Eileen Bell

Ryan McFadden did a nice write up on the win, so I won’t go into it here.  It was exciting, overwhelming, unbelievable — and we didn’t know enough NOT to crash the dead dog party, so obviously we still have lots more to learn.  My aunt endeared herself to all the “boys and girls” on the 15th floor — I will never forget this huge guy — Wookie like in my memory — walking up to me and giving me a high five.  “Your aunt is AWESOME!”  Yes, she is.

And then we came home.  My husband had been receiving increasingly panicky phone calls the whole time we were in Winnipeg — the last one was on Sunday, and the words “Do I need to get on a plane?” struck fear into my heart.  Winnipeg is a LONG way from Edmonton when you are Eileen, who hates driving, and who has to get the truck back home.  Luckily everyone calmed down long enough for us to hit the road — together — and head back.

We did it in one day.  Good drive, actually, and my husband even let me take the Alpha seat for a couple of hours.  The last Tims we hit was at Lloydminster — a town that straddles the Alberta Saskatchewan border, where we had spent many, many weekends watching our daughter play softball.  (And now the joke.  “There is NOTHING soft about that game!”)

We had both the awards in the back seat, and they tinkled — sometimes gently, sometimes not — depending on the condition of the road.  We made a lot of increasingly goofy jokes about “the twins” as the miles rattled under our wheels, until finally, we pulled into Edmonton, and then our driveway.  I can’t begin to tell you how glad I was to see that little round house and the raggedy overgrown grass.

Our daughter, who had been good enough to look after the animals,  burst out of the house, thrilled to see us — and thrilled about the wins.  (Competitor, after all.  Knows how nice it is to bring home hardware.) We talked for a bit, convinced her to stay one more night (so we didn’t have to drive another kilometer that day) and went to bed, exhausted.

We were all up early the next morning.  Husband had to fix all the damage wrought over the weekend (remember those phone calls?  Everyone who made them remembered!) and daughter had to be taken to work.  Then, I finally had the house to myself.  Nice.

I saw that Ryan had posted about the first day, and thought it was a pretty good idea.  So I did more or less the same thing.  A maudlin little piece about Dad — but it read well enough that I left it.  Then I milled about, not really ready to step back into my life, but not really ready to do much else.  (I didn’t even unpack.  Still haven’t, truth be told.)

The next day I went back to my blog, to add another day. And there were comments for the first post.  Cool.  I like it when people actually read this thing…

And one caught my eye.

Hi Eileen!

Congratulations on the award. I’ve been receiving congrats on your behalf – and thought I should pass them on!

Could you give me a call?

~Eileen Bell
630 CHED Radio

Yes!  The famous Eileen Bell from radio.  Talking to me!

This Eileen Bell has been on radio forever in this town, it seems.  And I have always had to endure the joke “So, are you the one on radio?”

“No,” I always reply.  “I am the other one.”

So I called her.  I could only imagine the look on the receptionist’s face when I asked for Eileen Bell, and she asked me who was calling.  “Eileen Bell,” I said.  The pause was long before she chimed “One moment please.”

And then I spoke to Eileen Bell.  Very cool.  Even cooler — she wants to interview me in July.  On being a writer — and being Eileen Bell.

I said yes.  Good grief, how could I not?  Here’s my five minutes of fame — and I get to share it with the other Eileen Bell.

Ha!

Hi ho.  Things got a little crazy here, so instead of blathering on about my adventures in Winnipeg, today I will post some wonderful pictures.  Enjoy!!

The Aurora Winners

Close up of the winners

The Apocalyptic Four with their Aurora

And here we are with our publisher, Brian Hades, at the Auroras!

The top two were sent to me by Chadwick Ginther, from McNally Robinson.  Thanks, Chadwick.

The second last one was taken by one of Billie’s workmates, and sent to me by Billie.  Thank you!

The last one was taken by my friend Barb Galler Smith at the Auroras.  Thanks, Barb.

I will post more as I get them, and I will continue to tell the story of Winnipeg, a bit at a time.  But tomorrow, Billie and I are off to Mountain View County, where we will be doing a presentation at the Word in the West Literacy Festival.  We expect to have a bunch of fun, are looking forward to it!

See?  The fun never stops!  I just forget to post about it, sometimes!

Ad Astra was a blast!  Had a chance to be on a couple of panels – Collaboration, and Time Management – and enjoyed them. (possibly more than the audience!)  I won’t go into any details, because, hey, they’re done!  Suffice to say, you shoulda been there!  You would have enjoyed them both.

Signed up for the small torture known as the Autograph Session while I was there.  At least Ryan and I got to sit while we watched  Rob Sawyer and Kelley Armstrong handle their various line ups.  Some day, some day, that will be us!

While we were there, Ryan had a chance to speak to the Bakka Phoenix people — and they have since agreed to carry the Women of the Apocalypse!  How cool is that?  So now, all you folks in Toronto can’t complain.  You can get our book!

Since I got back, I’ve been working feverishly on my next project.  Gutting and ripping the first draft at this point, but I’m starting to like what I have down.  (Starting being the key word, here.) Ryan has it right now… and though he, generally, is kind, I’m expecting some “butt kicking” because this story has to be taken up a notch.  Trying to write the thing around the chaos that was my life for the past few months didn’t work quite as well as I’d hoped, so I still have lots of work to do.  Luckily, I’m getting my spirit back, so I can do it.

Tomorrow (Saturday, April 17) we will be at the Stanley Milner Library in downtown Edmonton, flogging our books and congratulating the winners of the Alberta Readers Choice Awards.  It runs from 10 AM to 4 PM, and it should be fun.  Hey, I get to hang around with Barb Galler-Smith (Druids) for a while, and I haven’t done that in a long time.  It should be good.

I’m glad I’m back at work.  I missed it.

Women of the Apocalypse reviewed in Vue Weekly!  How cool is that?

Review here.

And remember, last week to be able to nominate Women of the Apocalypse and our novellas for Auroras. (And I just found out that Herman Lau, who did our cover, has his name in under artist.  Don’t forget him, if you like his work.  Link here.

It’s award time, and I have a couple of places I’d like you to go, and vote for my novella — and for the anthology, Women of the Apocalypse.

First one: http://www.critters.org/predpoll/antho.shtml

This is something called “Critters Workshop” and is an on-line workshop/critique group for serious writers of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.

If you don’t see Women of the Apocalypse on the list — add it to yours.  There is a space at the end for you to do this.  Publisher is Absolute Xpress, and add www.womenoftheapocalypse.com as the website.

Deadline is January 14th.

The second one is for the Auroras.

My story “Pawns Dreaming of Roses” and our anthology Women of the Apocalypse are both on the list for an Aurora, which is THE Canadian SF award.  I need some help getting these works to the short list.  This is where you come in.

Please go to this website, and fill out the form:  http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/English/AwardProcess/nominationForm.php

If you want to check out all the “hopefuls”, go to this site:  http://canadiansf.com/node/42

Just as long as you are a Canadian citizen, you can vote. And it doesn’t cost you a thing.  However, you can only vote once, so make it count!

And please, do it soon.  The deadline is February 5th, I believe.

Thanks.

Am working on the next project, so will update when I have extra words to spare for blogging.  Until then, though… Vote early, vote often!

We had a good time.  No doubt about it.  Searching out those Apocalyptic Women — or the men who live with same — from the crowds of Christmas shoppers, and then seeing the joy on their faces as they walk away from our table with our book. And what we learned from this weekend is — Apocalyptic women are everywhere, and you can’t always tell at first glance who they are.

We met a lot over the last few days.  On Friday Billie, Roxanne, 6 foot Ryan and I were at Indigo in South Edmonton Common, in — surprise! Edmonton. (This was a one time deal, so don’t go there asking for the book, please.  Maybe in January.) And then Saturday we were at Tyler Enfield’s book launch for Wrush, again in Edmonton.

The Wrush book launch was fascinating.  We had resisted setting up a table at Tyler’s launch.  Smacked of — I don’t know, something nasty.  We were going to go and help him in any way we could — after all, isn’t this what writers should do for each other?  But he kept on us until we decided we would sell our books there, and that we would donate money from each Women of the Apocalypse sold to the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation. (This launch was actually a Stollery  Benefit Drive — we were able to buy books and donate them, as well as donate money.  We did both, I’m happy to report. )

It felt like an old time Christmas craft sale.  Lots of tables loaded with wonderful items, so we spent some time shopping, some time eating great food (and there was real food there too — not just cakes and cream puffs!) and some time selling our books.

And the Apocalyptic women — and men — came to us.  We met some wonderful people — including a woman from Germany who went “Of course!” when she read the title of Billie’s novella — first one to do that! — and the iron worker who had a number of Apocalyptic women in his life, but bought a book for his 19 year old daughter.

Then Patrick wandered over.  He had been working at another booth — selling trinkets and small items.  I believe all of them were from Uganda, where he lived before he moved here.  He moved here a month ago.  We made some jokes about the weather, but he was massively interested in our book.  So we talked to him about it — and he said “This is a book for women who are thinking about making changes in their lives, isn’t it?”  He touched the word “destinies,” on the front cover, and his eyes welled up.  “This makes me very emotional,” he said.  This man, who had made some huge decisions and changes in his life, was reacting to the IDEA of our book!  For the first time, I hoped our stories were up to this. Then he put the book down, saying that he would buy it, some day.

So, we did the only thing we could do.  We all signed a copy, wrapped it in Christmas wrapping, and gave it to him as we were leaving.  Merry Christmas, Patrick, from the Apocalyptic Four.

The Apocalyptic Four were at the Stony Plain Public Library on December 2nd, for a book sale and meet and greet.  What a lot of fun it was! However….

I got there early, and went in to do a little pre set up set up.  You know, check out the lay of the land, and see how best to take advantage of our space.  (We had 6 foot Ryan coming, and were doing a bit of Christmas theme, so wanted to make certain it would all look wonderful.)

The space we were assigned was not wonderful.  Not even close.  We were off in a small room away from the main library — and we had been given a foot of space on a counter.  There were four other authors designated for the same counter…. We did not have enough room!

So, I went and found the woman running the show — her first name is Joan, (I will get her last name and particulars later) of perhaps I should say Long Suffering Joan — and asked her if we could move to a table, explaining that there were three humans and one cardboard cutout in our group.  She was accommodating, and found us a space at a table.  Still in the small room, but we thought we could make do.

Roxanne and Billie showed up — and we set up.  Looked pretty nice, if I do say so myself!  We had decided to sell both our anthologies (Seven Deadly Sins, the flash fiction anthology, and Women of the Apocalypse, our novella anthology) as a package deal, with a Christmas bag to wrap them in.  Yes!  Sin and the Apocalypse for Christmas!  Nothing like it.

I decided to trundle out and see what was happening in the main area of the library, because I was still feeling like we were sitting at the kid’s table at a Christmas meal.  And I saw that they had set up more tables — and that there was a space at the end of one of the tables.

So I set out to find Long Suffering Joan.  Wheedled and whined until she said OK.  (I think she was tired of my face, but whatever…) And then went in, scooped up my compatriots and all our finery, and set up out in the big room.  Just like the adults!

After that foray, I stopped.  No more room needed.  We had a good spot, got our names (and maybe even a picture) in the local newspaper, and sold a good number of books.  And had a lot of fun!

I think this was an excellent idea, and will push to do this again. We had the opportunity to talk to some locals, plus meet some wonderful local writers.

And maybe we need to think about going to other libraries in small towns around Edmonton… after all, who doesn’t need more room?

Normally, I don’t call Ryan.  The man lives in Ontario (!) and so is always living  2 hours in the future, which hardly ever works out well for me.  (I think about giving him a call at 10ish my time — and he is either at work or asleep, depending on the 10 I pick.) It’s inconvenient, because I actually have to think about what the heck I’m doing.  Plan for it.

I don’t do so well with planning, as anyone who has ever received my Christmas cards can attest.  (Mid February, anyone?)

So, when I went on Facebook (Yeah, I know, but whatever) prior to shutting things down for the night, the last thing on my mind was calling Ryan.

Then I saw Rob Sawyer’s post — and I was on the phone in a flash.  Of course, Ryan didn’t answer.  He is, after all, a father — and it was probably close to bedtime for his little girls.  So I left an incoherent message that asked — begged, really — him to check out Facebook.

Then I called Billie.  Luckily she was home.  I told her to check it out — and she did.  Then she lost her mind, and I knew I hadn’t imagined it.

The Hugo Award winning Rob Sawyer, science fiction heavyweight, who gets to go to all sorts of cool places and do all sorts of cool things ,  talked about Women of the Apocalypse.  He didn’t just talk about it.  He gave it an excellent review!

“Nothing gives me more joy than when my students do well, and so it’s with great pride and pleasure that I draw your attention to the fabulous new anthology Women of the Apocalypse, an anthology of stories (“Four women, Four Shooters, Four destinies to save the world”) by Eileen Bell, Roxanne Felix, Ryan T. McFadden, and Billie Millholland. The book — a handsome trade paperback with an eye-catching stark black-and-white cover — is published by Absolute XPress, a division of Calgary’s Hades Publications….This is, without doubt, one of the major theme anthologies of 2009, and deserves a place on the Aurora Award ballot — as do the individual stories. The anthology recently made the bestsellers’ list published in the Calgary Herald.”

Ryan eventually called me back, and we did the teenage girl jumping up and down and screaming thing for a while.  (Sorry Ryan, but people deserve the truth.)  And why did we do this?

Because back in 2006, Ryan and I were in Rob Sawyer’s writing class in Banff.  He ripped us both – bad.  He ruthlessly pointed out EVERYTHING we did that was keeping us from being published.  Everything.

We could have run away crying (like those self same teenage girls we emulated a couple of days ago). But we didn’t. Both of us took what he said to heart, and went away, licked our wounds, and stepped up.

Apparently we learned some of those lessons quite well.

Thanks Rob.  You’re the best.

This was a good weekend, what can I say?  We had the opportunity to do a book signing at Wee Book Inn on Whyte, and it was great!  Got some flowers (thanks Sharlene, they are beautiful!) and had the opportunity to meet a bunch of really nice people, some of whom bought our book.  Gotta love it.

Dogs and flowers and friends, oh my!

Manager Dave and the rest of the staff were great.  We hung around listening to great music and enjoying the vibe of the place — talked about how nice it would be to write there.  Then Dave mentioned that they’re thinking of setting up a coffee shop upstairs!  Yeah!  That would be perfect!  I’d never leave!

The next day got a phone call from Roxanne.  We’d made it into the Calgary Herald Bestsellers list!  That was so very cool!

We baked (not really, we had wonderful volunteers) we organized, we had nightmares, and we did it!  The Edmonton launch of Women of the Apocalypse went off without a hitch. (Well, there were hitches.  But that is a series of stories for another day!)

We decided to have a slightly different type of launch this time — so we had a drop in event that ran from 11 to 3.  This went extremely well.  We writers actually had time to talk to all the people who showed up to wish us well and buy our books, and that was was wonderful. We only did one “presenting the authors” and “reading” — and the reading wasn’t even from our book! — but no-one seemed to miss it.  I’d rather throw a party than a book reading anyhow, so it worked out very well for me!

On a personal note, I’d like to thank Jessica (daughter) and Russell (friend of daughter) for all their help.  Jess kept me organized, focussed, hydrated, and even managed to feed me something before the festivities started! Russell put in a hard couple of hours helping us set up, then had to dash off to his own life.  Didn’t even get to eat any cake! (And it was good.  You really missed something, Russell.)  He had a kitten to pick up, though, and couldn’t stick around.  (I wonder if it has a name yet?)

I was happy to see Brian and Anita Hades at the launch.  (Brian is the publisher, and Anita is fantastic wife of publisher.)  I hope we made you proud!  And to my writing group, Cult of Pain (really.  That’s the name.) it was wonderful to see so many of you there supporting us.  Hope you liked the cake! Many thanks to Jen Leface and Diane Walton from On Spec.  It was great to see you! Thanks to Herman Lau, our wonderful artist, for being there. Thanks to Dave Gross, Merna Summers and all the rest of the writing community who came out to celebrate with us.  I will let Roxanne and Billie thank their people themselves, but from me — thank you.  You made our day fantastic!

Because I’m pathetic about things like this, I will have to wait until one of my partners sends me some photos before I can post anything here.  However, I have a feeling they will be up on our Women… website very soon, so check there.

And Ryan never looked taller!  (Now you’ll HAVE to go our website to see what the heck I’m talking about!)