Matthew Johnson

Three sales to the wind

2011-12-23T10:41:00.004-06:00

Some of you may have noticed it's been a little quiet around here lately, the result of an unusually busy work schedule and the arrival of our new little guy; in fact, I recently realized that I didn't have a single original story out this year. Fortunately, 2012 is already looking a lot more positive: first, my story "The Last Islander" will be coming out from Asimov's, probably sometime in the spring; second, I made my first-ever sale to Fantasy & Science Fiction, my story "The Afflicted,"; and finally I have a non-fiction piece coming in Clarkesworld on the role of food in fantasy and SF, probably in late spring. Keep checking in and I'll keep you posted!

Have a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year!

Aaaaand we're back

2011-11-22T10:46:00.003-06:00

Had a great time at SFContario -- many fun panels and other interactions. I did a reading Friday night of "Heroic Measures," which you can listen to under the "Audio" heading in the right margin.

My SFContario schedule

2011-11-09T10:53:00.004-06:00

Where did the time go? It's just over a week 'til SFContario 2011, and I haven't posted my schedule yet. Well, here it is:

Friday

7:30: Reading in the Room 207 (not the Gardenview, as I previously said.) I haven't decided what I'll be reading yet -- suggestions? Hodo kwaja will be served!

9:00: I'll be skipping two parties to participate in Considerations in Game Design in the Parkview along with John Mansfield, Adam Shaftoe, and Alex Pantaleev.

Saturday

Busy afternoon! At 1:00 I'll be on Far Future SF in Ballroom A with Beverly Bambury, Jeff DeLuzio, Hayden Trenholm, and Robert Charles Wilson. "Far future SF has been a staple of the genre since the beginning. How has it reflected the time in which the stories were written – the hopes, fears, concerns and limitations of the present day. What can we learn by examining the far future fiction of the past and the present day?"

At 2:00 I'll be signing copies of Fall From Earth on the Bridge (you have the bridge, Mr. Sulu) next to Stephen B. Pearl. If I have time I'll get some more hodo kwaja to hand out, if not you can have the ones left over from Friday night. (They're good a day later, just not as good.)

At 3:00 I'll be moderating the Linguistics for Fiction panel in the Solarium with Alex Pantaleev, Lawrence Schoen, and Karl Schroeder. "From Tolkien to Game of Thrones writers and moviemakers have paid attention to the development of created languages. What goes into creating an authentic language? How do biology and psychology help determine language?"

Finally, at 5 I'll be on the Pulps and History panel in the Parkview with David G. Hartwell, Andrew Specht, Lorna Toolis, and Derek Kunsken.

Nothing booked for Sunday -- who's up for lunch?

Edit: My Friday has filled up with day job stuff, so I may not have time to get the hodo kwaja. Also, I'm contributing one original postcard-sized story (250-500 words), to be written on a postcard from an interesting place, to the SFContario charity auction. You can see all the items for auction here; the silent phase will be all day Saturday (sheets near the registration desk) and the live auction will open Sunday at 2 in the Ballroom.

Always a bridesmaid...

2011-08-28T12:24:00.002-05:00

... but what a wedding! I stopped into a bricks-and-mortar bookstore last week when I was in Montreal and was delighted to see that "Holdfast" had won an Honorable Mention in The Year's Best Science Fiction.

On the other hand...

2011-08-10T09:51:00.002-05:00

If you prefer to do your reading on an electronic device, you can now get Fall From Earth as a Kindle ebook. If you've already read it, why not stop by the site and leave a review?

Hardcopy Holdfast

2011-07-21T12:20:00.001-05:00

If you're one of those people who prefers to read things on paper than on screen (or if you like both), The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011 -- which contains my story "Holdfast" -- is now available. You can buy it at Amazon here or here or direct from Prime Books, not to mention in your local bookstore!

Now it can be told

2011-06-29T10:38:00.002-05:00

I'm hugely pleased to announce that CZP will be publishing my first short story collection, tentatively titled Irregular Verbs and Other Stories, in the spring of 2013. We're just starting to figure out the contents but it will feature many of my favourite previously published stories, some stories I love that have never quite found the right home and some stories that haven't even been written yet. I'm particularly delighted to be doing this with CZP, an amazing bunch of people who (as everyone knows by now) put out beautiful books, get them placed and reviewed where people can see them and are, according to Peter Watts, the salvation of the SF industry.

Worlds collide

2011-05-26T13:24:00.003-05:00

My two jobs intersected in an interesting way yesterday when Cory Doctorow kindly featured MyWorld, the digital literacy tutorial for high school students I designed, on BoingBoing. I met Cory at Worldcon in 2009 and also got to chat with his wife Alice Taylor, whose great Smokescreen game wound up being a big influence on the design of MyWorld, so it was nice to be able to share the final product of that conversation with them.

Please read the letter

2011-05-22T12:30:00.002-05:00

It's funny how much our ideas of what's important are formed in childhood: nothing I've ever published has ever felt as "real" or legitimate as having a letter published in The Globe and Mail -- I guess because that's the only context in which most of the people I know will ever read something I write, unless I actually give them a copy.

Iamb what iamb

2011-05-18T09:04:00.005-05:00

The audiobook edition of Fall From Earth drops today at the iambik audiobooks site. It's in tremendous (and humbling) company alongside great books like David Gerrold's classic The Man Who Folded Himself and Lavie Tidhar's An Occupation of Angels. (Incidentally, their tags for the book include almost all the words I use when describing to it except for "Confucian" -- but it's possible that's not in their tag list.)

Free sample

2011-05-14T07:31:00.002-05:00

Are there any more wonderful words in the English language? Iambik Audio has posted the first chapter of the Fall From Earth audiobook for your listening pleasure; the full book (I'm told) will be available on May 18th. Narrator Emma Newman has done an absolutely amazing job reading the book, so go check it out!

Per video et cetera

2011-04-20T07:58:00.008-05:00

Thanks to Scott Edelman, here's a video of my reading of "Holdfast" at Ad Astra. Readers of the Canadian persuasion are reminded that "Holdfast" is eligible for this year's Aurora Awards.

Per Audio Ad Astra

2011-04-13T13:26:00.005-05:00

On Sunday of last weekend I was privileged to share a reading with Scott Edelman at Ad Astra. He read his short story "The Only Wish Ever to Come True," while I read "Holdfast." He kindly recorded video, which I'll be posting shortly (you can see him reading his story here); I recorded audio, which I've put up on the right margin for your consideration.

Short notes on a good weekend

2011-04-12T09:34:00.005-05:00

Here's a few of the coolest things to happen to me this weekend:

Finding out that "Irregular Verbs" is a favourite among the Linguistics department at McGill;
Getting some kind words about Fall From Earth from Ursula Pflug;
Being told by Peter Watts, after the "Anachronism in SF" panel, that I had given him a lot to think about;
Gettings to share a reading with Scott Edelman;
Meeting new friends and seeing lots of old ones;
And one very, very cool piece of news that will have to wait for another time!

Ad Astra Redux

2011-03-19T09:50:00.005-05:00

I'm going to be a guest at Ad Astra in Toronto early next month (April 8-10) and here's my schedule (subject to change, as always):

On Saturday at 10 AM I'll be on the panel on Exposition in Salon 243 along with Claude Lalumiere, Marc Mackay and Gregory Wilson;

at 11 AM, I'll be part of Making Up the Words: Fantasy and SF Languages -- Robert Boyczuk, Brad Carson, Eric Flint and Howard Tayler, again in Salon 243;

I'll be part of the group autograph session in the Ballroom from 3:30 to 5:30, signing my novel Fall From Earth;

and at 1o PM (!) I'll be in Copyright 101 with Gillian Clinton, in Salon 241.

On Sunday at 11 I'll be on the panel on Anachronism in SF in Salon 443 with Derwin Mak, Tim Liebe, Moira Scott and Peter Watts (we all hope -- get well soon Peter!)

Finally, on Sunday at 12 I'll be doing a reading in the Crowne Room with the amazing Scott Edelman. I'll be reading my short story "Holdfast," so come check us out!

Miles to go before I sleep

2011-02-14T11:55:00.001-06:00

Vote early and often

2011-02-01T15:35:00.004-06:00

Hey, here's somewhere else you can vote for "Holdfast": Fantasy Magazine is running a poll of its top stories of last year. 48 great stories all in one place, plus the chance to win a $50 Amazon gift certificate. As Pogo said, if you can't vote my way -- vote anyway!

Edit: I wasn't really clear above on how you "vote" -- leave a comment on the story (or any of the other stories, of course), not the page explaining the poll.

So I Hear

2011-01-26T19:18:00.003-06:00

Exciting news: I've just heard there's going to be an audio book of Fall From Earth. It's still in the very beginning stages (it's tentatively scheduled for April), but it's been hugely fun listening to potential readers. It sounds like a much better book when someone else reads it!

The simple agrarian

2011-01-24T05:25:00.003-06:00

I know it's easy to make fun of Google Translate but hey, it's Monday morning and easy is what I'm all about. This translation from a Hungarian blog is instantly my favourite summary of "Holdfast":

"I have several novels and short story, we know that in a fantasy world, princes, lords, mage, and other dignitaries as everyday is filled. But what about the ordinary people, the simple agrarian? They are to prosper in a world where magic and mythological creatures from different parts of everyday life?"

Yup -- that's the pull quote, right there.

(Seriously, though, it's cool to know people around the world are reading and -- apparently -- enjoying the story. Here's the original site for the Magyar-unimpaired.)

In the stars

2011-01-16T10:55:00.002-06:00

Best news of the week: apparently Leo is no longer a Leo -- so now we can tell people his name and birthday without fearing they'll think we believe in astrology.

Oh roar a roar for Nora

2011-01-09T13:47:00.006-06:00

Hey folks, it's that time again: nominations for the Prix Aurora Awards, which recognize Canadian science fiction and fantasy writing, are open. This year I'm putting forward my story "Holdfast," which I think is one of my best ever.

So here's what I'm asking you to do:

1. If you haven't already, go read "Holdfast" for free online at Fantasy Magazine. It's gotten terrific reviews and was selected for The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, so at the very least it should be worth your time.

2. If you are a Canadian citizen or landed resident (including Canadians living abroad) and think it was one of the top three Canadian SF/F short stories of the year, go to the Prix Aurora Awards Web site and register (for free) for your membership in the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association. If you're not sure if it was one of the best Canadian SF/F stories of the year, check out the Canadian SF Database for lots of other stories and novels.

3. Check your e-mail (the confirmation may turn up in your Junk Mail folder) and verify your membership.

4. Log in as a member and nominate "Holdfast" by Matthew Johnson (Fantasy Magazine) in the English Short Fiction category.

5. Pass this on to anyone else you know who enjoys Canadian science fiction and fantasy.

Last year it took just thirty votes to get a story on the ballot, so every vote counts.

Thanks!

The (mailing) envelope please

2011-01-08T18:24:00.002-06:00

The December Locus finally came in the mail yesterday, and here's Rich Horton's review: "The December Fantasy Magazine features a strong story from Matthew Johnson, 'Holdfast.' The settings is somewhat Norse in flavor. Irrel is a farmer, with a wife, a young son, and a daughter who wants to marry the young man staying with them, and perhaps move to the city. There are dragons, and magic, and war, and Irrel knows some magic -- farm magic, which some denigrate. But the story -- very quietly told -- gently hints that his magic may be greater than many suspect -- in a quiet, homebound way."

Elephants and other good news

2011-01-03T08:49:00.002-06:00

I'm still waiting for the latest Locus, but I was pleased to see that "Holdfast" headlined Rich Horton's year-end roundup of Fantasy Magazine, calling it "a quietly told, essentially domestic story with dragons, and magic, and the threat of war."

Twice in one day (ahem)

2011-01-01T13:27:00.003-06:00

I'm not normally the type for New Year's resolutions, but I've decided to try to post more often to this blog -- I'm aiming for once a week -- in part to make up for the fact that I don't expect to publish much actual writing this year.

Speaking of writing -- one of my best Christmas presents this year was The Writer's Tale by Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook, which is essentially a diary-in-correspondence from the last two years of Davies' tenure as show-runner on Doctor Who. The only problem is that I came out of it with a bunch of ideas for Doctor Who stories which I will, of course, never get to write; I'm going to try to salvage a few of them, but one of them was so ineluctably Doctor Who-ish that I've just written it up and posted it on MightyGodKing. You can read it here if you're interested.

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T07:22:00.003-06:00

Lois Tilton reviews "Holdfast" over on the Locus Web site and gives it Recommended status, calling it "a charming, simple piece with more emotional depth than readers might at first expect. I very much like the finger spells, and also the incident when war dragons fly overhead and the neighborhood farmers all rush to gather the wyrm manure."

Not a bad way to start the year!

A visit, a gift

2010-12-24T12:25:00.003-06:00

There was a man in the baby’s room, standing over the cradle.

He was a large man, and old: his dirty white beard spilled over his broad stomach like a carpet. Improbably he wore fur and leather, a heavy coat, trousers and cap despite the heat. A ragged burlap bag, bulging with its load, was held slung over his shoulder.

"Who are you?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder. Her husband was still out, trying to find some wine with which to celebrate their child's birth.

For a moment the man said nothing. Finally he looked up, towards her and away from the child. His face was red and blackened with soot. "I've come to see your son," he said.

She took a step closer, felt a chill run through her as she neared the man: not the cold of a desert night but the true cold of winter, like the ices the Romans ate at their banquets. She had seen one, once, even tasted one -- well, her friend had, but she had told her about it.

"Why?" she asked.

"I have a present for him," the man said.

"In the bag?" she asked. "Is all of that for him?"

The old man shook his head. "For all of them. But he's the first. My first." He looked down again, at the boy in the cradle, and smiled. Then he turned back to her. "He'll be getting other presents, of course, but this is the most important." He groaned a little under the weight of the bag. "May I give it to him now?"

"I'll take it," she said. "It must be very heavy."

"It is." He unshouldered his bag, breathed a sigh of relief as it touched the ground. Then he reached inside, felt his way through the items within before finally drawing out the boy's present and handing it to his mother.

She regarded it for a moment, unsure what to say. It was a simple thing of wood, just two pieces, nailed together like a child might do it; a strange gift for a carpenter's son. Finally she remembered her manners and said, "Thank you."

"Quite all right," the old man said. "Only it's not just for him, you know. It's for everyone."

She nodded, again at a loss for words. Just then she heard a sound behind her, turned in case it might be her husband -- he was not much younger than this strange man, and prone to jealousy. There was nothing there, though, nothing more than the wind, and when she turned round once more the old man was gone.

"Hello?" she asked, looking around the small stable; there was no-one but her and her son, not even any prints in the straw and dirt where the man had stood.

For a moment she thought she heard laughter, deep and far-off, and a sound like the clatter of donkeys' hooves on the roof, but before she could be sure it was gone.

A few short words of explanation: I'm not at all religious, but a few years ago a student of mine asked me a question I had never thought of asking, about who was and wasn't present at the first Christmas -- and this story was the result.

That was fast

2010-12-16T05:10:00.002-06:00

The editors at Kasma Science Fiction have decided to put "The Dragon's Lesson" up right away. Back when it was first published in Time For Bedlam, Romie Stott at Reflection's Edge said it was "worth Time For Bedlam's cover price alone" -- and now you can read it for free!

Here's how it starts:

Child, why are you crying? Your first bleeding came this morning, and how many gifts did I give you to mark the day -- black stone bracelets carved smooth, and a silver necklace so fine a spider might have woven it. Yes, and now you have your own house, as a sister should, walls woven tight against the wind. What reason do you have for tears?

Ah, I see. No, it is no shame -- even a lion feels the bite of a fly, as we say. But you must understand, this is not a time for tears. Let me tell you a story -- no, you have not heard it before; it is not one of our stories, but was told to me by one of the Dead Men. Of course not. They wear veils to face their gods, as we do; only their god is the sun, and he is everywhere, so they must go veiled whenever they are outside. Beneath they are as alive as you or me. Some are even handsome -- and better lovers than our men, I can tell you.

Do not look so shocked, child. You are a sister, now, and must learn to deal with men. In truth the Dead Men are not so frightening; they are more like sisters than our men are.

This story is of a man named Ramaad...

Lesson learned

2010-12-15T08:25:00.003-06:00

Earlier this week I got an invitation from Ottawa-based webzine Kasma Science Fiction to contribute something, and they've decided to reprint my story "The Dragon's Lesson." This story has not seen the light of day since it was first published in the POD anthology Time For Bedlam in 2005, so I'm excited to see it back in "print."

Speaking of dragon poop

2010-12-09T08:58:00.002-06:00

There's an interview with me, focusing on my story "Holdfast," up at Fantasy Magazine. Thanks to interviewer T.J. McIntyre for some great questions!

Fast Forward

2010-12-06T04:52:00.003-06:00

My new story "Holdfast" is now up at Fantasy Magazin e. You can read the whole thing there for free (or wait for the dead tree version in The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy this spring), but here's a bit of the opening to whet your appetite:

Irrel was halfway through milking Black-Eye when the sky went dark with dragons. He looked up to see what had happened and saw dozens of winged shapes obscuring the sun in the east. They were flying low to the ground; that might mean rain, but if they were riding-dragons it meant battle was coming. He shrugged and turned back to his work, resuming his interrupted song:

Five riders in a ring

Round Bessie’s udder

Bessie bring milk

Milk bring butter

Milk fell into the bucket with each pull, thick and yellow with cream drawn by the charm. Irrel’s daughter Niiv sat on a stool across the yard churning the milk: With every fourth stroke she clapped the churn-staff down hard to catch the hands of any witches or devils that might try to spoil the butter. She stopped partway through a stroke and pointed over Irrel’s head.

He turned just in time to see the load of worm-cast falling a short distance away to the west. Irrel gave one more pull of Black-Eye’s udder and patted her on the side. “Good girl,” he said as he stood. Then he called out: “Sifrid, get the wagon and shovels.”

Once again, I'm the "And More"

2010-12-01T13:16:00.004-06:00

Sean Wallace has posted the TOC for Rich Horton's The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2011 Edition and holy crow, what a group to be part of! Gene Wolfe, Peter Watts, Neil Gaiman, Carol Emshwiller and plenty of other terrific writers in whose company I'm hugely proud to be included.

Falling grade

2010-12-01T10:44:00.002-06:00

Just read a great review of Fall From Earth by Jonathan Crowe, who calls it "a fast-paced, ambitious novel with a rich background and some serious and effective world-building, along with a cast of vibrant characters." On the more critical side, he feels that it should have been longer, and he may be right -- but I think even its current scale was a challenge for me when I wrote it (as I mentioned in correspondence with him, I think the cuts that were done in the editing process made it a stronger book.) Still, one of these years I may tackle it again and do a longer version -- not a director's cut so much as a "better writer's cut."

Ten pounds of news in a five-pound bag

2010-11-24T12:50:00.003-06:00

Lots of news, all at once! First off, I had a terrific time at SFContario last weekend, seeing old friends and making new ones as well as participating in a number of really interesting panels (both from the stage and from the audience, though I tried to keep my big mouth shut in the latter case.) Thanks to the organizers for a terrific con.

Second, the reviews for Triangulation: End of the Rainbow are starting to come in, and Jo-Anne Odell at Tangent says of my story "Talking Blues" that "it's the underlying social commentary, presented tongue-in-cheek, that gives this tale depth" and concludes "Triangulation: End of the Rainbow is one of the better collections available."

But that's not all! My story "Holdfast" is going live at Fantasy Magazine this coming Monday, December 6 -- and it's already been selected for Rich Horton's The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2011 Edition, for those of you who prefer reading things on paper.

Finally, some great news concerning a much better writer than me, the late John M. Ford. I had almost resigned myself to never getting to read any more new work from him, but I knew that at least part of his last novel Aspects had been finished; it turns out there was more done than had originally been thought, and what exists will be published some time in the near future by Tor (with an introduction by Neil Gaiman, naturally.) And since more Mike Ford in the world is just about the best news I can imagine, I'll sign off there.

Ask for it by name

2010-11-17T14:02:00.003-06:00

My new story "Holdfast" will be appearing in Fantasy Magazine on Monday, December 6th. This is my current favourite story, so I'm looking forward to getting it in phosphors and seeing how people like it!

A lil' peek

2010-11-12T19:37:00.001-06:00

Northern Frights Press has put up a site devoted to the Timelines anthology where you can read samples of each of the stories in it, including my "Written by the Winners." So check it out if you haven't already!

To hell in a Pushcart

2010-11-11T07:56:00.003-06:00

I'm as proud as an extremely proud person to say that Northern Frights Publishing has selected my story "Written By the Winners" as one of their nominees for this year's Pushcart Prize. I'm pretty sure that genre stories never win the Pushcart so I'm not holding my breath (except when I go swimming) but it's still very cool.

Prose and cons

2010-11-01T06:16:00.002-05:00

Just arrived: my final schedule for SFCOntario in Toronto, November 19-21:

On Friday night at 8 I'll be reading from my novel Fall From Earth in Room 207
Then at 9 in Ballroom A I'll be on the panel "Why Reread Books?"

Busy Saturday: The "Food in SF" panel in the Courtyard at 11, "Is it Science Fiction" at noon back in Ballroom A and I'll be part of the group autograph session at 1 PM in the Essex Hallway.

Finally, on Sunday I'm doing the "Religion in Fantasy" panel at 10 AM in Ballroom A. (Presumably this was scheduled for Sunday morning so people could attend in lieu of going to church.)

If you want to find out more about these panels, including the great roster of writers I'll be sharing tables with, check out the SFContario Program Page.

Whither Canada?

2010-10-18T05:25:00.002-05:00

Click on the video below for some short and fairly facile thoughts about Canadian SF and Fantasy. It's all in the name of supporting The Sunburst Awards and there are lots of more interesting people who have contributed videos as well.

I'm just a soul whose intentions are good

2010-10-04T12:08:00.002-05:00

If you missed reading my story "Long Pig" when it was e-mailed by Daily Science Fiction, you can now read it here on their Web page and, if you feel so moved, comment on it here. I'm not going to do an excerpt this time but just say that if you think you've guessed the twist early on, keep reading.

Reading Time

2010-09-22T12:18:00.003-05:00

Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells' The Time Machine has just been released, featuring my story "Written by the Winners"; you can get it here. Here's the opening of "Written by the Winners":

Dave glanced over his shoulder, leaned in close so that his body blocked the screen. He had been sifting through old TV comedies for weeks now, screening every episode frame by frame for inconsistencies, but today he had made a real find -- a few lines of dialogue on Family Ties that referred to Richard Nixon.

There was no predicting where remnants like this would appear. The device that had changed time was more like a shotgun than a scalpel: it had established the present its makers wanted through hundreds of different changes to the timeline, some contradicting others. The result was a porous, makeshift new history that made little sense, but the old one had been thoroughly smashed to bits. It was those bits that remained that he and his whole department were tasked by the new history's makers with finding and erasing.

Most of what he found was much more innocuous, references to things that had little ideological power but simply had not existed in the new history. This one, though, had meaning, a direct reference to a political event in the old history. He looked around again, drew a tape from the bottom drawer of his desk, slipped it into the second recorder and hit COPY. He could feel his heart beating more quickly as the seconds ticked by, felt the pressure of seen and unseen eyes on his back; finally the inconsistency was over, ending as abruptly as it began, and he was able to breathe.

As it turns out, the voices in my head...

2010-09-01T12:10:00.002-05:00

... were actually a conversation I had last summer with Hayden Trenholm, author of the great Steele Chronicles series from Bundoran Press, where we talked about our (then-) about-to-be-launched books. For whatever reason the transcript never saw the light of day, but now with the final book in that series, Stealing Home, being launched I thought it was high time to rectify that.

Hayden: Matt, you've had a fair degree of success as a short story writer, with stories in Asimov's and some foreign language sales as well. Now, you have a novel, Fall From Earth. Other than the fact that it's 'longer,' how would you describe the difference between writing short stories and novels?

Matthew: For me the biggest difference between novels and short stories is that novels need to have a much more solid structure, and they take a lot more rewriting. It's rare for me to do substantial rewrites of a short story, but of the three books I've written the first two have had at least four major drafts each and the third is due for a heavy overhaul as well.

H: That's interesting. My experience with novels and short stories is almost the exact opposite. I seldom get a short piece right on the first go and often have to go through three or even four drafts and, even then, I often don't get it the way I want it. Novels, on the other hand, are often single draft affairs, with relatively minor re-writes in the second (and usually final) draft. I've written six so far -- with Steel Whispers the third to be published [and of course Stealing Home has just been launched -- MJ] -- and none have had major overhauls. I suspect it's because I spend a very long time plotting, doing background notes on character and theme and just thinking about it (often as much as a year or two) before I write a word. Then, my process is to start each day with a quick re-write of the previous day's work.

What were the origins of Fall From Earth?

M: Fall From Earth actually started out as a TV series. I was doing work developing series ideas for a producer in Montreal and one of the ideas I worked on was for a CGI cartoon about a prison planet. It never panned out, but I liked the basic idea and the three seasons I had planned became the three main parts of Fall From Earth. At the same time I was starting to get interested in Chinese history and philosophy, both through a course I was taking and through Larry Gonick's brilliant Cartoon History of the Universe. That found its way into the book and turned the somewhat generic TV series idea into something a lot more interesting.

H: Without giving away too much, what is the story and what makes it ''a lot more interesting" than what it started as?

M: First, when I started to integrate Chinese history and philosophy it gave the background a lot more character and consistency. The government in the book has basically the same problem that China had in the imperial period, which is that with a far-flung territory and poor communications it's always fighting the tendency to fly apart. So I had the Borderless Empire in the book apply the same tenets as the Chinese historically did. Of course, when the penalty for hoarding grain is the same as the penalty for rebellion, you're going to wind up with frequent revolts -- which is what happened historically in China and what happens in the book as well.

The other reason was that when the concept changed from being a TV series, the characters became a lot more nuanced, and as a result the story itself changed significantly. Originally the plot would have been what Shi Jin, the main character, thinks it will be at the beginning of the book -- a rebel taking advantage of her exile to organize another rebellion. That thread is still there, but as the story goes on it becomes more about what she's willing to sacrifice in order to win. A lot of the other characters changed, too, the most dramatic being the one who started as a posthuman cyborg warrior and wound up a priest who uses his implants to get closer to God!

When you wrote Defining Diana, did you already have in mind the idea that you would do a sequel? What themes, plot threads or characters made you keen to revisit that world?

H: Oddly enough, Defining Diana was originally written as a prequel to one of my as-yet-unpublished novels called La Suena -- a long cyber-punk tale inspired by The Grapes of Wrath. I wanted a bridge between the present and the very different and dystopic world I had created. There are only two characters from La Suena in Defining Diana, neither of them major. I wrote Defining Diana as a stand alone noir detective with no idea that there would be a second or in fact, the third, which I'm working on now. But the character of Frank Steele was appealing as were the talkative cyborgs (called The Borg) and there were enough loose ends to inspire a second book. The theme of Defining Diana was the self and Steel Whispers deals with family. The third book, Stealing Home, will tackle community.

M: Did you find it constraining to be working in the past of an already established novel, or have you been making changes to La Suena as you write these two books?

H: Writing a prequel does create certain restraints but it is also quite liberating. A certain amount of the form and structure is already set for you but then you get to play around within that. However, Steel Whispers, and the book I'm now working on, Stealing Home, had and have their own demands and have taken the story in different ways so I will need to make major changes in La Suena as a result. The real question will be whether I want to tackle that re-write or get to work on the three other ideas I have for novels.

Matthew, you mentioned some of your influences. In terms of fiction, who do you read and why? Who would you say have been the biggest influences on your own writing?

M: In terms of authors and influences, the biggest shadow over this book is definitely the late John M. Ford, whose books include The Dragon Waiting, Growing Up Weightless and the best Star Trek novel ever, The Final Reflection. A lot of people called Ford a writer's writer and it's sad that he never got the wide acclaim he really deserved. Otherwise, people I follow eagerly include Gene Wolfe, Michael Swanwick, Tim Powers, Maureen McHugh, and many others. The last SF novel I read was Robert Charles Wilson's Axis and I'm looking forward to reading his Julian Comstock and Jo Walton's Half a Crown. What are your influences?

H: Quite a few writers have influenced me. Robert Sawyer has taught me a lot about the process of being a writer -- more through osmosis than any formal way. I've tried, in my own limited way, to take the same rigorous approach to research and to strong storytelling and the same professional approach to the business side of the job. Rob always has strong thematic elements in his books and that has inspired and encouraged me. The three other SF writers who have had a big influence on me are Joe Haldeman, Connie Willis and CJ Cherryh. I've been fortunate enough to take workshops from both Joe and Connie. And there are a ton of SF writers I read and enjoy. But I also have a lot of non-SF influences -- Hemingway, first and foremost, but also Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, Chinua Achebe, Tim Winton, Barry Unsworth and most recently Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem. Several of these bridge the gap between the speculative genres and the more traditional literary. And, of course, Dashiel Hammett and the other noir stylists.

You have a job and a young family, Matt. How do you find time to write? How are you able to balance those other demands on your time? Are you happy with the current balance or do you aspire to be a full-time writer?

M: Right now I don't find a lot of time to write. Since my son Leo was born last August my writing life has largely been on hold, and if I hadn't had to revise Fall From Earth for publication and do work on my second novel, Fire In Your Heart, for an agent I probably wouldn't have done any writing at all in the last year outside from work.

I'm lucky that my current job, at the Media Awareness Network, provides me with an opportunity to do a fair bit of writing -- I design lessons and activities for teachers as well as writing a blog that gets 40-50,000 views a month and designing computer games -- but it's hard to find time to do my own work. If either Fall From Earth or Fire In Your Heart gains any traction I'll probably move to working part-time, and I'm fortunate to have the flexibility to do that.

You've had a great run at the Aurora Awards recently, winning the English Short Form award last year for "Like Water in the Desert" and getting nominated (at least) for Defining Diana in the English Long Form category this year [Steel Whispers received an Aurora nomination as well]. How has that affected your writing career?

H: Getting nominated for and then finally winning the Aurora last year has been a great experience. It is always nice to get some recognition from your work. But, of course, this doesn't happen by accident. In order for people to nominate my work, they have to know it exists. So the biggest impact for me has been as result of building an audience, going to SF conventions, meeting people and exposing them to my work. In the end, that's why we write, isn't it? You can write the best stuff in the world but if no-one reads it, what's the point? And, I think, winning a few awards demonstrates to editors who might buy your work that you are professional and that your work has a certain value. I'm hopeful that, if I can win an Aurora for Defining Diana, especially in the context of the World Science Fiction Convention, this will expose me to a whole new audience. You said that you have other novels in draft form. Are those the projects you are working on now or has a new idea grabbed hold? On the business side of writing, do you have an agent or have you been looking for one?

M: I am looking for an agent, and as I mentioned above Fire In Your Heart has been sitting with one for a little under a year now. I actually did rewrites through the whole manuscript based on his comments, so whether he winds up taking it or not it'll be a better book as a result. My third book -- actually two novels, the first two parts of a projected four-part series -- is at the first draft stage and in need of rewriting, but I'm tempted right now to leave it fallow for a while and start on a different book I've just recently started planning. It's always more fun to start something new, but for me it's also easier to do the early part of writing in little bits of time than the later part; I need a solid block of time to do any significant rewriting.

Hayden, you mentioned a lot of "mainstream" and literary influences before. How did you come to choose to write SF? From your perspective, what does it offer you as a writer that other genres don't?

H: They say you should write what you know. I'd add that you should write what you love. I was a voracious reader as a kid but I was also fascinated by science. My ambition from the age of ten was to be a scientist and, in fact, my first degree is in Chemistry. So naturally I was drawn to science fiction and, to some extent, fantasy. I even went to my first SF convention in about 1980. I wrote sporadically from a young age but really didn't get the writing bug until I was heavily involved in community theatre in my 30s. Naturally, the first things I wrote were plays but pretty soon I was trying my hand at literary short fiction. I even got a few published. But even then they always contained a fantastical element -- magic realism, for example. MY first novel, A Circle of Birds, was a literary work but was partly set in the future. Eventually, I realized that SF was my proper place as a writer. I think what I like about it is that it offers so many options. You can do everything that you can do in mainstream storytelling but you can do it with a twist. And in particular you can explore how changes in technology, politics or culture can change people.

Matthew, how do you see all your diverse experiences coming together in your future writing? Having just become a grandfather (without ever actually having my own children), I know that babies can change your worldview, so, in particular, do you think being a father will change your writing?

I know you'll be at Anticipation in Montreal for our mutual book launch. Have you spent much time at SF conventions? How do you think the relationship with fans affects an SF writer's career?

M: I think all the different kinds of writing I've done have probably influenced me in different ways. Like you, my first work was in the theatre and I spent most of my twenties writing TV and comic book scripts, so I have a similar tendency to fall back on dialogue. It's been a journey for me to let the other elements of a piece do their part, so I was particularly tickled when a reviewer recently complimented me on my use of setting. As for game design, I've read so many bad books that were clearly influenced by gaming that it's become a sort of negative test -- if something sounds like it would make a good game, it probably wouldn't make a good story. (That being said, one of the plot twists in Fall From Earth was inspired by an old board game called Web and Starship.)

I don't doubt that being a father has changed and will continue to change my writing, since it's changed my life more than anything since I met Megan. Like many writers, a lot of my work is autobiographical at its heart -- even if I don't always realize it at the time -- and fatherhood has already worked its way into my stories.

Conventions and socializing are probably the weak point in my writing career. The last con I went to was the Chicago Comicon sometime back in the mid-Nineties, when I was launching a comic I had written, and I've only ever met one the editors who've bought my stories. That's something I definitely have to remedy now that Fall From Earth is out.

Down the Amazon

2010-08-18T12:22:00.003-05:00

Big news: Fall From Earth -- along with other fine books from Bundoran Press -- is now available from Amazon.ca. If you haven't bought it yet, this is your chance to get it at a big discount (and free shipping, if you buy some other stuff too); if you bought it and liked it, go here and contribute a positive review. Every little blurb helps!

I read the news today -- well, yesterday

2010-08-16T07:16:00.002-05:00

Ottawa Citizen writer Kate Heartfield, who's a great friend to Canadian SF (and Ottawa SF writers in particular) had a nice article in yesterday's paper about Can-Con. If you're still on the fence about going, I hope this tips you over!

In which I discuss air safety, orthopedics, the X-Men and Saddam Hussein's double

2010-08-13T17:17:00.002-05:00

I have a new post up at Mightygodking for your reading pleasure (or otherwise.)

I Can Con, can you?

2010-08-12T14:48:00.004-05:00

If you live in the Ottawa area or nearby (or plan to be here on the weekend of August 20th) you should come to CanCon, Ottawa's first SF convention in... um... some time. I'm going to be there doing two panels ("Killing the Ones You Love," 10 AM Saturday, and "What's Up With Canadian SF," 1 PM Saturday), a reading (4 PM Saturday) and a writing workshop (Sunday at 10 AM), the last together with the ultra-cool Hayden Trenholm, who will be launching his book Stealing Home at 7PM on the Sunday.

Coming up a little later, I'll be attending SFContario this November... more details when I have them.

Cold comfort

2010-08-03T21:08:00.003-05:00

A few bits of possible good news developing, but only one I can talk about right now: I finally got to check out the latest Year's Best Science Fiction and found that my story "The Coldest War" got an Honorable Mention... pretty cool considering it was the only story I published last year. Last year at Worldcon I got to thank Gardner Dozois for the various Honorable Mentions he's given my stories over the years, so I'll just append my thanks for this one here.

Rainbow song! Rainbow song!

2010-07-28T13:58:00.004-05:00

... as Leo would put it: the latest Triangulations anthology, End of the Rainbow, is now available for purchase at Amazon, among other places. In addition to my story "Talking Blues" it contains pieces by Peter S. Beagle, Cat Rambo, and a drunkenly generous baker's dozen of other great writers.

There's not much to say about this story, except that it illustrates the importance of a good editor. I always knew this piece was ten pounds of story in a five-pound bag, but I could never decide exactly what to take out; with just two paragraphs of comments, the book's assistant editor Jamie Lackey helped me figure it out. Here's the opening from "Talking Blues":

"Don't you know where those are from?"

I paused, glanced down at the cardboard crate that held the grapes I was about to pick up. It had a grinning cartoon devil on it and the words PRODUCT OF HELL.

Half-shrugging I turned away. Half the things on the shelves had that sticker on them, and if they didn't odds were they had an ingredient or two from there.

She put her hand on my shoulder. "They have grapes grown here, you know. Organic."

I turned back to her, spread my arms so she could see the threadbare coat I was trying to make last another winter. "Do I look like I can afford anything organic, artisanal or locally made to you?" I asked.

Miss Ethics was undeterred. "You shouldn't buy them at all then," she said.

"Listen," I said, "if you want to pay ten dollars a pound for moldy grapes that's your business, but leave me alone, okay?" She wasn't the first person I'd heard this routine from, and I'm sure I wasn't the first person she'd said it to. Every now and then there was a fuss about all the cheap imports that came from Hell, but the boycott had never really caught on. Most people didn't much mind where the things they bought came from so long as they were good and cheap, so every time the people that made them started asking for better pay or anything like that the factories just moved -- from Mexico to Thailand, Vietnam to China and finally to Hell, where nobody ever asked for a break or a raise. It wasn't like the SAY NO TO LIMBO campaign, anyway, with all those pictures of the unbaptized babies hooking rugs. I mean, people go to Hell because they deserve it, right?

Ow

2010-07-05T19:22:00.002-05:00

I've been offline for a bit due to a small bike accident that left me with a broken arm and put me in the hospital for a few days. In better news, I've just sold my story "Long Pig" to the new Web/e-mailzine Daily Science Fiction. It's kind of an odd story, but a good one I think.

Writing elsewhere roundup

2010-06-18T12:21:00.002-05:00

Not too much action here at the old homepage (though it looks like I may have sold a story I thought would never sell -- stay tuned) but I have had some short essays I wrote posted elsewhere. First off is my essay "Away From Paris," about what SF and fantasy can do that other genres can't, which appears in CZP's Speculations blog, followed by "This Space Intentionally Left Blank," at the Bundoran Press blog, which is about remembering to leave things out of your writing.

Just in time

2010-05-21T10:13:00.002-05:00

The good folks at Northern Frights publishing have posted the TOC for their upcoming anthology Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, which will include my story "Written by the Winners." From the looks of things it will not only be an awesomely cool book but a huge one as well -- my story, at over 8,000 words, is only one of twenty-one stories that will be included. I'm particularly tickled to be cheek-by-jowl with Desmond Warzel's "Wikihistory," a terrific story that was referenced several times at the time-travel panel I recently attended at Ad Astra.

Away from Paris

2010-05-15T13:19:00.000-05:00

My short essay "Away From Paris," about Hemingway, John M. Ford and the things SF and fantasy can do that no other genres can't, is online at CZP's Speculations blog.

Holding fast

2010-04-22T08:20:00.002-05:00

Latest news is that I've sold my latest story, "Holdfast," to Fantasy Magazine. Sean Wallace announces acceptances on his Livejournal as he sends them out, so I was able to see that I was one of three Canadian writers who sold stories there at the same time; the others are Tony Pi, whom I got to meet recently at Ad Astra (we were also on a couple of panels together) and Sarah Totton, whom I met at the launch party for Tesseracts Ten way back when. And so the Canadian takeover of science fiction and fantasy continues...

Speaking of Canadian SF, On Spec has put an issue online as a sample for people unfamiliar with that great magazine. I don't have a story in that issue, but Tony does, along with Jack Skillingstead and a lot of other great writers. Check it out!

He followed me home

2010-04-15T08:32:00.004-05:00

If you were at Ad Astra last weekend, you probably recognize this little fella from the dealer's room. I presented him to a delighted Leo when I got home; when I have a chance I'll post a few more pictures of the Adventures of Sir Bear.

Ad Astra was only my second convention in twenty years and my first ever as a participant, so I decided to throw myself into it with five panels over two days. (Major thanks go out to Megan Jones and Alana Otis, who were much more accomodating than I had any right to expect of my last-minute request to participate.) I spent most of Friday downtown, picking up enough Chinese buns and empanadas to last me the weekend (I refuse to go to Toronto and eat hotel food.) To my joy, I also was able to replace my favourite hat, which I'd lost in a cab on my way back from Red Deer last fall! (Remember, ask for genuine Lanning hats, from Lanning Hats of Belleville, Ontario.)

Anyway -- Friday night was mostly for socializing, catching up with people I knew (including the entire membership of Ottawa writing group The East Block Irregulars) and meeting lots of new people. Saturday started bright and early with my first panel, "Superheroes in Science Fiction," where Rob St. Martin, Tony Pi and James Alan Gardner and I shared the stage and all got to act like total nerds. All good. Then it was off to find a microwave (for some reason the Con Suite was always closed at mealtimes) and then to my next panel, on Time Travel That Changes History -- a reunion of sorts with Tony Pi and James Alan Gardner, in which I got a few laughs by explaining the impossibility of time travel using an egg salad sandwich. Saturday's last panel as Mind and Body in SF; this, I have to say, was a real honour -- sitting next to Karl Schroeder and Peter Watts, as well as philosophy prof J. Keeping; Peter got chosen as moderator due to a poorly-timed bathroom break and wound acting as a very amusing Devil's Advocate, which was a good thing because we all pretty much agreed on most of the topics that came up. Then Saturday night and hanging out mostly with people I'd met Friday, such as Ryan McFadden and Helen and Laura Marshall (both of whom work for the great small press CZP.)

On Sunday I got to share a table with fellow Ottawa and Bundoran author Hayden Trenholm, along with Karl Schroeder again, to discuss Writing the Future -- both Hayden and Karl are heavily involved in issues of tech and culture in other aspects of their lives so it was a great discussion. Finally it was time for my last panel, Modern Mythology, which had very nearly more panelists than audience -- not because the audience was small but because there were about a half-dozen people up at the table -- and again, many interesting things were said and ideas shared. Then it was a sprint to the airport, a short time to drink cappuccino in the Porter lounge and back home to present Sir Bear!

Per aspera ad astra!

2010-04-06T11:38:00.003-05:00

Emerging from the depths again with bits of news here and there:

I wrote another new story last month, and both it and the previous one have already had their baptisms by fire... one rejection each so far.

Meanwhile, I sold another story -- this time it's Talking Blues, to the anthology Triangulation: Over the Rainbow. I've been in two of the previous three anthologies in this series, so it's great to be in this one. They're a terrific market for stories that don't fit neatly into categories, and this one certainly counts. To summarize is inevitably to diminish (or at least it is in this case) so I'll just hold off trying to describe it for now and post the first few paragraphs when the book comes out.

Most importantly, I made a last-minute decision about a month or two ago to attend Ad Astra in Toronto, and the organizers were much more accomodating than I had any right to expect about letting me participate in the programming. Here's where I'll be when:

Sat 12 PM Superheroes on the printed page (Salon 443)

Sat 3 PM Time travel that alters history (Salon 343)

Sat 7 PM Body and person in SF (Salon 243)

Sun 10 AM Writing the future (Salon 243)

Sun 12 PM Modern mythology (Ballroom centre)

(For advanced students: name something I've written that is relevant to each of the above topics.)

I'll also be bringing plenty of copies of Fall From Earth to flog, so if you're looking for a copy look me up!

Now that I've got that out of my system...

2010-02-20T13:58:00.004-06:00

... congratulations do go out to all of the Aurora nominees, particularly to my friends Rob Sawyer and Hayden Trenholm. Congrats also to my editor Virginia O'Dine at Bundoran Press for shepherding two of Hayden's novels to Aurora nominations!

One thing that sucks about the Internet...

2010-02-18T12:01:00.003-06:00

... is that now you can get bad news very, very quickly -- and totally indirectly: between Twitter and Facebook I've found out that two other writers have been told they've been nominated for the Aurora. Since my mailbox is empty, this almost certainly means... I wasn't.

One shouldn't care about this stuff, of course, and usually I don't... I suppose it's because this year I undertook a campaign to get nominated. I feel a bit like Bart Simpson in the episode where he has to pass a history test to pass the fourth grade: it's not that I failed, it's that I tried and failed. Congrats, however, to all the worthy nominees (I don't actually know who was nominated in the English short fiction category, but I have no doubt they were all worthy and probably all better stories than mine.)

I write a story, I sell a story: I must be a writer after all

2010-02-14T13:12:00.006-06:00

Well, I feel like I'm finally coming up for air: in the last two months I've sold a new story ("Written by the Winners," to the HG Wells tribute antho Timelines from Northern Frights publishing) and also finally written a new one, currently titled "Beyond the Fields You Know," which has just started its travels down the rejection ladder. I wrote that one by following the example my friend and colleague Hayden Trenholm and writing while on the road: thus it bears the interesting distinction of having been written while I was flying from Ottawa to Calgary and back (with a little rewriting in the hotel in Red Deer and once I got back home.) I've never been very good at judging my own work and I'm particularly bad now, when I haven't written any fiction in so long, but I enjoyed writing it.

The thing is, of course, that I have been writing: I revised Fall From Earth for publication last spring and also did a major revision of another novel for an agent who's interested in it. I've also done a huge amount of writing for my day job, from blogs to game scripts, plus the occasional rabble-rousing post for MightyGodKing. (On the principle of writing what you read I've even been writing kids' poetry lately, as I find when I read a Dennis Lee book to my son Leo ten times over I come away speaking in rhyme.) But this is the first time since the summer of 2008 that I've done anything that I in my heart of hearts think is real writing, and it felt good.

Don't forget! You have until February 15th to read my short story "The Coldest War" and, if you feel so moved, nominate it for an Aurora Award; you can read it at nominatethecoldestwarforanaurora.blogspot.com .

Rob Sawyer remains a classsy guy

2010-01-09T12:43:00.002-06:00

I recently sent an e-mail to Rob Sawyer, as I did to most people I know, asking him to spread the word that I put my story "The Coldest War" online in hopes of garnering an Aurora nomination this year. Rob responded by devoting a whole post on his blog to "The Year of Matthew Johnson" -- spotlighting both the story and the publication of Fall From Earth. Needless to say this was way more than I expected and absurdly flattering. It's also a bit funny to me because I've more thought of it as "the second year in a row where I've done hardly any fiction writing," as busy times at work and fatherhood have pushed me to Ted Chiang-like levels of productivity (the comparison is in terms of quantity, obviously, not quality.) That being said, I did just send off a new story I wrote shortly before the end of last year, as well as a reprint and a piece from the back catalogue, so 2010 may have a few more entries under my name in the Canadian SF Database.

Come one, come all!

2009-12-29T13:34:00.003-06:00

I'm posting the full text of my short story "The Coldest War" online in the hopes of finally snagging an Aurora nomination; you can read it here and then, if you like it, go nominate it. If you already think it was one of the best Canadian stories of the year, and you are yourself a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, you can go directly to the nomination page here or the online nomination form here. If you need help thinking of other things to nominate along with it check out the Canadian SF works database here.

Spread the word! The deadline for Nominations if February 5, so don't delay.

Spam, spam, spam, spaceships and spam

2009-12-07T14:14:00.003-06:00

A bit of annoying news: it seems my Hotmail account was hacked and a spam e-mail sent out to everyone on my contact list. If you received one of those e-mails I apologize. (Luckily it wasn't anything offensive or pornographic -- and I hope people could tell from the quality of the writing that I wasn't the actual author!)

More happily, LW Perkins, who created that great cover for Fall From Earth, has posted an alternate cover design that she did; it's a great interpretation of the Greyen ships which, like the rendition of the pods she did in the final cover, improves significantly on my description. She's graciously given me permission to reproduce it here; you can also see it and many other great pieces at her website.

Here it is:

Postdated Czechs

2009-09-16T13:19:00.006-05:00

(Hey, I restrained myself last time.)

I got an unexpected surprise in the mail today: my copy of Trochu Divne Kusy 3, the Czech anthology that includes my story "Irregular Verbs" amongst the work of people like Jay Lake, Cat Rambo, Tim Pratt and many others. It's a hardcover, and definitely the nicest book my work has yet appeared in.

How nice is it? It's even got one of those ribbon-bookmark dealies.

Reading at the Dusty Owl

2009-09-12T11:21:00.003-05:00

Anyone in the Ottawa area is invited to attend a reading of Fall From Earth, along with Hayden Trenholm's Steel Whispers , at Swizzles (246-B Queen Street) at 2 PM on Sunday, September 20th. The reading is part of the Dusty Owl reading series and each of us will read for about a half hour.

In the news

2009-09-08T14:51:00.003-05:00

Some years back The New Yorker ran a story about the unreliablity of fingerprint evidence that was one of the inspirations for "Public Safety" (particularly a major theme we might call "Let's not be too smug.") Now they've published a similar article about the total lack of evidential base for most arson investigation techniques -- and how those techniques led to the execution of an almost certainly innocent man. Jason Kottke points you to the article here, along with responses from one of the article's subjects and its author.

Meanwhile, The Globe and Mail has an update on the status of Hans Island, seen in "The Coldest War," (it's real!) here.

In stores now

2009-09-05T13:11:00.004-05:00

For those of you who live in the Ottawa area and haven't yet ordered your copy of Fall From Earth, it's now available at Collected Works on Wellington and Perfect Books on Elgin. Thanks to both excellent bookstores!

Worth mentioning

2009-09-03T16:43:00.002-05:00

I finally got into a physical bookstore today and found out that "Another Country" got an Honorable Mention in The Year's Best Science Fiction. When I briefly saw Gardner Dozois at Worldcon I thanked him for listing some of my previous stories but didn't yet know about this one, so I'll thank him here.

Hello out there in radio land!

2009-09-03T09:03:00.002-05:00

I'll be appearing along with my fellow Bundoran author Hayden Trenholm on "Literary Landscapes" on CKCU tonight at 6:30, talking about our new books. You can listen at 93.1 FM or online at http://bit.ly/16fbe5

"Great New Canadian SF and Fantasy"

2009-08-28T11:48:00.002-05:00

I missed seeing this panel at Worldcon on "Great New Canadian SF and Fantasy," wherein I am endorsed by both my fellow Bundoran author Hayden Trenholm and also by Rob Sawyer, who calls me "a consummate prose stylist." Thanks to both (and thanks as well to Scifi Watch for posting it.)

Better late than never

2009-08-24T11:22:00.002-05:00

A glance at the full list of Hugo nomination votes shows that "Lagos" was tied for 17th, with 12 votes. I won't mention any of the authors or stories above or below it on the list except to say that I'm honoured to be in their company.

Quick Worldcon report

2009-08-10T15:53:00.006-05:00

I'm taking care of Leo this week (he starts daycare next Monday) so this will have to be short. I had a wonderful time at both the launch of Fall From Earth and Worldcon in general. I was lucky to already know a few people, such as Rob Sawyer and my fellow Bundoran author Hayden Trenholm, both of whom kindly introduced me to many interesting people. My editor and publisher at Bundoran, Virginia O'Dine, put on a display in the dealers' room that pulled out all the stops -- bookmarks and posters made from the terrific cover she commissioned for my book (which now also graces her business card.)

Because this was also part of Leo's world tour I only got my convention pass on Saturday at noon, but I filled almost every remaining hour with programming, from a fascinating session on history and fiction with Connie Willis and Jo Walton on the panel to a radio play in which I was recruited to read a small part. I also got to meet in person a few people I've worked with but only corresponded by e-mail, which gave me a nice opportunity to put names to faces.

Yes, I'm a nerd...

2009-08-06T14:51:00.002-05:00

... but I'm in the right place. Check out the graphic my boss made to wish me luck for the launch of Fall From Earth tomorrow:

Where I'll be at Worldcon

2009-08-04T14:34:00.002-05:00

I'm not participating in Worldcon in any offical way, but there are two official events I'll be part of: my novel Fall From Earth is being launched by publisher Bundoran Press on Friday night at 8 PM at the Delta Centre-Ville Hotel, Suite 2815, 777 University Street, Montréal, Quebec. It's right after the Aurora Award ceremonies (and in the same room) so why not come for both. I'll also be reading a small part in a radio-play version of the classic story "The Cold Equations" at 7 PM on Saturday in room P-513B. (Don't worry, it'll be over before the balloon animal demonstration.)

Where I won't be, though I wish I could, is the panel The Life and Work of John M. Ford, which is at 5 PM on Thursday. There is simply no writer more important to me and my work than Ford, and it seems unfair that something so insignificant as space and time should prevent me from attending this event... if you're in Montreal on Thursday afternoon, don't let that happen to you.

Outside of these events, if anyone would like to say "Hi" feel free to leave a note in my pigeon-hole in the Voodoo Message Board (see page 9 of the programme.) I'll be on-site from Friday AM (though I'm only attending panels on the weekend) to late Sunday afternoon.

Matthew

Best. Costume. Ever

2009-07-29T10:59:00.001-05:00

(Max should be white, though. Still, they got his terrifying jaws right.)

Fall From Earth page is up...

2009-07-23T18:09:00.003-05:00

at the Bundoran Press website. You can pre-order the book (first orders will ship August 15) here and download the first chapter as a free pdf here. Enjoy!

Quote of the day

2009-07-23T11:07:00.002-05:00

“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population.” -- Harry Schoell, CEO of Cyclone Power Technologies.

Another year older and deeper in mud

2009-07-13T16:59:00.001-05:00

It's going to be a hard year to top.

Desire, Kisses and Blurbs

2009-07-07T14:28:00.003-05:00

I was pleased and surprised yesterday to find the eighth anniversary issue of Aoife's Kiss (issue #29, for the record) had arrived in the mail. Pleased because it includes my story "The Ninth Part of Desire." (This now means that every one of my Asimov's stories has been reprinted or translated somewhere, which is kind of interesting -- you'd think it would be the stories that appeared in the little bitty anthologies that got reprinted, since fewer people would have seen them, but no. Of course, it may be that the ones Asimov's bought are better stories.) Surprised because... well, remind me to tell you that story someday.

Meanwhile, Rich Horton has been kind enough to provide a cover blurb for Fall From Earth. There wasn't enough time to get him a review copy before the cover went to print so he contributed an astonishingly generous and flattering overview of my work, which I'm far too weak to resist reprinting here:

"Matthew Johnson's short stories in the past few years have revealed as fresh and original a new voice as any in our field, and a voice with impressive range, as he's produced first-rate alternate history/fantasy, Borgesian intellectual speculation, and near-future SF. I'm enthusiastically looking forward to a novel."

Here it is: the cover design for Fall From Earth

2009-06-29T19:55:00.002-05:00

Reviewers wanted

2009-06-25T10:23:00.002-05:00

The galleys are almost done and we're looking for people to read and review Fall From Earth. Since we're hoping to score some nice juicy blurbs we're currently only looking for people in the SF field or professional reviewers (in other words, there should be some chance readers will have heard of you or your publication/website.)* If you're interested, e-mail me at Matthewj42@hotmail.com.

*There will probably be a promotion a little later for regular readers aimed at garnering Amazon reviews. Stay tuned.

Also

2009-06-04T12:31:00.001-05:00

I forgot to mention, in my last post, that John Rogers wrote what I believe is the first (and so far only) parody of my work, in his review of "The Coldest War." You can see it here (scroll about halfway down the page.) It's meant kindly... I think.

A "Lagos" movie? Well, sort of... Plus, an unexpected form of time travel, and a twit Tweets

2009-05-28T13:07:00.004-05:00

When I first read about the Mexican science fiction film Sleep Dealer last Fall I thought, "That sounds a lot like 'Lagos'" -- an apparently I'm not the only one: John E. Rogers Jr., reviewing that film for (naturally) Asimov's, opens his review with a long paragraph describing my story (the word "superb" does pop up... just sayin'.) I haven't seen the film yet (though I suspect my video store will get it when it comes out on DVD, they carry an impressive number of foreign films) but it's neat to see the same ideas coming up somewhere else.

In other news... I'm currently deep in revisions of Fall to Earth. Cutting the word count is proving to be easier than I thought it would be, but what's weird is working with the sections that have survived from the very first draft, more than ten years ago; it's a bit like having a cross-time conversation with my past overwriting self.

Finally: by order of my boss, I'm now on Twitter. You can follow me by clicking on the button to your right. So far I have two followers at any given time; one of them is admirably loyal, but the #2 spot has been filled by three different people. (I refuse to be one of those "please follow me" people, though I have sent replies to people whom I follow, which seems to be okay. Still figuring out the etiquette of this Twitter thing.)

It's cold in Denmark, it's cold in Russia

2009-04-21T18:33:00.003-05:00

Somewhat to my surprise, "The Coldest War" is now my most-translated story: it will appear in an upcoming issue of Esli, the Russian magazine that previously translated "Another Country." Maybe I should pitch it to next year's Tesseracts so it can complete its circumpolar journey...

Matthew

You Heard It Here First!

2009-04-07T18:18:00.004-05:00

Now that the contracts have been negotiated, signed and returned I'm pleased as punch to announce that my novel Fall From Earth will be published this summer by the good folks at Bundoran Press. They're a Canadian publishing house with three previous books to their credit -- the most recent of which, fellow Ottawan Hayden Trenholm's Defining Diana, just got nominated for an Aurora Award. (No pressure.) The plan is to launch at Worldcon in my old stomping grounds of Montreal this summer.

That's all for now. (Great googly moogly, isn't that enough?)

Matthew

Danes are good sports...

2009-03-06T18:55:00.002-06:00

My story "The Coldest War," about a future war between Canada and Denmark, will be translated for publication in the long-running Danish SF magazine Proxima. What they'll make of references to Tim Horton's and Robertson Davies I don't know. (Make your own damn "Danish" pun here.)

In related news, Gardner Dozois had kind words for "The Coldest War" in the latest Locus. "Matthew Johnson's 'The Coldest War' is a tense story of two soldiers (or are there two?) playing a deadly cat-and-mouse game on an isolated arctic island during a renewed cold war between Canada and Denmark." Damnit, no pull quote, though! Curse these novice reviewers... (Do I really need a smiley here?)

Matthew

From Russia with, um, love, I guess...

2009-02-28T11:15:00.005-06:00

I recently got my copy of Esli, a Russian magazine which reprinted my story "Another Country." Luckily I was able to identify the story by spotting the Roman characters they used to represent Latin words. There must be a bunch of words in it that can't be directly translated into Latin, because the story picked up a bunch of footnotes I don't recall being in the original...

In other news, I just sold my story "Kill Me Again" to the anthology CHICAGO OVERCOAT from Susurrus Press. If you like your hard-boiled detectives served with a dollop of Mahayana Buddhism on a bed of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, this one's for you...

Matthew

Best served cold

2009-01-16T08:58:00.001-06:00

Hey, I forgot to post a preview of "The Coldest War"! Here it is:

"I may be gone for some time," Gord had said.
It was their only joke, Oates' last words as he left Scott's shelter in Antarctica, and like everything else in the base it had been worn smooth with use and re-use: Stan and Gord each said it before leaving the base, every time they went out to walk the inuksuit and fire the flare, their way of laughing at the dark.
The whole island was just over a kilometer square; on a good day, Defence had calculated the whole circuit would take just over three hours. The problem was that Hans Island had no good days. At this time of year there were hardly any days at all: only a little over an hour of grey twilight around noon, the remaining time given over to the endless Arctic dark.
Stan glanced at his watch, put down his book and went to start the Coleman stove. Though it was substantially warmer within Base Hearn than outside, where kerosene turned thick and white as lard, it still took the stove a few minutes to heat up; while he waited Stan unpacked two dozen frozen Tim Hortons doughnuts and a can of coffee. It was a challenge, getting the six thousand calories they needed each day, but the doughnuts and coffee were more than a contribution towards that: the two half-hour overlaps between their shifts were the only time either of them saw another human being each day, and the ritual helped them pretend that they were back in the real world -- not planting a frozen toehold for Canada in a place so remote even the Inuit considered it uninhabitable.
Before long the stove was hissing with a bright blue flame, but Gord had not returned. Stan checked his watch: 14:35, just five minutes late -- six hours was normally enough time to get from base to base, but with the storm he could hear howling outside it might easily take more. He turned the stove low, just hot enough to keep the fuel liquid, picked up the one-volume Deptford Trilogy and started reading, careful not to lose Gord's place.
It was around 14:45 when Stan checked his watch again, and he decided to brew the coffee and fry the first dozen doughnuts. He had to give himself a good ten minutes to suit up, not to mention warming his hands enough that he could stand to insert the catheter, so he unsealed the pack of frozen doughnuts and tossed them in the skillet. The smell quickly filled the small space, the fat surrounding each doughnut melting and starting to sizzle, and when the coffee aroma joined it Stan could almost imagine he was home.
When another ten minutes had passed he began to worry. Gord was now almost a half-hour late, and Stan began to wonder if something had happened to him. Of course, he might just be holed up in Base Franklin; they were under strict radio silence -- anything battery-powered died within a week in this cold, anyway, and their hand-crank radios could receive but not send -- so there was no way to communicate between the two bases, just thirty-five meters apart as the goose flew. No way, for that matter, to send a cry for help.
Stan sighed, drank the last of his coffee; a layer of frost had already begun to creep inwards from the rim of the mug. "Sorry, Gord," he said as he shut off the stove's low flame, hoping the fuel would not have time to thicken again before Gord got back. He pulled his undersuit off the hook, stepped to the middle of the room where he could stand up straight and stepped into it, cotton and Kevlar covering everything but his mouth and eyes. Then he popped a bulb of hydrating gel into his mouth, minty and medicinal, and stepped to the first door of the heatlock.
He reached towards the emergency override before stopping himself. If something had happened to Gord -- if he wasn't just late, hadn't just decided to wait out the weather at Base Franklin -- what if it hadn't been an accident? What if there was a Dane out there?

Hot and cold

2009-01-16T08:41:00.003-06:00

Right in the midst of the coldest cold snap in recent memory (it's actually warmer in Yellowknife today than it is here in Ottawa) the latest issue of Asimov's has hit the stands, containing my story of Arctic paranoia "The Coldest War." Buy two copies so you'll have one to burn for warmth!

A few reviews are in already, ranging from fair to good:

I actually impressed IROSF's Lois Tilton last time, so I think I won't ever get to do it again: she gives the story an OK review but has some plausibility complaints. (She always does an excerpt from my stories, though, so I must be doing something right.) No link, if you're really determined to see it you can find it for yourself.

Quick but positive review from SFRevu's Sam Tomaino, who writes "Matthew Johnson's "The Coldest War" will chill your bones because it takes place in the frozen north, an island in dispute between Canada and Denmark. Stan is one of two Canadians stationed up there and must fire a flare every day to prove they inhabit the island. Johnson's fashions a good little tale of survival."

And the best comes from The Fix's Val Grimm (also a big "Lagos"-booster) who writes "In almost six months of reviewing this magazine, I’ve read some really remarkable work. But this is the first time that what I’ve read in Asimov’s has wriggled its way into my dreams, where I found myself knee-deep in the freezing darkness of “The Coldest War.”"

If I were a better person I'd stop there, but I can't resist quoting some more: "Read this story and you will feel cold and alone in a world where the strategic significance of islands in the once perpetually frozen Northwest Passage causes conflict between historically placid nations (the title is clever too). Honestly, the rationale for his story is unimportant in the final analysis: Johnson shows his craft in the masterful claustrophobia, paranoia, and formless threat with which he surrounds protagonist and reader, alone in the dark trying to survive while assailed by faceless enemies and a hostile environment."

Not bad!

Stuff upcoming

2008-12-12T12:54:00.003-06:00

Sorry for the long hiatus, anyone who's reading this, but it's been a busy time at my paying job -- check out the link to Talk Media Blog to see why. (Plus of course the continuing adventures of a certain Mr. Leo.) For now, here's a reminder that the February issue of Asimov's, which includes my story "The Coldest War," will be on the racks around December 20th, just in time to be the perfect stocking stuffer. Also, some big news likely coming in the new year. Stay tuned...

Matthew

You're the top

2008-10-22T15:07:00.001-05:00

Libertas in Silico, a review of free online fiction, has named the Clonepod podcast of Outside Chance its first Top Pick, saying "In an uncertain world, time-traveling “forecasters” scope out the wonders and terrors of the future, but it’s what they don’t bring back to “now” that makes all the difference. Professional-quality audio SF from a podcast run by kids? You betcha — it’s not just good (for their age), it’s good (period)."

Attack of the clones (or, how to succeed in writing without really trying)

2008-10-11T10:18:00.002-05:00

Despite not doing any non-work-related writing for awhile (see previous post for the reason why) I've managed to keep my name out there through reprints, translations and now... an audio version of my story "Outside Chance," available here at Clonepod.

Meanwhile, "Lagos" has set two new records: for shortest time between initial publishing and sale as a reprint, and quickest-ever response to a submission -- I sent it to Expanded Horizons, a new webzine, and got an acceptance the next day.

Welcome to Earth. Bring a book.

2008-08-26T08:59:00.003-05:00

Welcome to Leo Gillis Johnson, born on August 2, 2008!

I'm on TV

2008-07-21T11:46:00.002-05:00

... talking about whether The Dark Knight is appropriate for kids. (This is a day job thing, not a writing thing.) You can see the segment here if you're reading this within a few days of when I post it.

Matthew

On the racks: "Lagos"

2008-07-06T15:41:00.002-05:00

I just picked up the August issue of Asimov's, containing my story "Lagos." It's gotten good reviews so far, so I hope people enjoy it. Here's a preview:

Safrat liked being a vacuum cleaner. Of all the jobs she might be given, it was her favorite: she liked to see in the rich peoples' homes, even if her point of view was only three inches off the ground. It was light work, too, not like digging earth or handling barrels of toxic waste. That shouldn't have made a difference but it did, at the end of the day when the motor-muscles she didn't have ached beyond words.
The amber warning lit up: only half an hour left in her shift. She switched to light suction and began moving more swiftly around the floor, scanning for any spots she might have missed or where dust might have settled since she started. The foreman, Adegoke, had said that a house could never be clean enough for the rich people. If they were not satisfied then there would be no more demand for workers from Lagos, and the telepresence booths the government had built with World Bank money would sit idle. It was up to workers like her, he had said, to do a good enough job that even the rich white people would be satisfied.
She had just finished her inspection when the red warning lit, and she started to disengage from the vacuum and return to full wakefulness. You could not work the machines, even the very simple ones like vacuum cleaners, when you were entirely awake: you shuddered and jolted and made stupid mistakes, as if you were thinking about every step while you walked. Many of the workers drank palm wine or smoked India hemp before their shifts to get into the proper state of mind, but Safrat found it came naturally to her if she chose one simple task to start with and did it slowly and rhythmically. Like the others, though, she was always muzzy after a shift, and she was glad her brother Paul was able to meet her and guide her home.
It was only five months they had been in Lagos. The city was for the ambitious, and neither of them was that: they had been happy to tend battery trees in the country, up north of Ilorin, until the state energy company had chosen their village as the site of the new transmission station. After that there was no choice for either of them but to go to the city like all the rest, try to find a relation who would help with a job and a place to live. They had found a cousin, an oga named Tinubu, who had quickly gotten Safra the telepresence job -- they preferred to hire women for some reason -- but could only find casual work for Paul, hustling and running for him. This meant that while Safra gave Tinubu only a quarter of her salary Paul had to give half of whatever he made, since he could not be relied on to bring in anything at all.

Matthew

Feedback

2008-07-04T18:00:00.002-05:00

Two new positive reviews today: the first from Nick Gevers in Locus, who makes "Lagos" one of the month's Recommended stories, saying "Johnson deftly evokes the African reality of simultaneous -- abrupt, jarring, yet peculiarly harmonious -- tradition and modernity."

The second review is from Lois Tilton in the Internet Review of Science Fiction (registration required, but it's free) from whom I've finally managed to wring Recommended status. In a very spoiler-heavy review she calls it "a commentary on exported jobs and outsourced labor, and the gap between rich and poor, exploited and victims, in tomorrow's global economy."

Matthew

O Canada

2008-06-30T08:11:00.003-05:00

Okay, Canada Day is tomorrow, but I (like all good Canadians) will be at the cottage, so here's my Canada Day post: I just sold my story "The Coldest War" to Asimov's. Why is that my Canada Day post? Because it's my most Canadian story yet, with references to Tim Hortons, Robertson Davies and the Franklin expedition wrapped up in a near-future story about the front lines in an undeclared war between Canada and Denmark! As well as being the most Canadian story I've ever written, it's also the most hard-SF I've ever gone -- it started out as a parody of military SF, but took its own path to something completely different. Not sure when it'll be out yet -- I'm hoping it'll be in early 2009, because I don't have anything sold for that year yet.

Matthew

Holy moly!

2008-06-26T18:02:00.002-05:00

After complaining (tongue-in-cheek, to be sure) about the lack of pull-quotes in recent reviews, I was amazed to see a review of "Lagos" by Val Grimm in The Fix that consists of almost nothing but pull-quotes. You can read the whole thing here, but here are my favourites:

“'Lagos' is my favorite piece in this issue, an engrossing and unusual cyberpunk yarn."
"Matthew Johnson skillfully imbues his near-future Nigeria with reality; futuristic, telepresently controlled devices and an extensive use of touch screens coexist with more familiar modern institutions like cube-farms, firewalls, and tech offshoring, which have not yet made inroads in equatorial Africa."
"This is exactly the sort of carefully set, tonally unified, globally aware, and downright unique story I’d like to see more often."

It's hard to ask for a better response than that. Thanks, Val!

PS: Big news coming for Canada Day, once eyes are crossed and Ts dotted. Stay tuned.

Matthew

Yard sale finds

2008-06-09T09:34:00.002-05:00

Charles de Lint's yard sale did not disappoint, as I was able to pick up copies of almost every book I've been looking for: Michael Swanwick's Dragons of Babel, Gene Wolfe's Pirate Freedom, Greg Keyes' The Born Queen (now I can read the series -- I've been saving them 'til I got the last one), Robert Holdstock's The Broken Kings and my fellow Sidewise-nominee Jo Walton's Ha'Penny (I actually took the bus to work today instead of biking in part so I could read more of Farthing). I also picked up a pile of great comics including the collection of Tim Truman's Hawkworld.

Disappointed to see two books with stories of mine -- Tesseracts Ten and Triangulation: End of Time -- being sold. Well, we all have only so much room on our bookshelves.

Matthew

And another

2008-06-06T17:54:00.003-05:00

review of "Another Country," this time is BestSf.net. The reviewer, Mark Watson, is very positive about the whole issue, without any specific pull-quote about my story, but I thought he did a very nice job summing up what the story was about: "Is it better to be a stranger in a safe land, or at home in your own dangerous land?"

Off to Charles de Lint's yard sale tomorrow!

Matthew

Two milestones

2008-06-05T14:27:00.002-05:00

Milestone the first: my very first appearance in the front matter of Locus, among the nominees for the Sidewise Award. (Of course, this being Locus, the front matter is continued on page 67...)

Milestone the second: the very first review of "Lagos" has appeared in SFRevu. The reviewer, Sam Tomaini, gives all of the stories in the issue a Very Good rating, but just gives a plot summary of "Lagos." Doesn't he know we writers need pull quotes?

Matthew

Highly Irregular

2008-05-27T08:47:00.002-05:00

It's easy -- and fun! -- to make fun of Google's automatic translations, but given the theme and content of "Irregular Verbs" I couldn't resist posting the translation of a review of it, originally written in Czech (for the Czech version in Trochu Divne Kusy 3):

"The last representative javorového sheet is Matthew Johnson with povídkou Irregular verbs. Smrt milovaného protějšku je těžké břemeno. Death beloved counterpart, it is difficult burden. Existuje způsob, jak si na něj uchovat stálou vzpomínku, aniž by nedrásala duši, ale působila potěchu z vlastního, společného jazyka? Is there a way to keep him on a permanent memory, without nedrásala soul, but she potěchu own, a common language? Pěkný, originální námět, který autor rozpracoval do přiměřeně dlouhého počtu stran – o to více zapůsobí. Nice, the original idea, which the author developed into an adequate number of parties - the more reasons. "

I think the reviewer liked it, but I'm not sure... any Czech-fluent readers out there who want to clue me in?

Matthew

They love me in France

2008-05-21T14:56:00.002-05:00

... well, Russia, actually: my story "Another Country" will be translated and reprinted in the magazine Esli ("If"), which I'm told is Russia's oldest science fiction and fantasy magazine. "Another Country" also received a nice review in Spiral Galaxy, which called it "a good story, with an unexpectedly ambiguous ending."

Matthew