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.
I learned that my SF novel is a finalist in the prestigious Trillium Book Awards, an Ontario distinction. It is a very media-covered prize, so that brought a lot of distractions. My SF novel, Le secret de Paloma (Paloma’s Secret) is finalist in the children’s books category. As the three books are aimed at teenagers/YA, the name children’s book can be a misnomer.
The Trillium Book Awards are managed by Ontario Creates / Ontario Créatif.
It is good to get this nomination, my third for this Award, especially as almost all my YA novels are Science fiction stories. Getting regularly nominated means that my story-telling is improving, as it will, I hope, as long as I keep writing and drawing. It is also a sign that science fiction is getting more acceptance as a literary endeavor.
Science fiction is exploration of different worlds and scientific possibilities that eventually will impact our lives. Like the proliferation of AI in our technologies, a manifestation that I explored in a short-story published in Solaris magazine’s last issue (in French).
Writers and artists have a lot to do to complete their tax return, as self-employed workers. So if you finished, have a cheery laugh at this page showing my plight. You may see by the year that it is not from yesterday… with all the paper forms. The webcomic was originally published in French, so I translated it fast to get it to you!
(For the non-Canadians, RRSP is a bit like a 401-k account)
I think 2022 has been my best publishing year so far, with a new graphic novel and publications in Asimov’s and Analog. Go check the Echofictions website for more info.
I have been very involved in family affairs and caring fo my dear mother (who is well by now, fingers crossed) so I lacked free time to promote my works, and the Kickstarter fundraising for a special edition of my new graphic novel.
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.
A word from Winter Holiday Spectacular 2022 editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch:
“The Skeptic and The Primrose” is set in England in the late nineteenth century. The story has echoes of Wells and Verne as well as a touch of Sherlockian brilliance… with heroines who manage to save the world (or their corner of it) while wearing corsets and petticoats.
This story will be up for one week only. Enjoy!
Just so you know beforehand: I don’t believe in time travel. Never have. Until…
***
London, December 21st, 1888
The conference had been set in the conservatory of the Royal Botanical Society’s Gardens in Regent’s Park, the air so stuffy with moisture for the exotic plants I felt my hair curling in Medusa-like wisps, escaping my carefully done bun. The temperature had convinced many in the first rows to pull off their shawls or overcoats. A few bright orange and yellow butterflies, ignoring the season outside their realm, fluttered from one exotic corolla to the next. The rich leafy scent and the trickle of water falling on a rock pond added a poetic note to the ambiance.
Those sounds and smells distracted me long enough to miss part of a question, uttered in a snarky tone by a middle-aged gentleman sporting an impressive handlebar mustache, the iron-gray tips waxed so rigid they could easily poke a too-inquisitive eye out. He sat in our front row next to Mother, his legs nonchalantly crossed in the free space ahead, exposing black dress shoes covered with whiter-than-white spats. Those kinds of too-clean shoes never went within an inch of the melted snow mixed with horse dung covering the streets.
(This story has been available from Dec. 18th to dec.25th)
THE END
Interested in this story?
There’s more on the WMG Holiday Spectacular 2022 Calendar of Short Stories
Michèle Laframboise is a Canadian SF writer, with more than 60 stories published. Her most recent story, I’ll Be Moon for Christmas, was feature on the Nov-December issue of Asimov’s SF Magazine. She is a fair low-level athlete runner, a lousy gardener, and avid birder. More on her official website here.
Michèle Laframboise is a bilingual French-Canadian author who has appeared in our magazine with a number of “chocolate-hard” stories over the last two years. Here she discusses her relationship with our magazine, the value of a good rejection letter, and the perils of the publishing industry. Read her latest story for Asimov’s, “I’ll Be Moon for Christmas,” in our [November/December issue, on sale now!]
Asimov’sEditor: How did the title of this piece come to you? Michèle Laframboise: “I’ll Be Moon for Christmas” is my 4th chocolate-hard science fiction story to be launched in Asimov’s. And, yes, the title and theme had been inspired by this unforgettable tune.
AE: How did this story germinate? ML: The story took form only gradually, like the slow accretion of small, haphazard asteroids into a planet. The first tiny speck of story-dust was a room, set…
Echoes of a Sunday artist 