DOUGLAS SMITH | Writing the Fantastic

Here's my schedule of panels and readings for this year's WorldCon (World Science Fiction convention), Anticipation 2009, in Montreal, Aug 6-10. I've added the times when I'll be signing at the SF Canada table. Hope to see you there!

And yet another great review for my first collection, Impossibilia, and its lead story "Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by Van Gogh," this one from Matt Cardin in the review magazine Dead Reckonings (No. 5, Spring 2009). Here's what he says:

On Impossibilia:
"Both thematically and stylistically, these stories sometimes recall the work of better known authors, including Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon, and Ray Bradbury. But Smith puts such a personal stamp on his stories, and invests them with such depth of feeling, that they transcend the dangers of … imitation and emerge as wholly original. … There is a certain exhilaration that comes from reading the book’s complex and powerfully emotional stories couched in that deft and smooth prose. It is easy to see why PS Publishing considers Smith an author who deserves more attention. … [Smith deserves] to be known to by a very wide audience indeed."

Here's my schedule of panels, readings and signing for this weekend's annual and excellent Polaris 2009 convention in Toronto (formerly Toronto Trek). They have, as always, a number of great media guests, but they've continued the trend of recent years of including a very good literary track as well. Lots of author guests, of which I'm one. Hope to see you there!

Friday July 10:

• 7:00pm – Panel: "Neil Gaiman, Cultmaster or Literary Phenomenon?"

Saturday July 11:

"Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by van Gogh" is the lead story in my collection, Impossibilia, and like Impossibilia, is also nominated for the 2009 Aurora Awards. Here are some new reviews of "Bouquet":

"the pièce de résistance of the collection and one of the best and most moving novellas I have read in a while. Haunting and evocative... Just astounding. ..."

I just came across a couple more great reviews for my Aurora-nominated collection Impossibilia:

"Rarely have I seen such an apt title to any book! Douglas Smith has given us three amazing stories that are so unusual and beautiful that no other name than Impossibilia could possibly describe this collection. Each tale was rapture and ecstasy, magical and mysterious, perfect and implausible. In short, I loved them all from the first word to the last. ... I don’t know what else to say without spoiling things for you so I won’t say anything else, except READ THIS BOOK!!!"

— Jim Dodge Jr., Mass Movement Magazine, May 2009

"Impossibilia is a treasure to be savoured, like gourmet chocolates and fine wine. It includes three superb stories…each beautifully written and wondrously imagined. It took me several days to get through this book. Not because it is in any way difficult to read--far from it and quite the opposite: the stories in this collection are so wonderful, I wanted to take time to digest and enjoy each and every one."

— Rainbow Dragon Recommends, May 2009

You can read all the reviews for Impossibilia along with excerpts of all the stories via the links below:

On Saturday, April 25, I was a guest author and panelist at GenreCon, the annual one-day literary genre convention in Sarnia, hosted by the Sarnia Library and organized by Jeff Beeler and Ellen Dark. This year, Jeff arranged to have some of the GenreCon authors appear on Friday, the night before the con, at Spoken Word, an open microphone event held monthly at the Lawrence House Centre for the Arts in downtown Sarnia. I was joined by mystery writers Vicki Delany (left) and Jean Rae Baxter (pictured here with Jeff and myself).

I'm posting periodic updates on Twitter at twitter.com/smithwritr. I'm using the ping.fm service, which allows me to post an update once and have it automatically posted to multiple social media sites, including FB, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, and ident.ca. So if you're already following me on one of those, no need to add another. It's an experiment, but it does make it easier to get quick updates out regarding appearances, cool links, marketing updates.

What can I say? They really seem to like it. Writer Erik Buchanan adds his thoughts about my collection, Impossibilia in his blog. You can find links to all the reviews for Impossibilia and to excerpts from the stories here.

Liviu Suciu at Fantasy Book Critic has added a review of Impossibilia, my 2009 Aurora-nominated short fiction collection. Liviu uses Impossibilia to kick off a new series of mini-reviews "in the spirit of showcasing less well known recent sff works that truly impressed me."

Here's what he had to say about the collection:

I finally came across a review of my story "Doorways," which first appeared in Postscripts 17 in December and is currently nominated for the 2009 Aurora Awards. Here's what Kelly Jensen had to say in her review on SF Crowsnest:

"A couple months ago I was introduced to Douglas Smith by way of his collected short stories (also by PS Publishing), 'PS Showcase #5: Impossibilia'. So I was looking forward to his story 'Doorways' and was not disappointed.