Table of Contents for Elements

Here’s the Table of Contents for Elements

If you click on a story title, the link will take you to extra content! (as it becomes available)

Introduction “What Becomes a Legend Most” by Sandra Kasturi

Coolies
Originally appeared in On Spec, Volume 20, Number 4, #75

The Wind and the Sky
Originally appeared in Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine, Issue 5

March of the Forgotten
New to the collection

Storm Child
Originally appeared in Cicada, Volume 9, Number 6

Courting Ice
New to the collection

Hot Furball on a Cold Morning
Originally appeared in Doorways Magazine, Issue 6

Jelly and the D-Machine
New to the collection

Everyone Needs a Couch
Originally appeared in Oceans of the Mind, Fall 2003

Waste Management
Originally appeared in Challenging Destiny, #21

Fuzzy Green Monster Number Two
Originally appeared in Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine, Issue 12

Destiny Lives in the Tattoo’s Needle
Originally appeared in Tesseracts Fourteen, EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing

Synch Me, Kiss Me, Drop
Originally appeared in Clarkesworld, Issue 68, May 2012

Tattoo Ink
Originally appeared in The Shadow Box e-Anthology, Brimstone Press

Gray Love
Originally appeared in Chimeraworld #2

The Tear Closet
Originally appeared in Tesseracts Thirteen, EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing

Hell’s Deadline
Originally appeared in Book of Dead Things, Twilight Tales

Mod Me Down
New to the collection

The Needle’s Eye
Originally appeared in Chilling Tales: Evil Did I Dwell, Lewd I Did Live, EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing

The Flower Gathering
New to the collection

Muffy and the Belfry
New to the collection

Soul Hungry
New to the collection

Book tour for Elements

Elements will be released on April 1st (YES it’s April Fools’ Day and NO it’s not a joke!)

I’ll be busy in the month of April, promoting the book in four different cities!

Saturday, April 5th, 9:00 PM at Ad Astra convention.
Sheraton Parkway North, 600 Highway-7 East, Richmond Hill, Ontario
–Tentatively scheduled for room 1086–

The big launch PARTY! If you’re planning on attending the convention, please drop by and celebrate.

Saturday, April 12th, 1:00 PM at Chapters Waterloo.
428 King Street North, Waterloo, Ontario
I will answer questions and do a few short readings from the collection.
Light refreshments will be provided.

Saturday, April 19th, 3:00 PM at Bakka Phoenix Books Toronto
84 Harbord Street, Toronto, Ontario
I will read a few short excerpts from stories in the collection.
Added bonus: Sandra Kasturi, co-founder of ChiZine Publications, will also be at the launch. Sandra wrote the introduction to the book, and I’m so excited that she’ll be celebrating with us!
Light refreshments will be provided.

Saturday, April 26th, 1:00 PM at Chapters Barrie
76 Barrie View Drive, Barrie, Ontario
I will answer questions and do a few short readings from the collection.
Light refreshments will be provided.

Sunday, April 27th, 1:00 PM at Chapters Newmarket
Yonge Centre, 17440 Yonge Street, Newmarket, Ontario
I will answer questions and do a few short readings from the collection.
Light refreshments will be provided.

Saturday, May 10th, time TBA GenreCon at the Sarnia branch of the Lambton County Library
124 Christina Street South, Sarnia, Ontario
As part of the one-day free conference GenreCon, I will answer questions and do a few short readings from the collection.

Courting Ice – Canadian Style

I live in Canada and my writing can’t help but be affected by our seasons, particularly winter.

“Courting Ice” takes place in the fictional Daslak. When I wrote the story, I imagined Daslak as a remote area of Newfoundland. I’ve never visited the province, but I’ve longed to go. Who wouldn’t when so much of the province is absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous?

Here’s a picture of Goose Cove that I downloaded from These things happen.

Newfoundland Iceberg

Nothing like the vista of rock-dominated landscape with a striking iceberg floating past the shoreline.

In the story, Faya is an ice courter. She uses her gift to coax icebergs to shore where the ice is carved into pieces that are used to preserve food.

This courting gift runs in Faya’s family. Her grandfather courted ice and her mother courted water.

Faya’s mother’s gift drew her to the sea. And as anyone who’s worked on the Atlantic in winter knows, the ocean can be a dangerous place to earn a living.

To an ice courter like Faya, all frozen water was uniquely magnificent, from the great bergs that floated past the cape to the thin skins on late autumn puddles. She adored her gift, for it allowed her a connection as splendid as the love she had once shared with her long dead mother. All her life the ice had proven pure and true, until the spring when she fell in love.

We Canadians consider it a national pastime to complain about winter, and I’ve done my fair share during this year’s particularly difficult winter in Ontario. But seriously, I can pretty much guarantee they’ve had it worse in Newfoundland.

Fun Fact

Newfoundland was the last province to join Canada on March 31, 1949 and on December 6, 2001 the Canadian Constitution was amended to change the official name of the province to Newfoundland and Labrador

As many of you know, I love hockey, and the best place to watch hockey is on Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) on the CBC. During the opening montage at the beginning of a HNIC broadcast, they play a clip from the late great Foster Hewitt. And when the clip was recorded, Newfoundland was not yet part of Canada, so he opens with:

Hello Canada and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland

.

Listen to the Foster Hewitt clip on YouTube.

Storm Child – Putting a Fresh Face on a Timeless Myth

In the summer of 2000, AKA “2K”, I attended my first writers’ workshop, taught by Ann C. Crispin and held at DragonCon.

At the end of the workshop, we students formed a writers group, which we named the “DC2K” writers. Since then, we still critique, share market listings, and provide support for one another’s work.

One of our group challenges was to write a short story based on a myth or folk story.

I decided to research myths outside of the ones I was already familiar with, and found The Hero with an African Face, Mythic Wisdom of Traditional Africa by Clyde W. Ford (Bantam, 2000) at the Kitchener Public Library.

One of the myths was a Rwandan folk tale, and I loved the way it flowed and the atmosphere of the setting.

But the challenge from DC2K was to re-tell the myth, so I decided to set the story in the United States, a few years after the emancipation of the slaves.

“Storm Child” was originally published in Cicada. The magazine is gorgeous. They included 7 illustrations by Walter Mendoza for the story. I must admit, the first time I saw them, they took my breath away!

Fun Fact

The main character in “Storm Child” is named Wanda.

I took some flack from my writers group about the name, mostly that they felt it didn’t quite fit with the character.

Here me, writers-to-be: I stuck with my gut on the name. Because I’d based the story on a Rwandan tale, and I thought using the name Wanda was my way of tipping my hat to the origins of the story.

March of the Forgotten – The Origins of Sebbee

Here’s the thing:

I spend at least half (if not more) of my writing time at Starbucks, because
(a) they allow me to linger as long as I like
(b) they have electrical outlets so I can plug in my laptop.

To do my part for the environment, I use travel mugs. (Why not save the ten cents?) One of my favourite mugs looks like this:

Sebbee Mug

So one day, while I was sitting in Starbucks trying to decide what to write about, I made up a story about my mug coming to life. Not a full-on Brave Little Toaster type of life, more like partial consciousness and mobility. Enough intelligence to be self-aware, and enough mobility to march in a circle as a form of entertainment.

In “March of the Forgotten,” lost objects march around the food court at the mall, in the hopes that their owners will notice and reclaim them. A high-tech lost-and-found.

Fun Fact

In the summer of 2004 I attended a short fiction writers’ workshop at the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction in Lawrence, Kansas.

A bunch of the students used to make coffee runs to Starbucks, a place I’d previously NEVER bothered with because I thought they only sold coffee and I don’t drink coffee.

I’m sure, right now, you’re asking, What??

I know, I’m crazy, but I do love tea. (It’s probably a Canadian thing.)

So I’m in Starbucks and I discover that they do sell other drinks like tea and frappuccinos. Oh, blessed is the strawberry frappuccino, especially with whipped cream topping.

My fellow students hooked me on Starbucks for life! And not only that, one of my pals had an awesome Starbucks mug, which miraculously didn’t leak and kept my beverage warm for hours.

I bought the same mug. That mug was Sebbee’s predecessor!