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.)
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).
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.
Echoes of a Sunday artist 