Rati Mehrotra's Blog, page 11

Monsters and Adventures and Tropes, oh my (Part 2)

Well, I warned you there’d be a second part. Here is my update on the second project I’m really excited to be a part of:

2017 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide
Dreaming Robot Press, run by Sean and Corie Weaver, publishes science fiction and fantasy novels for a Young Adult and Middle Grade audience. This is the third year of their Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide anthology– “24 amazing science fiction stories for middle grade readers”. One of them, ahem, by yours truly. I am in fantastic comp...

Monsters and Adventures and Tropes, oh my (Part 1)

The last officialweekend of summer! Already the light has changed.Couldn’t we have been eased into this, sort of? I’d like a long, sunny Autumn, please. I’d ask for a delayed and mild winter, but that would just be bad climate-changey wishing on my part, so I won’t. Now foran update on three exciting projects that I am veryproud to be part of:

Those Who Make Us: Canadian Creature, Myth, and Monster Stories
Edited by Kelsi Morris and Kaitlin Tremblay, and published by Exile Editions,this anth...

Talking of School

August! Another couple of weeks and schools will open, and I shall (hopefully) get back to a more writerly routine. Hello, alarm clock. I have not missed you.

Talking of school, I came across an old photograph a few days ago – my fifth grade class picture. None of us are looking particularly happy. Mrs. Henderson, our squat and grumpy class teacher, sits in the middle, looking the least happy. I do not have fond memories of her. But I do have very strong memories of that time. I got to think...

Summer SF/F Reads, Reviews and Updates

My goodness, July is almost over! Nearly half the summer vacation gone, and what do I have to show for it? Several delicious reads, for one thing. Here is my recommended list:

A Stranger in Olondria bySofia Samatar
Jevick, a pepper merchant’s son, heads to Olondria and adventure, little knowing the pitfalls that await him. Richly imagined secondary world fantasy, beautiful andlush – descriptive writing at its best. A gourmet meal of a book! Not hard to see why itwon the2014 World Fantasy Awar...

Biking (and writing) on the P’tit train du Nord

I have always bemoaned the slow, inexorable vanishing ofCanadian trains. Steam-powered railways were integral to the building of Canada as a nation. Trains were thearteries connecting the heart of our country with its limbs, opening settlement in the west. But everyone drives now – there are highways and (if we’re lucky) buses, where once there were only trains. At the very least, I think, cities should have some link with the transportation of their past. St John’s, NL, for instance, has a l...

Beautiful Puerto Rico

I went to Puerto Rico in May: the shoulder season, between the cruise ships and the hurricanes. The best time to go, even though I got drenched a couple of times and it was perishingly hot in the sun. Walk in the shade in the old town of San Juan, ducking into cafes or bars if it gets too hot, or treat yourself to a Piragua – aflavored snow cone. Stay out late, until the sun dips below the horizon and the music starts. And I’m not just talking of the human kind. I’m talking of frogs. Wander i...

Komagata Maru – an apology at last

Have you all heard of the 1914 Komagata Maru ‘incident’? A Japanese steamship called Komagata Maru, full of hopeful immigrants from Punjab, India, sailed from Hong Kong to Vancouver, Canada. At the time, India was still under the yoke of the British Empire, and the men were technically British subjects, and so argued they should have the freedom to travel anywhere in the British Empire. However, most of the passengers were not allowed to land in Canada and the ship was forced to turn back to...

April News and Writerly Updates

The sun is out, it’s a beautiful spring day in Toronto, and I’ve finished the revisions to Markswoman weeks before my deadline! What more could I want?

Oh yes. I want a magic wand so that the second book gets magically written. I have been working on it, just not as productively as I should be. I have my first 60 pages, going to be hitting the middles soon, will certainly get bogged down, and okay, I binge-watched the entire 14 episodes of Firefly. I’d still be watching, if there were any mor...

The Family Ghost

Very pleased to report that my short story The Family Ghost is now live at The Sockdolager in the Spring 2016 issue. This is a story about love,family and ghosts, set in rural India. A young girl is married off to a young man she barely knows. How doesher motherprotect her from overbearing in-laws? It’s a light-hearted story that, I hope, will make you smile. But I was thinking of deeper issues while writing it. Perhaps you will think of them too.

The Sockdolagerisedited by Alison Wilgus and...

Notes from Yellowknife

I’ve learned a lot in my visit to Yellowknife, capital of the Northwest Territories and home to two-thirds of its people. For instance, I’ve learned that the the Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights, are a result of solar wind disturbing the Earth’s magnetosphere. Charged particles are precipitated into the earth’s upper atmosphere where they collide with atoms and molecules, giving off energy, which we see in the form of light – often as a green glow.

But I could have read that in a book....