Analog Science Fiction & Facts has a blog where the editors interview the authors. This is my Q&A session for the latest story, “Living on the Trap”, published in the Nov-Dec 2023 issue of this SF magazine.
And yes, I put on this picture, illustrating the perils of writing hard-SF !
TL;DR : A fun Q&A session about my latest Hard-SF story, “Living on the Trap”, published in Analog SF&Facts magazine (Nov-Dec 2023 issue).
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
WHEN: July 20-23
PRICE RANGE: from 5$ to 25$, median 15$
PAYMENT: Cash, credit/debit cards accepted
Posted in Event, Science-fiction
Tagged Michele Laframboise, Pemmi-Con, RBC Convention Center, Science-fiction, Winnipeg
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.
Short-stories
Essential Maintenance (2022) Neo-Opsis 33
Moby Dick’s Doors – in Space Opera Digest 2022 Have Ship, Will Travel, SRP, edited by Tracy Cooper-Posey
I’ll be Moon for Christmas, Asimov’s vol 46 #11-12
Rare Earths Pineapple, Analog July-Aug 2022
Sales Pitch, OnSpec 119
Le coucou de Gutenberg (2022) Géante Rouge 30
Novella-Novelette
Screaming Fire, Asimov’s vol 46 #7-8
October’s Feast, Asimov’s vol 46 #1-2
Graphic novels
Mistress of the Winds, Echofictions
Maîtresse des vents, Echofictions
Short-stories collections
5 Hard and Crunchy SF Tales, Echofictions
5 Hard and Hopeful SF Tales, Echofictions
5 Histoires de SF dystopique, Echofictions
5 Histoires de SF dure et croquante, Echofictions
5 Histoires de SF douce et fondante, Echofictions
5 Cases from the GGPD Files, Echofictions
Indie-pub Novels (NOT SF, be warned!)
Safe Harbor (romance)
Kon Tikki (romance, Safe Harbor series)
A note, the Auroras awards nomination period closes at midnight, April 22. https://www.csffa.ca/members-home/nomination/
And if you missed it?
No problem, those will make fine reading!
Posted in Comics, publication, Science-fiction
Tagged Comics, Michele Laframboise, Science-fiction, Writing
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.
Here is the link to register, so you get an email when the campaign launches. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/laframboise/mistress-of-the-winds-hardcover-graphic-novel
What was the hardest part?
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 colorized extract to whet your appetite!
This is it: plunge headfirst in this adventure!
Posted in BD, Comics, Event, Science-fiction
Tagged art, Comics, Kickstarter campaign, Michele Laframboise, Science-fiction
Yes, my 4th Asimov’s publication is almost a song… Continue reading
After a busy summer counting birds and writing, I come back with the first English graphic novel for a long time!
On the leafy planet Luurdu, young Adalou dreams of becoming a wind mistress. Alas, she faces a thorny competition because the kite choregraphy brings a high prestige to women who excel in this art. Adalou must overcome her family’s opposition, her biological limits and the jealousy of high-class rivals to conquer her place in the sun.
A graphic novel set in the universe of the space-faring Gardeners, sprouting from the fertile imagination of Michèle Laframboise.
My fresh new YA graphic novel, Mistress of the Winds, set in my Gardeners’ universe, will be out an about in September. 92 pages, B&W art. The pre-order link is here.
An extract here.
My Holiday-themed story, “I’ll Be Moon for Christmas” will be featured in Asimov’s end-of-year issue. With fine cover neighbors like Kris Kathryn Rusch and Ray Nayler! I devored their previous stories, which doesn’t mean I won’t discover the new (to me!) voices in this upcoming issue.
This will be my fourth publication in Asimov’s, laying to rest the idea of a fluke when the magazine accepted my first story. It is also my first Holiday SF tale and. by the title, you may guess what immortal song is playing in my mind!
On the Canadian front, I will have two stories coming up in Polar Borealis 25 and 27, edited by Greame Cameron. On the French front, there will be a hard-SF story coming up in the French SF magazine Géante Rouge at some point in 2022 or 2023.
Meanwhile, I tend to lag behind in the reading department… I should finish my current SF mags OnSpec, Analog & and Asimov’s !
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.
…
Title: Maîtresse des vents, Un récit de l’univers des Jardiniers
format: 5.25×8 in
length: 92 pages
B&W interior pages
Price: 14.95 cdn paper, 4.99 cdn eBook
Posted in Art, Comics, Event, publication, Science-fiction, Society
Tagged art, Canadian sequential art, Clip Studio, Comics, graphic novel, humor, Michele Laframboise, Science-fiction, Vellum
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.)
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).
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
The Ad Astra brings together fans and authors of science fiction & fantastic, both literary and mediatic in the north of Toronto. It’s a very user-friendly conference, which has left me with good memories.
My house Échofictions had its vending table, which was successful. When people stop by themselves to look at the books and ask me questions, once in three, they leave with a book. Much better than my score at the big book fairs, where, on average, only 1 in 20 stop by my signing , because few readers come for the SF!
Michèle poses proudly in front of her stand, full of butterflies!
I launched the English version of my first SF novel, Clouds of Phoenix. Yes, the cover has changed, and the story has gained consistency. It’s the same story, but a little more detailed at 46,000 words! It is also the first full-length novel printed by Echofictions, whose full graphic design I realized.
Clouds of Phoenix, a novel by SF YA, 214 p.
The nice surprises of the Ad Astra congress are the meetings with SF amateurs who did not know my books, and who discovered them. And to find fellow science fiction writers like Robert J. Sawyer, Julie Czerneda and Tania Huff presenting their latest Sf novels.
I have come to love this event; the sale tables are not expensive and the audience generous! I’ve offered a good choice of books translated into English.
A typical Cosplay. Don’t ya love’em! I admire the cosplayers’ time and effort to make their costumes. The craftswoman Squid Creations behind the band does not look too scared!
A craft table.
My stand neighbor, an independent writer, Zachri Wheeler, very well organized! We exchanged books. Note the announcement of the film in development, it is always useful.
Douglas Smith (a Toronto-area author) reading an excerpt from his novel The Wolf at the End of the World. I had already bought his book Playing the Short Game, at another Ad Astra
Allan Weiss and Michèle. It’s been 16 years that we know each other! Allan is a specialist and author of SF. Bow ties are cool!
My husband and son kept the table while I was there.
How to publish without spending too much!
How to publish for not too expensive, led by Beverly Bambury (center, black dress). The gentleman on the right, well organized, rolled his cupboard full of books!
The animals in fantasy with Avi Silver (left), Catherine Fitzsimmons and Eli Hirst. How to treat the Other, how to show the animal companions of heroes, or when animals are heroes.
How to make medieval stories fantasy or historical. The mistakes to avoid! With Cathy Hird and L. A. MacLachean.
My husband buys books, a lot of books. He hides his secret identity well under his glasses…
For my current reading, I discover a new author Avi Silver, who considers himself non-binary.
In Two Dark Moons, we follow a teenager of the Hmuns who live in caves in the altitudes of the Eiji world, because the soil of the jungle is traversed by disturbing reptilian predators. Sohmen falls by accident (his fall broken by many branches). About 200 pages is very short, and enjoyable reading, in addition to staging non-gendered characters.
The Wolf at the End of the World
My colleague Douglas Smith signed his first novel to me, The Wolf at the End of the World, which mixes Native American legends and espionage, not to mention the nature threatened by greed on the part of the rich. Among us are Herokas, magic humans who can change into animals. Obviously, the secret services consider them as threats … But a too-hungry Wendigo and lost loves of the past mix the cards.
Canadian Dreadful, Anthology by David Tocher
Canadian Dreadful is a fantasy horror anthology inspired by the dark aspects of our beautiful big Canada. Edited by David Tocher, it brings together Canadian authors including Nancy Kilpatrick. I would not have bought it, but two public readings by participating authors convinced me to taste it!
I have not read yet the other books bought by my husband, a staunch supporter of new indie authors!
1- Novels sell better than short books and comics. Clouds of Phoenix was my best seller, almost half of my sales!
2- Participate in the round tables next year. It allows a first contact with the public, rather than “cold calling” behind a sales table.
3- Bring a tablecloth! It was not supplied, so I used a big poster to hide the uneven wood.
4- The month of July was not ideal, with less attendance due to vacations. Daniel, one of the organizers, said that the Ad Astra 2020 would come back in mid-April, at the same time as the Quebec book fair, oops!
5- If you missed the Ad Astra, know that … I will return next year, with new books. In the meantime, have a look at Echofictions’ list of publications!
Echoes of a Sunday artist 