Howdy howdy howdy.
As a Canadian writer of stories of a speculative nature, including science fiction, fantasy, and horror, it has been one of my goals/dreams to have a story appear in Tesseracts, the annual Canadian Spec Fic collection.
Over the years, the list of contributing authors to Tesseracts appears like a Who’s Who of Canadian speculative writing, including Margaret Atwood and Robert J. Sawyer. Come this fall, I will be counted as one of the lesser Whos in this literary Whoville with my science fiction story “Why Pete?”.
Of course, there are many other dreams for Canadian SF writers, including (but not restricted to) winning an Aurora Award, being published in On Spec Magazine, and, more recently, having a piece selected for ChiZine/Tightrope’s IMAGINARIUM, the new annual collection of Canada’s Best Speculative Writing. IMAGINARIUM’s innaugural issue was in 2012 and included one of my first published stories, so although it wasn’t yet on my Bucket List, it was checked off retroactively. Of course now my list includes making it into IMAGINARIUM 2013, especially since I had so many fun, eligible stories published last year.
Here now is the Official Table of Contents for TESSERACTS 17, being edited by Colleen Anderson and Steve Vernon and published by EDGE Science Fiction & Fantasy Publishing:
TESSERACTS 17: SPECULATING CANADA FROM COAST TO COAST TO COAST
- Introduction: What is a Tesseract? Colleen Anderson
- Vermilion Wine: Claude Lalumiere
- Night Journey: West Coast: Eileen Kernaghan
- The Wall: Rhea Rose
- 2020 Vision: Lisa Smedman
- Why Pete?: Timothy Reynolds (the harrowing tale of a space ark captain who awakens from hypersleep to find herself locked in her sleep pod and the only survivor of a freak catastrophe. It wouldn’t be so bad if the computer wasn’t programmed with her ex-husband’s voice).
- Bird Bones: Megan Fennell
- Bedtime Story: Rhonda Parrish
- Graveyard Shift: Holly Schofield
- Path of Souls: Edward Willett
- Sin A Squay: David Jón Fuller
- Hereinafter Referred to as the Ghost: Mark Leslie
- Anywhere: Alyxandra Harvey
- Secret Recipes: Costi Gurgu
- Star Severer: Ben Godby
- The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife: Dave Beynon
- Graffiti Borealis: Lisa Poh
- My Child Has Winter in His Bones: Dominik Parisien
- Team Leader 2040: Catherine Austen
- Sand Hill: Elise Moser
- The Ripping: Vincent Grant Perkins
- Unwilling to Turn Around: J.J. Steinfield
- Pique Assiette: Catherine MacLeod
- Leaving Cape Roseway: John Bell
- Everybody Wins: Rachel Cooper
- In the Bubble: William Meikle
- Hermione and Me: Dwain Campbell
- Blizzard Warning: Jason Barrett
- M.E.L.: Dianne Homan
- The Calligrapher’s Daughter: Patricia Robertson
- Afterword: Editing Anthologies Made Easy: Steve Vernon
So, that’s it, that’s all. Yah, yah, I know… I don’t write a damned thing for months and then I treat you to a fricking table of contents. Sorry. Just be thankful I wrote anything at all. I’ve been languishing in the doldrums now for a month or two. This latest news, though, might just snap me out of it. Keep your fingers crossed.
Ciao for now.
T-Bone.
The Tao of Tim 
Tim, I really enjoyed your story “Why Pete?” — and as I read it, I kept coming back to the title, and all the ways it could be read: as an exasperated outburst, as a meditation on the relationship, and as a question as to why (perhaps) the events of the story unfolded as they did. Great read.