Susan Forest

Congrats to Rob, winner of the Aurora for Wake! A fine field of competitors, too! And to Eileen, who won four times over – Auroras for Best Short (English) and Best Other (for 4 Women of the Apocalypse), second place in Writers’ Idol and had a publisher approach her with an invitation to submit. Wow! And I was there for all 4 – vicarious thrills!

The con was good, the people were great, AND I got lots of writing done, too!

I got about 4000 words written, which wasn’t bad considering the new technology I was using. It worked fairly well, too. Mostly, it understood the text I dictated, though I had more trouble with the navigation commands. Still, getting text down was what I really needed, and I was able to do some edits left-handed, afterward, so it all worked out. Still have to learn more!

BTW, congratulations to everyone who was nominated for an Aurora this year. I personally know every nominee for Best Work, Long Form – Leslie, Barb, Ed, Rob and Hayden. Will make voting VERY tough! Also, congratulations to Ivan, who was nominated for short story. Not sure who else was nominated, as the official list isn’t out yet, but already I’m thinking I better book my membership to Keycon!

Should have posted this at the time, but thanks to Brian Hades, who took this photo of me with two Aurora Awards! Randy McCharles is the first person in history to have won in both a professional and fan category: Best Work, Short Form, and Fan Organizational. I was pleased and proud to be asked to accept the awards on his behalf.

Anticipation was wonderful – kept me too busy to post. However, here’s a re-cap: First, I didn’t win the Aurora Award for Best Work – Short Form. But my good friend, Randy McCharles did! So the award comes west, to Calgary, and Randy is awesome! I was able to accept the award for him (and get my photo taken) and it was a great evening. Randy also won for Best Fan Organizational, for running World Fantasy last fall, which he really deserved, so good all round!

I sat on 3 panels, did a reading and 2 signings, volunteered for SFWA and participated in a radio play. Along with visiting Old Montreal, buying (and reading) books and connecting with others, I only managed to hit a few panels, but the ones I saw were good.

In addition, I attended parties with, and was introduced to some well known writers, agents, editors and publishers, and received a couple of offers to submit work, so was very pleased with the weekend from a business point of view as well. Here are some pics:
Sheila Williams presented the Readers’ Choice Award to James Allan Gardner at the Analog / Asimov’s party Friday night.
Renee and I went out to dinner and guess who sat at the table next to us — Nick DiChario!

What better place than the airport to blog about going to Worldcon in Montreal? I’m sitting on 2 panels and moderating a third, doing 2 signings, a reading, and appearing in a radio play. And, of course, the Aurora banquet — as well as volunteering for SFWA and spending some time at the Edge table. Will be a busy weekend! Hopefully, the hotel will have free internet access and I can post every day.

I got the schedule for panel participants for Worldcon in Montreal and programmers have been very generous to me! I have a reading and a signing, and have been invited to sit on panels on Horror and Dark Fantasy, Internet critical reviews and writing for Analog. I had to decline the panel on Battlestar Galactica, because I’m not knowledgeable in that area, having never seen the show. That doesn’t bother me too much, but I may also have to miss the one on Dark Fantasy as my plane will arrive too late for me to make it.

Exciting, though, to be asked to sit on panels with Stan Schmidt, Ellen Datlow, David D. Levine, James Patrick Kelly, Moshe Feder and others! My excitement level just went up three notches!

Thanks to everyone who took a moment to nominate me for the Aurora Award — I have been short listed in the Short Fiction category for my short story in Analog last June, entitled “Back.” Doubly good news, I am in competition with my good friend, Randy, who wrote a humorous novella, “Ringing the Changes in Okotoks, Alberta,” which appeared in Tesseracts 12 by Edge Press last November. Randy was also nominated in the category, Fan Achievement – Organizational for running the World Fantasy Convention in Calgary last fall, which was a great convention.

Thanks to Ron Friedman of my Imaginative Fiction Writers’ Association for compiling this partial list of eligible works for the Auroras — with the slant that all these writers are from Calgary (or were from Calgary or are good friends of Calgarians). Some to consider, at least:

Long-Form Works
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Sawyer, Robert J. IDENTITY THEFT AND OTHER STORIES (collection). Red Deer Press, May 2008
Trenholm, Hayden. DEFINING DIANA. Bundoran Press

Novelettes
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McCharles, Randy. “Ringing the Changes in Okotoks, Alberta.” Tesseracts Twelve, edited by Claude Lalumiere

Short Stories
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Forest, Susan J. “Back.” Analog Science Fiction and Fact, June 2008

Sawyer, Robert J. “Apple Will Own Margaret Atwood,” The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Magazine, January 2008 (reprinted as “E-Mails from the Future” in Sawyer’s collection Identity Theft and Other Stories).

Trenholm, Hayden. “Love In its Season” On Spec #73, Summer 2008

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Other Non-CanadaSF eligible:

McCharles, Randy (fan achievement) for chairing World fantasy convention.
Jeff Campbell – for editing Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes

Did I mention that my good friend and writing-group member, Shenaaz Nanji was nominated for the Governor-General’s Award for her children’s novel? Her book, Child of Dandelions was wonderful. Not only was it well written and a gripping story, but I learned a lot about a period in history that I lived through but was pretty unaware of, as the events happened half way around the world. Very cool. Shenaaz was interviewed multiple times over the past couple of weeks and flown to Toronto for a few days as well. Hot stuff! She, along with the rest of my Kensington Writers’ Group, is coming over for a Christmas party on Monday, so I’m hoping we will hear more of her stories then.

Very cool!

Susan

So much to post about – I should have kept my promise and posted about World Fantasy every day. David Morrell was a wonderful guest to host – his workshop was great (he has lots of good stories to illustrate his points) and he was very easy to talk to. I sat on a panel with Tad Williams and Lee Moddisett which was informative and hilarious, and I got to make a point or two as well (Thanks for moderating, Barb). Great experience. My reading went very smoothly, and signing books at the Edge table was lots of fun – I even got to do a podcast with Randy McCharles and Holly Phillips.

As for the rest of the convention, I sat in on some very informative panels, enjoyed the art show immensely (I think it was one of the better ones I’ve seen) and had fun at Edge Press’s kickoff party with the Plaid Tongued Devils. In between, I was able to catch dinner with the likes of Barbara Hambly, Tom Doherty and George R R Martin at various venues, including Kim Greyson’s home (thanks, Kim!).

Probably the most awesome part was that Rob Sawyer introduced me to an agent in the firm that handles him, and although the meeting was only supposed to be 5-10 minutes, we wound up all going for lunch together, which as a real thrill. And, yes, I do have an invitation to send my manuscript in (I sent it last Wednesday), so now my writing has to sell itself. Wish me luck!

The convention ended with the World Fantasy Awards, and David Morrell graciously invited me, as his host, to sit with him at the head table. It doesn’t get much better!

All in all, World Fantasy was a first class convention. The hotel was upscale and well-situated, the book bags have a million pockets and will be used for years (not to mention that they were bulging with free books), the entire affair was well-organized (not a glitch in the entire weekend, that I could see), the parties were fun, the people were in good spirits — a very classy affair, all around. Kudos especially to Randy McCharles who is AWESOME and to Kim Greyson, who set out to treat the guests like princes, and succeeded.

Susan