Three years after OnSpec published my first story, I got my second one accepted. Alas, it will also be the last one. OnSpec, a staunch support and platform for Canadian SF authors, will launch its last issue, 134 this month.
Another sad news on the Canadian SF front, three weeks after learning of the demise of my first SF mentor Jean-Louis Trudel in Lithuania. I would not have become a writer if I hadn’t met him in Montréal, at a comic book launch at the defunct Nebula bookstore. I had always hesitated because I didn’t feel drawn to write “serious Litewrature“, me who had grown on Isaac Asimov and several fine SF writers (mostly Americans guys at the time, but the field have diversified since!) When Jean-Louis told me there was a very active French SF community in the Québec province, I jumped on that train faster than you could say “Ray gun” !!
Organizing a literary magazine is no piece of cake. The Ontarian literary mag, Virages, founded by Marguerite Andersen, ceased its activities after 75 issues. In OnSpec, I liked to read Barb’s and Diane’s editorials. As solitary writers, we need those voices and their reflexions. And Onspec stories were never too long or boring, presenting a full palette of subgenres from hard-SF to fantastic and horror, not forgetting Steampunk.
Thirty-five years of choosing stories, cover image, editing, writing the editorial, putting up the issue… this is an staggering sum of work.* A consistent body of evidence that went almost ignored my the general public… until CBC made a piece last November. Prodding that reaction: “I didn’t know you existed!”
Well, it happened for a ton of beautiful, valid works lost in the algorithmic maze of our profit-obsessed culture. Every week, I find out about that author, or this person that passed away.
A big, big thank you to Barb and Diane and the OnSpec team. I find myself very lucky to share space on Issue 134’s cover, along with several author friends.
In those difficult times, we need to rely on each other, to provide warmth, acceptance and friendship for those who feel rejected. Let us all lit up the night !
* I publish my own Échofictions books and thought I would be able to put up one new book per month, like my author friends Dean Wesley Smith. Hm nope. Life happened (and death, I lost my mother in 2023), and I am only coming back on the saddle. I put out three books in 2025, and the next year, 4-5 books will be my goal.
Michèle Laframboise
Echoes of a Sunday artist 