Back in December, I embarked on a mission to do some writing in every coffee shop in Thunder Bay. Check my newsletter for reflections on the journey, and accolades for some of my favourite stops along the way. lancerobinsonwriter.substack.com/p/newsletter... ✏️🚀🛸🚀🛸🚀 #thunderbay #iwritesciencefiction

I’ve fallen behind on #Sci-fiMovies I want to watch, but I’m starting to catch up. This week I watched #Metropolis (1927, directed by Fritz Lang), and, Wow! Special effects have come a long way since Le Voyage dans La Lune. Next, I think I’ll watch H.G. Wells’ Things to Come. It’s a “talkie”! 🚀🛸🚀🛸🚀

In the best SF, the world the author creates is not just “setting”; it becomes a character in the story and vehicle for exploring ideas. I recently finished Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time, which does this brilliantly. 🪐📚 #sciencefiction #worldbuilding #childrenoftime

How would you open the Strait of Hormuz? Wrong answers only.

What I'm wearing to the Oscars

"What It’s Like To … Build Space for African Speculative Fiction from Nairobi" www.okayafrica.com/what-its-lik...

This is how i access BlueSky.

Award season is upon us. And CSFFA members, Aurora Award nominations are now open (in case you’re in a nominating mood). lancerobinsonwriter.com/stories/awar... ✏️🇨🇦🚀🛸 #auroraawards #bestnovelette #canadiansciencefiction

The #PublicLendingRight program of the Canada Council for the Arts provides modest payments to creators to compensate them for their books in public libraries. I just received my very small, but very heartwarming payment for 2025. This feels like what a civilized country does. 🇨🇦 #BringTheArtsToLife

Announcements! 📣 Marketplace emails are out! If you applied, check your inbox; and your spam folder just in case. AND… exciting news! Authors’ Alley is coming to Keycon 42! 📚✨ Come meet amazing writers, discover new stories, and celebrate the literary side of Keycon. More announcements soon!

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A #speculativefiction Kickstarter to consider supporting: www.kickstarter.com/projects/bey.... 🚀📖🚀📖🚀📖🚀📖 📚🪐 @nathanielluscombe.bsky.social ky.social @seraamoroso.bsky.social so.bsky.social @beyondtstarspress.bsky.social ess.bsky.social

Caine Prize submissions close soon! short fic betw 3K & 10K pub between 27 Feb 2021 & 27 Feb 2026 authored by an African Writer: "An ‘African writer’ is taken to mean someone who is a national of an African country, or who has a parent who is African by birth or nationality." www.caineprize.com

The latest issue of Uncaged Book Reviews has a review of the urban fantasy Hex and City by @markleslie.bsky.social and Julie Strauss. It also includes my column, in which I muse about short stories, Ray Bradbury, and dumplings. online.fliphtml5.com/blsto/Uncage... 🪐📚 @uncagedbooks.bsky.social

Canadian writers! Please do this. Help others discover your work. Stephen’s Best of Volumes are an amazing snapshot of not just the best short fiction out there but also a great summary of the previous year in publishing.

One of the basic truths of physics that struggles to find a comfortable home in my brain is that there is no such thing as cold…. I’ve been thinking about how the same thinking might apply to concepts like love and hate, justice and injustice. lancerobinsonwriter.substack.com/p/cold-doesn...

A different take on #AI #CopyrightInfringement in this Walrus article. Instead of leaning further into "my artistic creation is my private property" and fighting giant corporations on their terms, should creators instead fight to re-establish art as a public good? thewalrus.ca/suing-ai-com...

Lately I’ve been enjoying old sci-fi movies from the dawn of cinema. My favorite so far is the 1927 film Alfalfopolis, in which a coven of millennia-old beings who do not age and appear as children battle against wealthy industrialists who have taken control of the world. #fritzlang #scifimovies

A few days before Christmas I embarked on a quest: do some writing in every coffee shop in #ThunderBay by 31 Mar. ’26. I didn’t realize how many coffee shops the city has! I am now thoroughly caffeinated and feeling creative. ☕✏️🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🛸 #iwritespecfic #coffeelife

This is incredibly important. If you read one thing this week: marcusolang.substack.com/p/im-kenyan-...

Reading Children of Time and enjoying how Adrian Tchaikovsky (@aptshadow.bsky.social) uses a rigorous and detailed imagining of the psychology, culture, and social structures of intelligent spiders to turn a mirror on human psychology, culture, and social structures. 📚🪐 #sciencefiction

A review of the Nov-Dec issue of Analog was quite humorous in its panning of my story there, stating “Readers who love carbon taxes and/or spend their spare time breathlessly following the programming of C-SPAN will find some comfort here.” So I'm thinking, “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Think Weirder: the Year’s Best Science Fiction Ideas, Volume 1, is now on sale. It’s billed as the year’s “sixteen best concept-driven, near-future ideas about people interacting with technology.” thinkweirder.com 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🛸 #thinkweirder #sciencefiction #shortstories

Despite its flaws (which are quite overblown), Wikipedia is amazing. It gives you a tiny hint of what some of us back in early '90s imagined the Internet could become (what it might have become if not for the Googles and Facebooks).

The 𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘳’𝘴 𝘉𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘊𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘍𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘍𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘝𝘰𝘭. 3 is out. I really appreciate the extended introduction, which gives an overview of key events of the year in the world of Canadian spec fiction and the universe generally. Shout out to @ourmankoto.bsky.social 🪐📚 #canadianspeculativefiction

Who's your favorite Jedi. (Wrong answers only.)

The new issue of Analog includes my latest story, “One Step Away.” A bit of meteorology, a bit of AI, a bit of impostor syndrome, and a big dose of hope for our future. lancerobinsonwriter.com/index.html#n.... 🛸🚀🛸🚀🛸🚀🛸🚀🛸🚀 #sciencefiction #hopepunk #ai #unsecuritycouncil @analogsf.bsky.social🪐📚

You're a Canadian with a smartphone app to tell you which brands of breakfast cereal are produced in Canada and which in the USA. Is your patriotism also supporting Canadian film, tv, music, and literature?

I'm changing up my podcast playlist and the newest addition is The Great Simplification. There's an encouraging amount of science and intelligent thought out there about where the world is at right now, but it's quite compartmentalized. The Great Simplification is serious about connecting the dots.

Having a story published in OnSpec has always been on my Canadian SF writer bucket list. Now it's too late. ‪OnSpec (@onspecmag.bsky.social)‬ is shutting down after 35 years. 😥 I feel like the short fiction publishing landscape is tilting away from magazines and toward anthologies. Am I right?

This is worth a listen!

Here’s a post for today, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada: Granddaughter’s Song by Shy-Anne Hovorka and the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. Such a beautiful voice! youtu.be/TEWdN_fgC6U #nationaldayfortruthandreconciliation #orangeshirtday #canada

So I tell the publisher, “No, not Paypal. My bank gives a better USD-CAD exchange rate than Paypal, so please mail me a check.” And then Canadian Postal workers go on strike. By the way, I enthusiastically and wholeheartedly support the postal workers. #writerslife

My imposter syndrome getting ready for work:

Looking to the coming years with honest eyes, it can be difficult to perceive anything but darkness. But there are plenty of gaps in the darkness for creative rays of light to shine. And this article feels like it was written for today. www.cnn.com/2012/06/23/w... #nonviolence #hope

For Sale: Time machine. Currently has had one previous owner, but by next year it will be brand new.

Age verification? Last week I purchased my fourth bottle of Worcestershire sauce.

The CBC radio program Ideas, recently did an interesting show on Chinese science fiction, and spent quite a bit of time on Liu Cixin's work, especially 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘉𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮. It's worth a listen: www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/... #sciencefiction #chinesesciencefiction #LiuCixin 🪐📚

Joe Stech, former editor of 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘍𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, has put together a new anthology to be released at the end of October. I'm excited to have a story of mine appear in 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘞𝘦𝘪𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳. thinkweirder.com #iwritespecfic #sciencefiction #thinkweirder 🪐📚

How it feels when you pass the captcha

The trouble with writing novels rather than short stories is that I have to wait so much longer between rejection letters. 😜 #iwritespecfic

Drop an old person you're going to turn into in the future.

Please tell me this device will include a mini tractor beam that can do chiropractic adjustments on my C1 and C2 vertebrae, and that it will be invented in 2025. I’ve got a wicked tension headache. #startrek #chiropractic #galaxyclassheadache

As a hobbyist woodworker, today I found myself wishing for more #sciencefiction that features woodworking. I need to reread The Lathe of Heaven. I briefly mused about writing a sequel. Based on my woodworking skills, it would be titled The Jack Plane with a Dull Blade of Heaven. #UrsulaKLeGuin 🪐📚

Montréal in 2027 Worldcon Bid Wins Site Selection Vote file770.com/montreal-in-...

#Sciencefiction fans are now quite used to imagining how bad it might get. These days, I’m more interested in imagining how good it could get, and plausible political, cultural, technological, and spiritual pathways for getting there. #hopepunk www.corinnerandall.co.uk/photo_169297... 🪐📚

Of the #sci-fi shorts series available for streaming, 𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦, 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘙𝘰𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘴 is my favorite by far. I get so annoyed at the others for not even trying to tell complete stories. Instead, most episodes are basically trailers for feature length films that don’t exist. #sciencefiction #shortfilms

Motherfucking wind farms…

If you see this, post a sword. ⚔️

The fanzine Riverside Quarterly (1964-1993) has a place in my heart. Shortlisted for the Hugo 3 times. Mostly literary criticism, but also had poetry and fiction. Contributors included Algis Budrys, Philip José Farmer, Ursula Le Guin, and, in 1990, me with my first short story publication. 🪐📚