Kelly Robson's Blog, page 5

My schedule at Ad Astra 2016

Ad Astra is this weekend. Here’s my schedule:

Saturday, April 30 – 6:00 PM
Saturday Evening Science Fiction Reading (room: Oakridge)
With: A.M. Dellamonica, Derwin Mak, andMadeline Ashby

Saturday, April 30 – 8:00PM
Into the Labyrinth of Guillermo Del Toro (room: Newmarket)

Sunday, May 1 – 10:00 AM
Online Social Networks and Communities Explained (room: Markham A)

Sunday, May 1 – 1:00 PM
Recommended Non-Fiction for the Science Fiction or Fantasy Writer (room: Oakridge)

Sunday, May 1 – 3:00 PM
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2015, the year all my dreams came true

I’m at Boskone for the weekend. I’m not on the programming, but just here to hang out and have fun. I’ll see some delicious friends and mentors.

Though I haven’t updated this blog in a while, I haven’t been idle. I’ve been running hard to finish a time travel novella. It’s going long. Will probably end up around 40K words. Yikes.

Some people can write a story in a weekend but I certainly can’t. This particular story has beena lengthy process even though I’ve had the concept beginning-middle-...

TOC for Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best Science Fiction, 33rd Annual Collection

Art by Jim Burns

A few days ago on his Facebook page, Gardner Dozois posted the Table of Contents for his upcomingYear’s Best Science Fiction, Thirty-third Annual Collection. The anthology will be available next July, and is already available for pre-order on Amazon.

The TOCincludes a story of mine. I’d be thrilled about this under any circumstances, but it turns out the story he chose is my very first published story, The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill,which appeared in Clarkesworl...

Historical Geography reading list

This is a list of books I’m likely to mention in today’s Archaeology and Anthropology panel.

Historical Geography is the study of how a place changes over time, with a focus on human economic and cultural interaction.

The Fields Beneath, The History of One London Village, by Gillian Tindall The Man Who Drew London, Wenceslaus Hollar in Reality and Imagination, by Gillian Tindall London, The Biography by Peter Ackroyd The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography From The Revolution To Firs...

My schedule at World Fantasy

The World Fantasy Convention starts in a few days. After years of attending cons as Alyx‘s wifely appendage, this will be my first where I’m actually on the programming.

Here’s my programming run-down:

Reading – Friday, 11:30 AM (Broadway 1)
I’m very much afraid nobody will attend, so I’m bringing chocolate as a bribe. Then if I’m alone I get to eat it myself. Win/win.

Anthropology and Archaeology panel – Saturday, 1:00 AM (City Center 2B)
With Meg Turville-Heitz, Mari Ness, Shauna Roberts, R...

TIFF Roundup #6 – NEON BULL and SOUTHBOUND

Friday was our three-movie day at TIFF. Some hardy festival pros see five a day. We are simply not that hard-core. Our three films were The Apostate, Neon Bull, and Southbound. I hated The Apostate, so I’ll ignore it and spend my attention on the other two films which were simply wonderful in very different ways.

Neon Bull follows a group of cowboys who truck bulls from rodeo to rodeo in the impoverished northeastern part of Brazil. They live on the road and form a loose family unit headed b...

TIFF Roundup #5 – Go see SHERPA immediately

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There’s one showing of Jennifer Peedom’s documentary Sherpa left at TIFF, Sunday at 9:00 PM at the Bloor Hot Docs cinema. Go. You can buy tickets at the door. Just go. Don’t think any more about it. Trust me, just go.

If you’re going to go, don’t read any more of this. Just go.

For my writer friends not in Toronto, here is why I’m pushing this movie:

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Sherpa is the most Science Fictional movie I’ve ever seen.

Jennifer Peedom has been working on Everest documentaries for a lo...

TIFF roundup #4 – 25 April and Faux Depart/Sector IX B

Alyx and I have begun to suspect that Jackman Hall, the TIFF venue attached to the Art Gallery of Ontario which is around the corner from our condo, is a bit of an art film ghetto during TIFF.

Today, this worked out 50/50 for us. Leanne Pooley’s 25 April was really worth seeing — a festival favorite for us both. It’s an animated documentary of the Battle of Gallipoli, and it was utterly gorgeous, great art, good storytelling, terrific sound design, a well-developed movie in every way. We lov...

TIFF Roundup #3 – THE FEAR and EVA DOESN’T SLEEP

Today was our first double-header of TIFF. Though I must say “I love my neighbourhood” at least once a week, today I’m newly in love with it because we live literally in the middle of all the venues. One of them, Jackman Hall, is two minutes from our door. Unfortunately, it’s also the venue with knee- and tailbone-punishing seats. For our double header there on Wednesday, we’ll definitely be bringing cushions.

Today’s movies were French World War I film The Fear and Eva Doesn’t Sleep from Ar...

TIFF Roundup Film #2 – STARVE YOUR DOG, by Hicham Lasri

Starve Your Dogis a difficult, psychedelic examination of Morocco’s totalitarian past and its effect on the present. The director, Hicham Lasri, described it in the Q&A session as a “science fiction film about a character who died ten years ago.” The character is Driss Basri, a Moroccan politician that the film describes as an assassin and pawn of U.S. foreign policy.

The first half of the movie was beautifully-shot but story-free image poems —sensorial cinema, the director called it, also...