Robert H. Beer's Web Page
Breaking News
Last Update: Feb 2003
******My story "Waking the Dead" did not, unfortunately, win the Aurora Award (Canada's version of the Hugos) for 2001. It was still an honour to be nominated for such a prestigious award. My congratulations to Julie Cznerda, who collected enough votes to claim both the Long and Short-form categories. Better luck to the rest of us next year. If you'd like to see all the results, go to the Aurora Awards website. ****** My novel "Turing Test" is complete and is with Teresa Neilsen Hayden at Tor. I'm hoping for some good news soon. I'm currently 10,000 words into my next book. It will be something completely different (nudge, nudge, wink, wink.)******
Stuff I Just Thought Of
I sat on two panels at Ad Astra in Toronto last year, a first for me. It was a good experience, and I'll be at Ad Astra again this year. Hope to see some old friends there.
In October of 2001 I had the opportunity to attend Viable Paradise V, a week-long writers' workshop held on Martha's Vineyard, Mass. It was a wonderful week (thanks partly to my roommates and new friends Darren and John. The instructors were Patrick and Teresa Neilsen Hayden, Jim MacDonald and Debra Doyle, James Patrick Kelly and Stephen Gould (no, not Stephen *Jay* Gould). They were all very knowledgeable and friendly. I'd recommend the workshop to anyone for whom the six week workshops are out of the question.
Another opportunity to join with friends in the SF community will be at Torcon 3, the 61st annual WorldCon in 2003 in Toronto. If you haven't had a chance to visit Toronto before, this is a great excuse. My family had a ball in Chicago in 2000. Even if you have visited before, a Worldcon is different than you average con, and not just in size.
I've been scribbling science fiction for about fifteen years now, in any sort of an organized way.
At first, it was on an ancient Olivetti typewriter, which is still in my basement, providing balast for a set of shelves. (It could provide balast for an ocean liner, come to think of it.) Then through an electric, to an electronic, to finally an actual computer.
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Science fiction, mainly. I'm not much on all the new sub-divisions ("slipstream", give me a break. If you have a good definition of that one, let me know.), since on any given day, an author can, and should, write in several or many of them. I suppose if you only wrote novels, you could possibly stick to one, but for shorts, I can't think of anything more boring (or stifling). So, call it soft SF, soft fantasy, whatever. It varies. Read it.
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Well, I'm presently 20,000 words into a near-future novel with sinister AI's, a lazy protagonist, and a petite blond courier. Also terrorism, a shrunken United States, and deep sea fishing. I'll keep you posted.
I'm also working on a children's book with a SF format. I'm also debating signing up for the Viable Paradise writers' workshop on Martha's Vinyard this fall, just to make some contacts. Clarion, being six weeks long, isn't an option.
It's growing all the time, and as time goes by, I'm breaking into markets that are important to me. First, which is not an actual publication, is as a semi-finalist for the L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest, which I highly recommend to new writers. I've also been a top-ten finalist in the Science Fiction Writers of Earth contest. There's a link is below. I think contests are valuable for new writers, because it gives you a time frame that you need to FINISH something. It's easy to tinker endlessly.
Published Short Fiction:
- The Rainy Season, in the "North of Infinity" anthology, Micheal Magnini, editor, from Mosaic Press. You can order this book from Amazon.com
Or pick it up at any Chapters book store in Canada. Features stories by Robert Sawyer, Dave Nickle, Edo Van Belkom, and more!
- Growing Up Fast, November 1998, in the subscription E-mail publication Spaceways Weekly#13, Rigel D. Chiokis, editor
Growing Up Fast and Pandora's Box were picked by readers as two of the year's best fifteen stories. The year's best collection is available for *FREE* download from the Spaceways website through the link above.
- The Winning Spirit, in the March 1998 issue of the E-zine Eternity Online, Steve Algieri, editor. This story was reprinted in WP Kinsella's "Baseball Fantastic" in the spring of 2000.
- Pandora's Box, in Spaceways Weekly#34, April 1998
- Fields of Amethyst, in Spaceways Weekly#58, October 1998
- Power of Flight, in December 1998 from Anotherealm
- Tempest, in the February 2, 1999 issue of Jackhammer E-zine. It is also featured in this month's Writers Review, since I am their featured writer.
- Lump will be coming in the soon-to-be-published anthology "North of Infinity II"
- Images was published in E-scape #14, August 1999
- Food for the Hungry was published in Spaceways Weekly #104 during August of 1999. It was also in "The Best of Spaceways 1999".
- Into the Lion's Den in "Tales of the Unanticipated" #21 in the spring of 2000
- Waking Day in the winter 1999 issue of OnSpec
- The Other is in the millennium edition of Electric Wine in January of 2000.
- Wraiths appeared in the inaugural issue of the British E-zine This Way Up. It was an honour to be first.
- Pariah was published in Spaceways Weekly #150 in July 2000.
- It's not such a nice thing to be last. My friend Rigel Chiokis has decided to discontinue Spaceways Weekly after five years. My story Seeing Through the Trees was the final story to be published, although I hope Rigel will take it up again some day.
- Waking the Dead has been sold to OnSpec and appeared in the Fall 2001 issue. The story is also nominated for an Aurora Award. See the Made in Canada website below to see the story.
- Making Contact appears in AlienQ in March 2001. Of course, I never got paid for it, so it's not much of a credit. Sigh.
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Good question. My wife has wondered that for years. My personal belief is that ideas are constantly floating around us, combining and recombining into usable and not-so-usable story concepts. Some people call them dreams, or daydreams. Other people get locked up for believing them. Writers get paid to harvest them. We're just a little more receptive to them, and have a semi-respectable outlet for them. Does that help? One definite thing I've noticed is that work and idea generation seem to be mutually exclusive. I'm sure over the years I've come up with 80 percent of my story ideas during my few short weeks of holidays each year.
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I think I've covered that. If not, feel free to speculate.
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- Spaceways Weekly -- has sadly ended, but the site is still active. A bold new concept, which was before its time.
- Aspiring writers might think about joining the Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop -- a group of >400 other writers. The newsletter is now sent out as a .pdf file to save paper costs.
- Science Fiction Writers of Earth -- an organization dedicated to furthering international SF writing, with a great annual contest as well.
- OnSpec: The Canadian Magazine of Speculative Fiction
- Writers might want to enter the Writers of the Future Contest, a quarterly contest that provides BIG BUCKS to the winners, and publication in the popular anthology series. It also provides a series of useful deadlines to keep you writing.
- Torcon 3 -- The official site of the 61st WorldCon in 2003.
- Terry Hickman is a friend of mine with an interesting web page and some wonderful stories. I won't offer any comments on her taste in music, however.
- Ad Astra is the Toronto SF convention, with lots of good times.
- Viable Paradise is held on Martha's Vineyard in October each year. A well-run week with a chance to meet good people in the trade.
- The Made in CanadaWebsite. Monthly newsletters are available as well.
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My E-mail address is rhbeer@hotmail.com
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I'd like to thank the fine folks at Mirror, expecially Ken Roberts, for kindly providing this site.
Thanks for visiting, and please sign my guestbook. Drop by again -- there'll be lots of changes.
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