“Mistress of the Winds” is officially on the Aurora Awards ballot, in the Best Graphic Novel category. This is good news for the English version of Echofictions’ first ever graphic novel. The Aurora Awards celebrate the excellence of Science fiction and fantasy published in Canada.
There will be a voter package compiled, and downloadable. Shortly after it is released, voting will open mid-June. Members are able to download selections from the works under consideration so that they can inform their votes. More information on our voting process can be found here.
Only current members of CSFFA can vote in the Aurora Awards. To register as a CSFFA member, you pay 10$ to the association.
I learned that my SF novel is a finalist in the prestigious Trillium Book Awards, an Ontario distinction. It is a very media-covered prize, so that brought a lot of distractions. My SF novel, Le secret de Paloma (Paloma’s Secret) is finalist in the children’s books category. As the three books are aimed at teenagers/YA, the name children’s book can be a misnomer.
The Trillium Book Awards are managed by Ontario Creates / Ontario Créatif.
It is good to get this nomination, my third for this Award, especially as almost all my YA novels are Science fiction stories. Getting regularly nominated means that my story-telling is improving, as it will, I hope, as long as I keep writing and drawing. It is also a sign that science fiction is getting more acceptance as a literary endeavor.
Science fiction is exploration of different worlds and scientific possibilities that eventually will impact our lives. Like the proliferation of AI in our technologies, a manifestation that I explored in a short-story published in Solaris magazine’s last issue (in French).
Writers and artists have a lot to do to complete their tax return, as self-employed workers. So if you finished, have a cheery laugh at this page showing my plight. You may see by the year that it is not from yesterday… with all the paper forms. The webcomic was originally published in French, so I translated it fast to get it to you!
(For the non-Canadians, RRSP is a bit like a 401-k account)
I think 2022 has been my best publishing year so far, with a new graphic novel and publications in Asimov’s and Analog. Go check the Echofictions website for more info.
I have been very involved in family affairs and caring fo my dear mother (who is well by now, fingers crossed) so I lacked free time to promote my works, and the Kickstarter fundraising for a special edition of my new graphic novel.
This Kickstarter will land you a solid 6″ x 9″ hardcover edition of Mistress of the Winds, printed in Canada by real nice people. At 92 B&W pages, it will include many sketches and behind-the-scenes extracts. The digital and paperback editions are already out.
Genre: SF, Planet-opera, YA Length: 92 pages Interior pages in B&W All ages
Why a campaign?
Crowdfunding does help authors to bring visibility to their creations. A practical aspect is that the category publication/fiction draws lots of new readers, eager to find new books.
As an artist, I supported many of my creative colleagues’ projects, not only on Kickstarter, but on GoFundMe, Indigogo, Ulule… and I ended up with more books than I can possibly read!
So I discovered formidable writers, whose careers I am avidly following, thanks to their campaigns.
Why in English, if I am French-speaking?
That first campaign is in English because of my writer friends living in the US, who have encouraged me to pursue my writing and get better. really, without them, I would have cease to be a writer… and a comic artist!
Some digital and paper rewards will be in French as add-ons. I point to my friend and colleague Frank Fournier who did the colors of my cover. And I will eventually prep a campaign for a French hardcover edition, too.
When does it start?
On March 28. I do not have a very high ask, but it is essential that each participant to make a contribution in the first hours! A campaign that reaches its goal fast shines more brightly on the Kickstarter website.
Producing the intro video ! Reading a text in front of a camera doesn’t look natural. So I did my best to explain, share my project, without hiding my French accent. It took about six tries to find the right tone.
The project
With Mistress of the Winds, you will discover a richly-developed world populated with vivid and endearing characters. Follow young Adalou as she struggles against powerful foes and her own body’s limits in the most prestigious kite contest of the planet!
This YA graphic novel kidnaps you into an alien civilization so out of this world that you will want to know more about it… and zoom through the pages to devour this delicious coming-of-age story!
It’s a date: my first Kickstarter campaign
To know more about the le graphic novel, here are some news about Maîtresse des vents.
A word from Winter Holiday Spectacular 2022 editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch:
“The Skeptic and The Primrose” is set in England in the late nineteenth century. The story has echoes of Wells and Verne as well as a touch of Sherlockian brilliance… with heroines who manage to save the world (or their corner of it) while wearing corsets and petticoats.
This story will be up for one week only. Enjoy!
Just so you know beforehand: I don’t believe in time travel. Never have. Until…
***
London, December 21st, 1888
The conference had been set in the conservatory of the Royal Botanical Society’s Gardens in Regent’s Park, the air so stuffy with moisture for the exotic plants I felt my hair curling in Medusa-like wisps, escaping my carefully done bun. The temperature had convinced many in the first rows to pull off their shawls or overcoats. A few bright orange and yellow butterflies, ignoring the season outside their realm, fluttered from one exotic corolla to the next. The rich leafy scent and the trickle of water falling on a rock pond added a poetic note to the ambiance.
Those sounds and smells distracted me long enough to miss part of a question, uttered in a snarky tone by a middle-aged gentleman sporting an impressive handlebar mustache, the iron-gray tips waxed so rigid they could easily poke a too-inquisitive eye out. He sat in our front row next to Mother, his legs nonchalantly crossed in the free space ahead, exposing black dress shoes covered with whiter-than-white spats. Those kinds of too-clean shoes never went within an inch of the melted snow mixed with horse dung covering the streets.
(This story has been available from Dec. 18th to dec.25th)
THE END
Interested in this story?
There’s more on the WMG Holiday Spectacular 2022 Calendar of Short Stories
Michèle Laframboise is a Canadian SF writer, with more than 60 stories published. Her most recent story, I’ll Be Moon for Christmas, was feature on the Nov-December issue of Asimov’s SF Magazine. She is a fair low-level athlete runner, a lousy gardener, and avid birder. More on her official website here.
Michèle Laframboise is a bilingual French-Canadian author who has appeared in our magazine with a number of “chocolate-hard” stories over the last two years. Here she discusses her relationship with our magazine, the value of a good rejection letter, and the perils of the publishing industry. Read her latest story for Asimov’s, “I’ll Be Moon for Christmas,” in our [November/December issue, on sale now!]
Asimov’sEditor: How did the title of this piece come to you? Michèle Laframboise: “I’ll Be Moon for Christmas” is my 4th chocolate-hard science fiction story to be launched in Asimov’s. And, yes, the title and theme had been inspired by this unforgettable tune.
AE: How did this story germinate? ML: The story took form only gradually, like the slow accretion of small, haphazard asteroids into a planet. The first tiny speck of story-dust was a room, set…
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.
I’ll Be Moon for Christmas
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!
Meanwhile…
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 came to SF by reading the collections of short-stories on my father’s bookshelves. There was the Marabout collection (in French) of 1950s-1960s fantastic, SF and horror that got me acquainted with the genres. Reading a short-story gave me an open window on an author’s style, favorite themes and personal voice. It eventually guided me towards their longer works.
When you do not have a lot of free time, plunging in a 800-page saga that turns out to be disappointing (for any reason outside the author’s talent, like: not to your taste, or your favorite character dies to thicken the plot, or you’re not into space-faring, chocolate-sauce-gurgling vampires etc.)
Hence my own offering of short-story collections. As the number of my published works rises, I started to publish reprints in collections that won’t consume too much reading time, while giving a taste of my brand of science fiction. Most of those books are under 160 pages, their electronic edition easily affordable.
The two books on the ends are my collections in English ; the three others present my numerous French short-stories reunited under themes.
5 Hard and Crunchy SF Tales
Sink your teeth in those crunchy SF tales!
Welcome to the Big Bang Bar, where the playground of the ultra-rich spans whole solar systems. Follow a cyber-butterfly soaring over the scarred Earth, with strings attached! Watch a proud woman stranded in the pitiless Martian desert find her way out — or die trying. Discover why an alien ship must keep eternally shifting its parts. Or would you prefer to jump a few billions years forward to witness the end of our universe?
Five hard and crunchy science-fiction stories, cooked by multi-award winner Michèle Laframboise, with the help of translators Sheryl Curtis and N. R. M. Roshak for two of those stories.
Thinking inside te Box (2017) Compelling SF 7
Ice Monarch (2018) Abyss&Apex 67
Closing the Big Bang (2017) Fiction River no 21
Women are from Mars, Men are from Venus (2006), Tesseract 10, Edge publ.
What will happen when AIs write better, and faster, than writers? When Montreal freezes under the ice and the budget cuts, will solidarity hold? See humans gifted with eternal life experience a cruel reminder of their mortality. A termite woman whose life in the mines has lost value wants to live her last vacation. And what about the young people trapped in a generation-ship that is falling apart over the light-years?
Five dangerous visions of Sf author Michèle Laframboise.
Les âmes gelées (1999) recueil Transes Lucides, Ashem Fiction
Quand le dernier écrivain est mort (2014) Solaris 92
Petzis (2017) Solaris 203
Dernières vacances de la femme termite, Solaris 215
5 Histoires de SF douce et fondante (French collection)
On Mars, an augmented gorilla must protect the cyber-pollinators in his garden… and the morale of his human colleague. Elsewhere, a first contact stumbles on an advanced race that shuns numbers. A lonely biologist wants to discover the secret of migratory trees threatened by a project. The captain of a cargo ship on a diplomatic mission must go out of his way to convince a talkative door to open. Finally, after the climatic catastrophe, what are we ready to pay to make the Moon habitable?
Five science fiction stories that melt on the tongue, by author Michèle Laframboise. A cocktail of science, humour and tenderness.
A stomach technician experiences the pitfalls of living off the land, in the quest for a viable world. On Ganymede, a young girl receives an invasive lifeform for her eleventh birthday… A young heir discovers the exploited inhabitants behind a balmy resort planet. A weary cargo Captain deals with a stubborn door and a infected ship. On a luxury cruise ship, a lonely technician discover an eccentric lady, and an odd friendship blooms.
Five hard but hopeful science-fiction stories, cooked by multi-award winner Michèle Laframboise.
Essential Maintenance (2022) NeoOpsis 33
Moby Dick’s Doors (2022) in Space Opera Digest 2022 Have Ship, Will Travel
Echoes of a Sunday artist 