve damage, that it had to be euthanized.)
• World Wildlife Fund-Canada, besides being a worthy organization doing essential work, is the beneficiary of the annual CN Tower fund-raising climb (used in a scene in Tanya Huff's novel Blood Lines in the Fantastic Toronto survey).
• Global conservation organizations, including the Sierra Legal Defence Fund and Greenpeace, can be investigated on WWF-Canada's links page.
• Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (U.K.)
• Photo gallery of The Cloud Appreciation Society.

Domesticated animals

• I highly recommend Annex Cat Rescue of Toronto, a wonderful bunch of volunteers who make sure that all rescued cats are spayed or neutered before being adopted or replaced in feral colonies. Their website lists the cats or kittens available for adoption and provides photos and vital information on their age, sex, health and personalities, such as "very loving, affectionate cat," "needs to be only cat," "thinks he's a dog," so potential adopters can figure out ahead of time which cat will best fit into their home. (They then have to go see the cat and its foster mother.) I've adopted two cats from them—Georgie (pictured left) and Marcus—who were strangers when they met but are best buds now. This non-profit organization welcomes new volunteers and philanthropic donations—including Canadian Tire money!

Web design

• Web Pages that Suck: Learn Good Web Design by Looking at Bad Web Design. Way too many Google ads on this site, though; they really interfere with the content. Ironic.
• I designed this site from scratch using basic html. Nothing flashy (in fact, I hate sites that flash at me), but it serves. A typical compliment I've gotten is, "Great, clean layout and beautiful photos." It is meant as a site for readers, after all, and for people who'd rather their art sat still while they looked at it. And definitely for people without ADD.