January has been a difficult month this year, since my dear mother Thérèse Lorrain Laframboise passed away on December 29th, leaving her three daughters, three grandsons and six great-grandchildren behind. She was 96, at peace and well surrounded, and we had the joy of benefitting from her advices and moral support for a long time.
On this pic, taken a few years ago, she stood proud and very stylish in her favorite black leather coat. She readily walked without a cane, until a host of health concerns rose their ugly heads in February last year. In and out of hospitals, she kept her amiable character and smile, having worked herself in hospitals (as a dietetician) numerous years ago.
First, a big, warm thank you to all of you that I met at the Winnipeg Pemmi-Con and other occasions of celebrating science-fiction.
September – new book!
I am launching a French SF book this fall, Rose du désert, Éditions David, about a very pessimistic, troubled teen living on an hostile planet. Rose can’t relate to other teens, is painfully aware of her cognitive lapses and waits for the end. Nevertheless, when the drought threatens everyone’s survival, she must come out of her shell…
For you English-speaking, the illustration on the cover is from me.
It was not supposed to be. I usually send a crude sketch to my publishers, and the graphic designer takes on. But changes in the format of the collection – and to the covers – prodded me to complete this illustration of Rose, entirely done with Clip Studio.
The official launch of the novel will be in the Congrès Boréal, a French-speaking Canadian Science fiction convention in Montréal, on October 21st.
My most recent publication « Tears Down the Wall » is out in the September-October Asimov’s issue. Check out my wonderful cover neighbors!
« Living on the Trap » will be out at Analog in November-December 2023
« When the Last Writer Died” is out in Polar Borealis 27. Polar Borealis is an online fanzine enturely supported and edited by Richard Graeme Cameron.
And… for he first time ever, I am included in a « Best-of » of Canadian SF authors by . The reprint contract has been signed for « Rare Earths Pineapple » published in Analog last year.
The Pemmi-Con, the 15th North American Science Fiction Convention opens today at the RBC Convention Center at Winnipeg, 20-23 July 2023. Meet me at the dealer’s room with my indie publishing house Echofictions.
Short and sweet chocolate SF stories for the busybodies!
(Echofictions’ corner table at the back of the Dealer’s room)
“Echofictions provides short and sweet books for readers living with a limited attention span (a public nobody seems to care for), for people learning a second language or the everyday busybodies who lack free time! At the end of each book is a blank friendship list that allows the reader to pass it on. Most Echofictions books and graphic novels offer upbeat SF suitable for all ages, created by multi award-winning author Michèle Laframboise. “
With more than 40 titles out and counting, Echofictions stories are never boring and offer a range of hard-to-soft chocolate SF whose flavor will stay with you for a long time.
WHAT: Michèle Laframboise’s books, graphic novels, postcards, in French and English
WHERE: RBC Convention Centre Winnipeg 375 York Avenue, Winnipeg MB R3C 3J3
I’m almost one week late with the flurry of activities, and some of you already know about it, but here it is.
On the June 20th Tuesday evening, in Toronto, I received Ontario’s most prestigious literary award, one of the four Trillium Book Awards, for my YA novel Le secret de Paloma.
Michèle, proud, holding her framed prize. (Picture by Gilles Gagnon)
Always fun when I win a literary award with a science fiction novel!
A note, the book encased seems slightly open, but the pages are actually glued together. There is a glass/plastic panel to protect the award.
Ontario Creates had replaced the Ontario Arts Council, but they still treat the finalists as well as the winners. This was my third nomination for a Trillium Award, after 2009 and 2013. I am proud of winning this time, and never hid the savor of my literary ice cream. The two other finalists had fine YA books, also, (see my French blog for details.)
“Mistress of the Winds” is officially on the Aurora Awards ballot, in the Best Graphic Novel category. This is good news for the English version of Echofictions’ first ever graphic novel. The Aurora Awards celebrate the excellence of Science fiction and fantasy published in Canada.
There will be a voter package compiled, and downloadable. Shortly after it is released, voting will open mid-June. Members are able to download selections from the works under consideration so that they can inform their votes. More information on our voting process can be found here.
Only current members of CSFFA can vote in the Aurora Awards. To register as a CSFFA member, you pay 10$ to the association.
This Kickstarter will land you a solid 6″ x 9″ hardcover edition of Mistress of the Winds, printed in Canada by real nice people. At 92 B&W pages, it will include many sketches and behind-the-scenes extracts. The digital and paperback editions are already out.
Genre: SF, Planet-opera, YA Length: 92 pages Interior pages in B&W All ages
Why a campaign?
Crowdfunding does help authors to bring visibility to their creations. A practical aspect is that the category publication/fiction draws lots of new readers, eager to find new books.
As an artist, I supported many of my creative colleagues’ projects, not only on Kickstarter, but on GoFundMe, Indigogo, Ulule… and I ended up with more books than I can possibly read!
So I discovered formidable writers, whose careers I am avidly following, thanks to their campaigns.
Why in English, if I am French-speaking?
That first campaign is in English because of my writer friends living in the US, who have encouraged me to pursue my writing and get better. really, without them, I would have cease to be a writer… and a comic artist!
Some digital and paper rewards will be in French as add-ons. I point to my friend and colleague Frank Fournier who did the colors of my cover. And I will eventually prep a campaign for a French hardcover edition, too.
When does it start?
On March 28. I do not have a very high ask, but it is essential that each participant to make a contribution in the first hours! A campaign that reaches its goal fast shines more brightly on the Kickstarter website.
Producing the intro video ! Reading a text in front of a camera doesn’t look natural. So I did my best to explain, share my project, without hiding my French accent. It took about six tries to find the right tone.
The project
With Mistress of the Winds, you will discover a richly-developed world populated with vivid and endearing characters. Follow young Adalou as she struggles against powerful foes and her own body’s limits in the most prestigious kite contest of the planet!
This YA graphic novel kidnaps you into an alien civilization so out of this world that you will want to know more about it… and zoom through the pages to devour this delicious coming-of-age story!
It’s a date: my first Kickstarter campaign
To know more about the le graphic novel, here are some news about Maîtresse des vents.
Currently on sale in kiosks and specialized bookshops.
I am sharing this special milestone with some trepidation: my double publication in the July-August issues of Asimov’s & Analog! *_*
I am still reeling from the shock of reading my name on the Asimov’s cover. I did not expect the simultaneous publications in both summer issues of Asimov’s et Analog. As I was born in July, I considers this double publication as a fine birthday gift. Especially as my name is featured on the Asimov’s cover for my third story there. My late father, who was an avid SF reader, would be proud.
In the SF short-story field, Asimov’s Science Fiction (founded by writer Isaac Asimov himself) and AnalogScience Fiction& Fact (formerly Astounding SF, counting John Campbell as a long-standing former editor) are the top mags that receive thousands of submissions per year. So this represent an important milestone (but not the end of the road!) in my writing career.
As some of you know by now, I write mostly hard and crunchy SF stories!
Far from an instant success, this milestone is the fruit of more than 15 years of submitting stories to SF&F mags. I got more rejection letters than I can count, so I am taking a few hours to bask, then, it’s back to publishing my indie collections and the graphic novel. And submitting new stories to anthologies and magazines…
I do love telling stories, and whatever the number of readers, I am putting out new work every month.
I do not neglect the Canadian genre mags, because I currently have stories out in OnSpec 119 in Alberta and NeoOpsis 33 in BC. I am also regularly featured in the French SF magazines Solaris in Québec and Galaxies in France.
So if you are a writer and love telling stories, do not let discouragement bear you down. Go, learn, persist!
Feast yer eyes! A mock-up of the book. I am waiting for my author copies…
I am emerging from a frenzy of art events in Montréal and the complexity of putting up a graphic novel with *Vellum* of all things. Now I can proudly boast my latest publication : Maîtresse des vents, a 92-page graphic novel in French, from my own SF universe. My cover pic has been put into magnificent colors by my talented colleague Frank Fournier.
It is my first graphic novel published since a few years. I published with my own indie house because I was tired of waiting after various French publishers all hoping for the next popular thing.
I had a blast drawing 16 new pages and sketches to complete the story, and will work to distribute the paperback version in some outlets. Here’s one of those recent additions.
There is a section with various sketches at the end of the book. It will be a small pocket book format. The electronic copies are available on various platforms.
If you are patient, I will get the English version done as soon as possible. After all, the computer technology and Clip Studio make this endeavor less painful.
…
Useful infos
Title: Maîtresse des vents, Un récit de l’univers des Jardiniers
A snowstorm of publications happened this month, in both official languages. I share this good news which, unfortunately, coincides with some not-so-good news in the vast world outside books and writing. (my good news coincides with the invasion of Ukraine, a country that has done nothing wrong, except being prosperous. By the way, yesterday I sent a short story for a collection in support of the Ukrainians.)
25 copies of 5 Stories of Hard and Crunchy SF have just arrived! Fresh from Rapido-Livres in Montréal. There will be some French copies of this science fiction stories collection at the Echofictions table at the Toronto Book Fair.
Publication of my story Moby Dick’s Doors in the 2022 Space Opera Digest anthology HAVE SHIP, WILL TRAVEL, edited by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Le secret de Paloma (Paloma’s Secret) is a finalist for the Alain Thomas Award at the Toronto Book Fair. The show is held in person on March 19-20, 2022. (The award is the former Christine Dumetriu Van-Saanen Award, but we lost Alain, that dedicated worker, in 2020).
Publication of Cousin Entropy in the Rosetta Prize Archives (a prize that rewards translations of a text published in another language). Thanks to N.M. Roshak for this beautiful work on La Cousine Entropie. See the Future SF site for more details. A Mandarine translation of Cousin Entropy should also be published.
The Rosetta Archives
My illustration for the Salon du livre de Toronto (Toronto Book Fair) illustrating this year’s theme: our legacies. Our legacies, theme of the 29th Toronto Book Fair
I just published a novel with Echofictions, Safe Harbor. Read more about it!
A warning to my faithful fans: this is NOT SF! But an ‘eco-fiction’ with an ecological and human problem at its core, set in a coastal village. A tale of a beautiful friendship between two women who have each lost a loved one. Dedicated to my mother, Thérèse Laframboise née Lorrain, who grew up along the river and loves fishing harbors.
Publication of my short story Essential Maintenance in Neo-Opsis 33, a Canadian speculative fiction magazine edited by Karl and Stephanie Johanson.
And, to add to the flurry, an email last Thursday announcing a second SF short-story accepted at Analog! It’s a great start to the month, and to Women’s Rights Day, which is really encouraging for a female SF author
TL;DR : Michèle’s new books and SF short-stories publications are out in several venues, in both French and English
Michèle Laframboise is a Canadian SF writer, with more than 60 stories published. Her most recent story, October’s Feast, is available in the Asimov’s SF Magazine. She is a fair low-level athlete runner, a lousy gardener, and avid birder. More on her official website here.
Some details missing like the scuba and palms, but you get how I feel when writing… or reading a good book!
Those who enjoy scuba diving (or who, like me as a kid, had watched Commander Cousteau’s documentaries) know that before going back to the surface, you have to make mandatory decompression stops to allow the molecules of nitrogen/ helium who had taken refuge in your tissus under high pressure to leave your body, via your exhaled air.
Otherwise, the nitrogen can decide to turn back into gas while it is still lodged in your veins and your cells, and it would not be a pretty sight. Decompression sickness is as dangerous as its opposite, the deep nitrogen narcosis which develops sneakily if you spend a too long time at 100 feet deep.
Diving in deep water
For me, writing feels like diving into deep water.
Except that my decompression breaks are in the opposite direction! It takes me a long time to reach the level of concentration deep enought to penetrate a story. Levels of ‘compression’ or concentration…
My first level takes about 45 minutes to an hour. I go over what I wrote the day before to get the story and its atmosphere back inside my head; I check notions, places, etc. If I write 100 words in that period, that’s normal.
At the second level, which takes me about an hour to reach, I am entering the story at 300-400 words per hour.
At the third level, everything becomes magical: my fingers hug the keyboard and the ideas are transmuted into words without my having to stop. I feel like the story is writing itself, and I’m approaching 600-800 words an hour.
If I keep this on without interruption, I reach my fourth level of concentration: the story tumbles like an avalanche in my head, fingers and words roll like marbles on a flat table. It is paradise. I smash through the 1000 words per hour wall. Often, this happens in the evening, when I have a deadline approaching.
BUT… I do not descend to this 4th level often.
Ah, if only my concentration levels were simple steps! (Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Pexels.com)
Interruptions!
On the other hand, to go up to the surface, there is no need for decompression stops. Any distraction can yank me up in a jiffy. The phone, someone calling me, or the family member.
As soon as my enthusiastic husband comes to tell me about a techno gadget he saw on the Internet or heard about on the radio, poof! immediate surfacing.
If the conversation is less than a minute or two, and if I don’t have to think to answer any complex questions, I can dive back in and get through my ‘focus’ levels pretty quickly.
Alas, this is rarely the case.
Another condition favors my rapid return to the depths: the certainty that I will NOT be disturbed again in the next few minutes!
So, after 5 or 10 minutes that ate my concentration. And, when the interruption ends, I have to dive back in and redo my stops. And, often, barely submerged, of course, it’s already supper time…
Confession of an unfocused writer
I created this article from a recent writing mishap.
Here I was, happily tapping on a wonderful science fiction story set in Antarctica, pom-pom-pom… when all of a sudden, a flawed scientific detail jumps out at me. Have I correctly calculated the position of the sun below the horizon during the southern polar night? Have I checked the right calendar for the current polar night?
Rising to the surface, opening the Internet, checking the info, then letting yourself drift on the Wikipedia sites, drift farther on the Scott-Amundsen station site, watching the web cam (it’s cold here, but not as cold as in the South Pole)… And, I came to my senses with the crucial realization of having wasted my time. It internally annoys me.
On the heels of that realization came another torment: should I change an explanatory paragraph to place it closer to the opening of the short-story? My words are so tightly knit together that moving one paragraph or one word requires rewriting several others, before and after. And so, I paddled on the surface to juggle these paragraphs.
Finally, after trying to dive back, I decided to go for a walk outside to clear my mind, and come back at another time. I told myself that it’s still warmer here (in Canada, Ontario) than at the South Pole…
TL;DR: Writing is like diving, but with the “concentration” stops going down instead of up.
Michèle Laframboise is a Canadian SF writer, with more than 60 stories published. Her most recent story, October’s Feast, is available in the Asimov’s SF Magazine. She is a fair low-level athlete runner, a lousy gardener, and avid birder. More on her official website here.
Echoes of a Sunday artist 