DOUGLAS SMITH | Writing the Fantastic

I'll be at Polaris 22, the annual Toronto SF&F convention (formerly Toronto Trek), whose media guests include Rachel Luttrell (Teyla Emmagan of Stargate Atlantis). Polaris has a strong media focus, but also includes a literary stream in their programming. I'm on a number of panels over the weekend (one Friday night, and three Saturday afternoon), and will be doing a reading of a new story on Sunday at 1pm. Hope to see you there!

I was interviewed a while back at Toronto's excellent annual SF&F convention, Ad Astra by fellow writer Lesley Livingston. The interview is now up in pod cast form at Hardcore Nerdity, a new web site dedicated to covering "genre from all angles – from ink on a page to pixels on a screen and all that’s in-between." Check out the interview here.

My story "State of Disorder" just appeared in issue #5 of the Hebrew magazine Mercury in Israel. Check out the cover at the right.

"State of Disorder" first appeared in the long-running (but now in limbo) Amazing Stories in 1999. It was a finalist for the Aurora Award and got me my first honourable mention in the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror (even though I think it's an SF tale).

It's also the story that started my eligibility for the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer and eventually led to me being a finalist for that award in 2001.

My 2004 Aurora Award winning story, "Scream Angel," just appeared in issue #9 of the Romanian SF magazine, Sci-Fi Magazin. You can buy the story in English here.

If you've never experienced a poetry slam, trust me, you don't what it is. It is not about poets quietly reading their little odes to goldfinches. Slam is performance art. Slam is spoken word theatre. Slam is timed 3-minute competitions of language and emotion and intensity and honesty. The pieces can provoke laughter or tears, anger or elation, but I guarantee you'll feel something.

I've posted the entire Facebook interview that Mark Leslie Lefebvre did with me recently on the discussion boards in the "Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy" group here on one page, so you don't have to click through all the earlier blog entries question by question.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre interviews me on Facebook regarding my Aurora-nominated story, "The Dancer at the Red Door"...

MARK: Glad you mentioned it, because I wanted to ask (if it's okay for you to share) for more details about the Herok'a novel. What drove you to want to explore a novel length work from that "universe" and how has that experience been different than your short fiction work?

DOUG: "Spirit Dance" was the very first story that I ever wrote (and sold), and I always knew that I wanted to return to that world in novel length.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre interviews me on Facebook regarding my Aurora-nominated story, "The Dancer at the Red Door"...

MARK: Thanks for sharing the link, Doug. I've sent several writers to it in the past few years as the best foreign language market reference I've seen on the web.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre interviews me on Facebook regarding my Aurora-nominated story, "The Dancer at the Red Door"...

MARK: Wow, sounds great -- I've already got it on my "to buy" list -- something tells me this limited edition won't last long and I should be placing my pre-order with PS Publishing soon. Apart from multiple award wins and countless nominations, you've also had a lot of success with reprints of your fiction in foreign languages. Can you tell us a little bit about that -- perhaps what it has done for you as a writer?

DOUG: Well, it started out just as a fun thing to do.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre interviews me on Facebook regarding my Aurora-nominated story, "The Dancer at the Red Door"...

MARK: Can you please tell us a bit more about IMPOSSIBILIA, such as where the title comes from, how it came to be and the process of putting the book together?

DOUG: Early in 2007, I was discussing the possibility of a short fiction collection with PS Publishing, a small UK press that specializes in SF, fantasy, horror and crime.