My short story, "Ransom and the Open Window" has been reprinted in Neo-Opsis Magazine #35. It is the third story in my Ransom and Friends urban fantasy series, but was the first to be published, back in 2019, in First Line Literary Journal.
Friday, December 29, 2023
Wednesday, November 01, 2023
Fami's Watch Reprinted
Australia's Antipodean SF #301 (Nov 1, 2023) has reprinted my flash story "Fami's Watch", which originally appeared in Polar Borealis #20, Dec 2021.
(Photo: actual "Never Ending Time Electronic Braclet" from Techwear -- about $42 CND. Does not come with AI personality.)
Thursday, October 26, 2023
"Misdial" Published in Flash Fiction Online
My flash story, "Misdial",is up today at Manawaka Studios, Flash Fiction Podcast.
The story originally appeared in Active Voice/Voix active, the Editors Canada newsletter, Spring/Summer, 2019, and reprinted in Metastellar March 8, 2021.
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Three Drabbles Published
Monday, October 23, 2023
Guest of Honour Speech Re-Podcast
I've just noticed that When Words Collide republished an excerpt from my 2016 Keynote on their August "Collision Reconstructed" podcast.
https://whenwordscollide.libsyn.com/2023-006-collision-reconstruction-life-hacks
I'm not entirely sure how my curmudgeonly opening qualifies as a "Life-hack" but still happy to be included along with Jack Whyte and Leanne Shirtliffle.
(The rest of my speech was hopefully more positive than this excerpt...my concluding prognosis was that things were actually pretty good for the long term. Original, complete speech here: https://whenwordscollide.libsyn.com/2016-004-goh-robert-runte )
Sunday, October 15, 2023
New Drabble Published
My drabble, "Cabin Fever" was published in Fairfield ScribesMicro #34. This was their contest issue, and my story received an honourable mention. You have to scroll down to find my story, but the winners are well worth reading. (I particularly related to the 1st-place winner. A nice summation of what I was trying to do in my short story, "Time in the Garden" in Lamp Lit Underground Vol. 6, (2021) pp. 8-12.)
Saturday, September 30, 2023
The Bad Day Book Published
My writer friends might want to note that there are many more volumes planned for the future (assuming always this one sells, but it's the sort of book one could see being sold at Costco or Walmart, so I'm assuming they will be a go.) The contract is very similar to the rights Chicken Soup of the Soul asks for, so that may disqualify the market for some writers, but they do accept old blog posts, which gives these pieces a significantly larger audience than the 7 people subscribed to my blog. The editor, Amilee Weaver Selfridge, is a delight to work with.
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Fami's Dissertation Defense Republished
[The story originally appeared in Ripples in Space Magazine (which appears to have been inactive since 2020)].
Friday, September 15, 2023
My review of Matthew Hughes' Cascor
My review of Matthew Hughes' lastest short story collection, Cascor, is up at The Ottawa Review of Books (now in its 10th year!"
https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/single-post/cascor-by-matthew-hughes
Wednesday, September 06, 2023
New Short Story in Occult Detective Magazine
My short story, "An Isolated Case" has been published in Occult Detective Magazine
Monday, July 24, 2023
My Itinerary for When Words Collide, August 4-6, Delta South, Calgary
I'm looking forward to attending When Words Collide in Calgary August 4-6. I'm currently slotted on the following events:
Friday 1 PM - Practice Pitch: People hoping to pitch to acquisiton editors/agents later in the conference get to practice and get feedback from me first.
Friday 3 PM Working with an Editor panel
Fireside
Friday 4 PM -Writer/Editor Speed Mingle: like speed dating, editors/writers meet each other for 5 minutes each
Atrium commons
Saturday 2 PM - Why Are Zombies Essential to a Writer’s Group? panel session
Waterton
Saturday 4 PM - What are SFF Editors Looking For? panel
A-Waterton
Sunday 10 AM - Blue Pencil Cafe: quick feedback on opening pages -requires sign up
Jasper
Sunday 4 PM B- - Multiculturalism in 2023
Canmore
I will also be hanging out the rest of the con to meet people etc.
Friday, July 21, 2023
My Latest Drabble
My new drabble, "Deja Vu" is up at Fairfield ScribesMicro #31. https://www.fairfieldscribes.com/issue-31.html/"
Saturday, June 17, 2023
My review of Sally McBride's "Fragrance of Orchids and Other Stories"
Wednesday, May 31, 2023
My Story "Inuksuk" Reprinted Online by Metastellar
Sunday, May 28, 2023
My Drabble, "Staked to the Stars" Published in Microfiction Monday Magazine
Friday, May 19, 2023
Round Table on Canadian SF&F — On Spec Magazine
Of possible interest: "Canada in Conversation – SFF from the Global South to the Meeting Point of all Worlds"
By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD up at On Spec Magazine https://onspec.ca/a-round-table-conversation-about-canadian-science-fiction-and-fantasy/
A long exchange with Emad with myself and other Canadian SF authors. Someone needs to write a book, though.
My own comments are thin on Quebec SF and newer writers--I even missed many of the old established authors--but still of possible interest.
My Review of The Crystal Key by Douglas Smith
[Originally published in Ottawa Review of Books.]
If you've already read The Hollow Boys (Book 1 in the Dream Rider saga), you don't need me to tell you to buy the sequel (except to say that it was published in March and is now available). If you are new to the trilogy, Smith insists that you read Book 1 first: this is a single mystery written across three books, with Book 2, The Crystal Key, picking up directly a few weeks after the climactic events of The Hollow Boys. Although Smith provides some backstory, the reader must keep the momentum going from Book 1 to land in The Crystal Key.
With The Hollow Boys, I was slow to realize I was reading a text-based superhero story; knowing that, Smith surprised me again with The Crystal Key, tapping into my deep nostalgia for Saturday matinee serials. The opening scene in particular put me right in the middle of episode 12 of, say, Radar Men from the Moon. Or, if you grew up a few generations later, the banquet scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Smith manages to perfectly capture the summer I was 13, hunkered down on the basement couch reading The Black Dwarf of Outer Mongolia - only without the overt racism and stilted dialogue of that era . . . or the banquet scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Smith manages to update the genre with an ethnically diverse cast and strong female characters. Smith's take on superheroes and serials is both modern and original, but it recreates the same energy, the same yearning for superpowers, the same subconscious fear of dark places and boogeymen as the best stories of our own remembered youth. High adventure leavened with romance and mystery. Perfect for any 13-year-old looking for a summer read, or any 70-year-old looking to be 13 again for a while.
As the title suggests, the McGuffin here is an ancient crystal, the key to the mysterious disappearance of our hero's parents, his own superpowers, and the various factions vying to kill him. Finding it, figuring out what it does, how it works, who else wants it, what they want it for, and what they are willing to do to get it, keeps things moving at a fast clip. No spoilers, so all I can say about the plot is that it involves the multiverse, astral travel, ancient cults, hypnotic powers, criminal gangs, private mercenaries, romance, and betrayal. In other words, the whole 1950-60s Saturday matinee movie package.
The other thing Smith nails perfectly is the outside observer. Effective mysteries have to lead the hero(s) through a series of incremental steps to a point where they (and now the audience) know what's going on, but no one else could possibly believe it. The really great versions, as here, introduce the "Wait, what?" character, the outsider who arrives late in the story and, lacking those earlier experiences, is suitably discombobulated often to comic effect. Smith's subplot of the intrepid reporter confronted with an inexplicable-and ultimately unreportable-story is a textbook example of this outsider-observer technique.
My only complaint is that, for the sake of brevity, Smith occasionally lapses into explaining what various characters are feeling rather than showing us. This is especially noticeable with the two leads, who are constantly worrying about their relationship with the other -- but to be fair, I was probably that obsessed with relationships at that age, so okay, I'm willing to give Smith a pass on that one.
Overall, great fun. While it is common for the middle of a novel, or the middle book of a trilogy, to drag a bit, that is definitely not the case here. The Crystal Key has everything that made The Hollow Boys work and turns it up a few notches. I can't wait for the conclusion in The Lost Expedition, which is coming soon.
[Boo1 in the Dream Rider Series was shortlisted for an Aurora Award in the YA category.]
Sunday, April 16, 2023
My Review of Murdering Mr. Edwards
...is up at Ottawa Review of Books for April, 2023.
https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/single-post/murdering-mr-edwards-by-shawn-l-bird
https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/single-post/murdering-mr-edwards-by-shawn-l-bird
Saturday, April 15, 2023
Drabble "Spellcheck" published.
I find I'm only getting time to write the occasional drabble (stories exactly 100 words) these days, but it's fun and keeps my hand in, as it were. "Spellcheck" is a silly fantasy piece; the title tells it all.
Spellcheck" in Scribesmicro #28
(you have to scroll a few pages to get to mine)
Wednesday, April 05, 2023
Dave Duncan Gets Posthumous Two-Book Deal with Shadowpaw Press
 The Late Dave Duncan Canadian Author |  Edward Willett Shadowpaw Press |  Robert Runté Editor |
From Shadowpaw Press (Edwart Wilett):
I'm thrilled to announce that Shadowpaw Press has obtained the rights to publish two previously unpublished novels by the late, great Canadian author Dave Duncan, one of the first authors I met in the field, long before I was a published novelist--he gave a reading at the Saskatchewan Science Centre while I was communications officer there. Edited by Robert Runte, THE TRAITOR'S SON and CORRIDOR TO NIGHTMARE will be released late this year or early in 2024.
THE TRAITOR’S SON
"They know the world is dying, but they hope not in their lifetimes. Meanwhile, they’re top dogs and will do anything to stay that way."Doig Gray is fifteen when his father is killed in a mining accident, which Doig comes to realizes was no accident. Torn from his mother and sister, Doig is sent off to college, his every movement monitored in case he has inherited his dissident father’s unacceptable attitudes . . . or passwords. Doig has nothing but his own sense that there’s something desperately wrong with the world—and a last name that evokes the assumption that he’s destined to be the next traitor-hero.
THE TRAITOR'S SON is a science fiction novel about a colony world where everything that could go wrong already has. Stuck on the wrong world at the wrong site, with the wrong leaders, the colony is doomed to extinction unless immediate steps are taken to correct—everything. But 500 years of hiding from the reality of their situation has created an unchallengeable status quo—and the Accident Squad determined to ensure it remains that way.
CORRIDOR TO NIGHTMARE
When one life ends, another begins.
After forty years as the village school teacher in the idyllic valley of Greenbottom, Agatha is looking forward to a quiet retirement. Instead, an enigmatic stranger arrives to drag her through a long-closed portal to another world.
Confronted with a completely foreign culture steeped in magic and violence, Agatha finds herself a crucial pawn being played between rival factions. The only way forward through the rigid traditions and convoluted politics of the Archons of Otopia is to remain true to herself and her Greenbottom ideals.
The agent for the deal was Wayne Arthurson of The Rights Factory.
Perfect Rendition of "Day Three"
http://manawaker.com/podcast/day-three-ffp-0807/
Originally published in Pulp Literature #21 and repinted in Metastellar, Sept 3, 2021 and The Best of Metastellar's First year, July, 2022.
Wednesday, March 15, 2023
My Review of The New Empire by Alison McBain
My review of the parallel world/alternate history novel, The New Empire by Alberta author Alison McBain is up at Ottawa Review of Books, March 2023. 
https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/single-post/the-new-empire-by-alison-mcbain
The same issue of ORB also includes a review of Leslie Gadallah's The Legend of Sarah from Shadowpaw Reprise, which I also highly recommend.
Thursday, February 16, 2023
My "Speed Dating" Drabble Published
Fairfield ScribesMicro #26 includes my micro fiction (drabble) SF piece, "Speed Dating".
Saturday, February 11, 2023
Review of Noah Chinn's Lost Souls
My review of Noah Chinn's Lost Souls is up at The Ottawa Review of Books
https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/single-post/lost-souls-by-noah-chinn
Tuesday, January 10, 2023
Review of Matt Hughes' Ghost Dreams
My review of Matthew Hughes latest, Ghost Dreams is up at Ottawa Review of Books for January: https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/single-post/ghost-dreams-by-matthew-hughes.
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