Fata Morgan 2023
So pleased to hear that Polar Borealis is publishing my poem “Fata Morgana” in Feb 2023, issue #24.
Photo by Nikhita Singhal on Unsplash
February 2023 News
Category: SF writing
Awards Eligibility 2022
It’s nice to realize I have a story that’s eligible for awards in science fiction and fantasy this year (2022). It’s “New Tudors” which was in Neo-opsis Magazine #33, March 2022. Also, for Aurora Awards, my editor there, Karl Johanson is eligible.
Writing for TV & Film – For Apex
I just finished two Saturdays of presentations for the APEX writers group. This is a great group of mostly science fiction and fantasy writers who are trying to learn to be better at what we do. I’ve met a lot of new friends in SFF who are, like me, interested in getting better at their creative writing.
My presentations were on Writing for Film and TV. The first one was about the field in general, answering a lot of questions about ‘who’s who’ and what ‘pitching’ is. The second presentation was on how to turn a short story into a script.
For those interested in being part of APEX, you find them at https://www.apex-writers.com/. Originated by David Farland, an award-winning writer of fantasy and science fiction, the group continues on after his passing, providing encouragement, motivation and learning opportunities for members.
Finalist WOTF #39 Quarter 1 2022
So pleased to announce that I am a Finalist for the Writers of the Future, Vol 39, Quarter 1, 2022 competition!
It’s the highest level I’ve achieved, and means I was in the top 8 for this quarter.
–> WOTF blog
2021 Quarter 4 #WOTF Cat Girczyc HM for “New Tudors”
#WOTF Writers of the Future 2021 Q4 – Honorable Mention for my story “The New Tudors”. This is a tale of first contact marred by a historian, leading to very strange transactions for the Trading ship, the Quotidian, and Captain Abraya.
Photo by Tom Podmore on Unsplash
Screenwriting August 2020
The script for “Lights, Camera, Paranormal Action” is available to interested producers now.
My first list consists of the producers I met in late July at Frontieres Film market.
I also added the list of local producers I met in March at the WIFT-V festival during their pitch sessions.
It was wonderful to realize that there are people actively looking for new scripts.
I’ve now sent it to producers who agreed to read it during our meeting.
I loved the experience of meeting the producers and was pleased with the level of interest the script garnered.
More Writer News
- Two of my poems have been chosen to be in “Stellar Evolution” a ‘best of’ anthology coming out this Autumn/Winter in Canada. Really pleased about that!
- Also, I won an Honorable Mention in the WOTF Quarter 2 results for my story “Tail Creek”. I’m still hoping to sell that one, now with the ‘win’, maybe I can.
November 2019
Starting another weekend of writing. Hope to get another 2500 or so words done. I’ve plotted out the end of the novel, however I know that sometimes the characters take off on me and new stuff happens!
August 2019 Work proceeds apace
I’ve really enjoyed the process of publishing on Draft2Digital.com and am gearing up to do it again!
This time my plan is to publish the various short stories and poems that I’ve had success with plus some new material. This would all be science fiction and fantasy, at least in this volume. It makes sense that I republish stories that saw the light of day in the 1990s or are published in an esoteric magazine.
I’ve been working on the imprint name and logo, so I’m going to upload a few here and see how I like them. I’ve had to discard “Space Cat Books” as there just are too many like it. The logo should be good for other SFF books, if I want to venture out into being a small publisher. Also, for other volumes of ‘collected works’ by moi.
I’m liking the clean design of the small rocket logo but with the name Space & Time Books. The design is from Canva.com a terrific application for designs.
May 3, 2019
April’s NanoWriMo Camp month was good. I got about half my goal done. This is fine in my mind because I am crazy busy as usual: after day job, dance mum work and so forth, there is very little thinking time left. I’m famous at home for falling asleep on the laundry I’m folding. We had a big competition that required most of a week’s extra time and I can’t write while listening to dances in the Michael J. Fox theatre in Burnaby. Although I did keep my index cards with me and have thought of a few new plots.
My garden’s been planted now, too. That doesn’t take much effort, and I love my plots at the community garden at 39th and Alma. Sadly, it’s got a large sign up advertising the condos they’re building there. I hope we get a couple more years out of it.
Submission Portals for Short Story Writers
Just submitted some stories that had been returned. It feels good to find new market sources. I just got an account on a submission portal called:
Hey Publisher . Hey Publisher is used by only a few SFF magazines but it has some interesting entries.
I always use the terrific site The Submission Grinder created by Diabolical Plots. Initially, it took a little getting used to, and if he had more $$ it could be far sleeker, but it does the job the very best of all of them.
I love the fact that it offers me searchable SFF markets with valuable data that I like to know. For example, is a market dead? they tend to know at The Grinder. They invite updates and are open to changes. Also, the statistics are comforting. How long have they held your story? Is it typically-long for them? Or not? Lots of great data there.
Then there are the electronic submissions portals such as: Moksha and Submittable. I use these to submit when a magazine requests this. I don’t use any other services on these am not certain if they have any.
I recall receiving a survey earlier this Spring wherein they were trying to figure out if writers would pay to submit. The answer is “No”. I was not impressed. We’re mostly submitting to markets that hardly pay (at least in television $$ terms), and it’s ridiculous to also be charged to do so.
The quote in Science fiction circles is:
“The money must always flow to the writer.”
I’m sorry I can’t recall who originated that one, but it was one of the greats.
September
I’ve been busy and haven’t updated the blog in a while. I just found a new app to do images with so have been playing with @canva. I hope it’s better than @piccollage, which I love but isn’t that sophisticated. So here are some images from our summer vacation. It was a bittersweet vacation. I love seeing my relatives and friends, but my father’s 89 and slipping away from us now due to cancer. So it was sad but I was very glad I splurged out to take us there. Plus, we did a lot of enjoyable visiting.
