Polaris!

Last night was the first night for Polaris 23 and a load of fun as usual. Attended the Blastoff party and got to speak with Matt Frewer, who is a very nice man and told me some interesting things about Doctor Doctor which he did in the 1980's and which was brilliantly funny.

Also got to meet Michael Hogan, another fine actor from Battle Star Galactica and many fine TV series including CTV's Cold Squad. Good actor.

And, finally (among the actors) got to meet the lovely Claudia Black who is as beautiful in person as she is on the screen and a lovely to talk with.

Saw and spoke with various other writers there, too: Douglas Smith, Julia Czerneda, Lesley Livingston, and Adrienne Cress.

Did my first panel at 11 p.m. and had great fun with it, but I didn't get to bed until 1:30 a.m. and my little girl got be up at 7:30. Man, am I tired.

Will be heading over there at noonish today. Looking forward to a good afternoon of schmoozing and book selling.

I'll be doing my reading at 7 p.m. tonight, and panels at 10 and 11 p.m., so do come out if you are in the area. My signing is tomorrow afternoon at 4 p.m.

Now, time to figure out which bit of Cold Magics I should read. First time reading any of it in public, too. Hmmm...

Impossibilia

I just finished reading PS Showcase #5: Impossibilia, a collection of short stories by Douglas Smith. I've had the great pleasure of meeting Douglas at a few Conventions now, and the even greater pleasure of hearing him read. He is excellent live, which is good, because it takes an excellent reader to bring out the quality behind excellent writing.

Impossibilia is a wonderful book, with three of Douglas's short stories: "Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by Van Gogh," about art, death and psychic time travel, "Spirit Dance," about northern Ontario, native spirits and shapeshifting and ""Going Down to Lucky Town," about what happens when you can see good luck... and bad luck.

Each one is an example of how a master at the art tells a story -- and I'm saying this out of sheer envy. I write a decent short story, but Douglas has fine tuned the art of writing short prose to the point where he says very well in 10,000 words what other writers would take 100,000 to say.

Impossibilia is an amazing little collection and if you like the short story form I recommend it.

Douglas is rumoured to be working on a novel. I can't wait to see it when it comes out.