Sunday 12 October 2008

Wild Music & Wonderment at Pulp Fiction Books

 C. June Wolf reading “Claude and the Henry Moores” to a rapt audience.

To celebrate Casey's new book, a lively and satisfying evening of Live Music & Reading was held 11 October at 6:30 pm at Pulp Fiction on Main Street in Vancouver.

Alison of the Woodland Drivers

The Land of Pulp Fiction

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Monday 29 September 2008

Finding Creatures & Other Stories Launched at Unsuspecting Public (Twice)

                                                                           photo by Julie H. Ferguson
Finding Creatures & Other Stories
by C. June Wolf
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A successful Launch was held for Finding Creatures & Other Stories, by C. June (Casey) Wolf, in conjunction with Eileen Kernaghan, who was launching her Thistledown publication Wild Talent: a novel of the supernatural on 28 September, 2 pm at White Dwarf Books on West Tenth in Vancouver.

C. June Wolf (Casey) and Eileen Kernaghan  at White Dwarf.
photo by Julie H. Ferguson
www.deadwrite.com
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A second, joint Launch & Reading were held on 3 & 4 October at VCon 33, Vancouver’s science fiction and fantasy conventionat the Compass Point Inn in Surrey.
http://www.vcon.ca/

Monday 1 September 2008

Finding Creatures & Other Stories by C. June Wolf


Wattle and Daub Books is pleased to present our first publication, a collection of fine tales by Vancouver speculative fiction writer C. June Wolf. See below for details of the launch and subsequent reading, and for more about the book.
Susan Pinkus, Publisher

Finding Creatures & Other Stories


      Cover Image by Maggie V. Jones; Design by ClĂ©lie Rich;

“Wolf uses different genres, different voices, different culturesin short whatever she needs to make the story work. What ties it all together is her sure-handed prose and a depth she brings to her writing, that indefinable element that rises up from between the lines and gives a good story its resonance…
“…rather than my trying to convince you to buy it, let me ask you instead to pass it around when you’re done. Talk about the stories that moved you, about Wolf’s voice, and her gift of storytelling.
“I want this book to be a success because I want to look forward to reading more new stories by her for many years to come.
“And so should you.”
from the introduction by Charles De Lint, author of The Onion Girl and Dingo.
Literary, science fictional, slipstream, and fantastic—this medley of stories is grounded in the present day, weaving backward to the life of Saint Francis, and forward to a time when Earth is a memory, and new humans are finding their place among the stars.
Wolf’s characters grapple with personal integrity and connection with others, with the imperatives to abandon fear and hate and to question cherished beliefs. A Haitian street kid with a mercurial coin, a skid-row waitress with a passion for palaeontology, and aliens inadvertently trapped in sculptures by Henry Moore, journey side by side with a northern Native man searching for a place to bury a dead spaceman, and two teenagers who build an old-style science-fiction machine with a very modern purpose.
Wolf’s unexpected approach to story telling interlaces humour, compassion, and a compelling affection for human and nonhuman with a fine-spun unorthodoxy in these understated tales of this world and beyond.

More Praise for Finding Creatures & Other Stories:

“Wolf’s subtly written stories succeed in being both shadowy and powerful.”
Phyllis Gotlieb, author of Flesh and Gold.

“Prepare to be absolutely charmed. C. June Wolf’s stories are like world music: varied, full of surprising grace notes, and born from an array of the planet’s cultures and myths. We’ll be reading her stories for years to come.”
Daryl Gregory, author of Pandemonium.
“The Coin”
“Enthralling. Fairy-tale quality.”
                            —Quill and Quire Sept 2005
“Equals”
“Science made lyrical and passionate.”
Eileen Kernaghan, author of Wild Talent: A Novel of the Supernatural
C. June Wolf opens her collection with a quote from Ursula K. Le Guin, and I quickly came to see how appropriate a choice that was: Wolf’s compassion, humour, social conscience, and love of diversity are all reminiscent of Le Guin. Wolf’s voice, however, is entirely her own, friendly (I might even say companionable) and direct, and with a poetry of image and language that enhances without ever obscuring the clear telling of the story. It is a pleasure to recommend this collection.”
Holly Phillips, author of The Engine’s Child
Wolf’s people come alive on the page. She makes them to ache and to dream, to search and sometimes find. They slip through the unseen hinges of life, to emerge into other times, other realms, other skins. And she makes all this happen in a way that draws the reader to follow them. Rich, ripe stuff, with a haunting echo of Ray Bradbury’s October moods.
                       —Matthew Hughes, author of The Tales of Henghis Hapthorn

Excerpt from Claude & the Henry Moores

Henry Moore was an English guy who who painted a little and drew a little more, but mostly, who made these huge amazing sculptures that were just—unreal. Claude couldn’t explain it. Some of them were ridiculous—the “mouth biting butt” out front was one of these—and some of them were spooky. Like “Working Model for ‘Reclining Figure: Lincoln Center’”. That one had an upright bit that seemed like someone on her knees with her mouth muzzled and her arms tied behind her back. It was scary. It made him feel a scream deep inside that could never come out.
But other ones. My God. They were like a family of Friendly Giants. Scattered around the place and doing their own thing but connected somehow. It seemed to him like they always knew what the others were experiencing and—he never would have admitted this to anyone of course, no way, but—it also seemed like they loved each other. Claude could kind of imagine—fantasize, you know—that they were aware of him, too. That they might even come to love him one day.
Except for outside, by the biting butt, stern signs warned people not to touch the sculptures, saying that they could be harmed by staining fingers. Claude was sure they could, and yet, the Giants seemed like captives here, like creatures not meant to be contained in a sterile place like this. Creatures that were meant to be touched. Made to be. It was as if they were dying a little inside. Like he was, but not because they were alone like him, cause they weren’t, but because they never moved, and they never touched.
That really bothered him.
Finding Creatures & Other Stories
by
C. June Wolf

$15.95 plus postage and handling.

ISBN 978-0-9810658-0-9
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C. June Wolf’s blog.

Interview of C. June Wolf at HiSciFi.com.