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of my 2019 novella about AI in the workplace,
"The Auditor and the Exorcist."

“Bitter Thing” out in Galaxies today!

I’m excited to have a story out in the French magazine Galaxies SF today, thanks to the talented Pierre-Alexandre Sicart, who translated my story “Bitter Thing” as “Par les yeux d’autrui.”

C’est ma première parution en Galaxies! Un gros merci au traducteur très talentueux, Pierre-Alexandre Sicart.

Continue reading ““Bitter Thing” out in Galaxies today!”

New story: By The Light of the Stars

I have a story out today in World Weaver Press‘s new solarpunk anthology, Multispecies Cities.

Multispecies Cities cover

N.R.M. Roshak’s “By the Light of the Stars” saturate[s] conservation crises in casual kindness.

Publishers Weekly
Continue reading “New story: By The Light of the Stars”

Making Frances Gilbert Laugh

Text: The marching band filled their tubas. AROOGAHFLOOP
She had me at “Aroogahfloop”.

This past Tuesday, I took in a webinar with Frances Gilbert, cheerfully titled “I’ll Acquire Your Book If You Make Me Laugh: Writing Humorous Picture Books”. Frances Gilbert is both an editor at Doubleday Young Readers and the author of several really funny picture books.

Continue reading “Making Frances Gilbert Laugh”

WOTF 35 is in full swing

WOTF 35 is in full swing. This year’s writer winners are Christopher Baker, Carrie Callahan, David Cleden, Preston Dennett, Andrew Dykstal, fellow Ottawa writer John Haas, Kyle Kirrin, Mica Scotti Kole, Rustin Lovewell, Wulf Moon, Elise Stephens, and Kai Wolden. Hugo-nominated past WotF winner Kary English is guest blogging the workshop and awards daily at https://www.writersofthefuture.com/blog/.
Continue reading “WOTF 35 is in full swing”

Skyglow and you

My young son was excited to make out the constellation of Orion for the first time this winter. Unfortunately for us, we live right downtown and can barely make it out, thanks to skyglow. The image above is a terrific side-by-side of Orion with and without the skyglow of Orem, UT. Here in Ottawa, Ontario, all we can see of Orion is the 7 brightest stars: the belt, shoulders and toes. I was inspired to write a short piece on skyglow for kids.

The science inside the story

My winning science fiction story for Writers of the Future vol. 34, “A Bitter Thing,” was inspired by hard science. In the story, an intergalactic traveller falls for Ami the moment he sees her. It seems to be love at first sight, but can she really trust her understanding of his alien emotions?

The story revolves around the intergalactic traveller, Teese. His alien emotional system was inspired by two disparate pieces of real, Earthly biology. The first is the biology of cephalopod skin, and the second is known as mirror-touch synesthesia. Continue reading “The science inside the story”

W1, S1

Last month, I stumbled across a partly-abandoned website with a terrific idea. write1sub1.com was a writing club following Ray Bradbury’s advice to write one story and submit one story each week.

“If you can write one short story a week — doesn’t matter what the quality is to start, but at least you’re practicing. At the end of the year, you have 52 short stories, and I defy you to write 52 bad ones. Can’t be done.”  
– Ray Bradbury

The writing club seems to be over, but it struck me as such good advice that I’m trying to follow it, too.

Pros: More Stories! More Submissions!

Cons: I’m having trouble finishing anything but flash in one week.