As I write this, it’s Monday. Before today, I haven’t touched my computer since Thursday — and I can’t even remember the last time I’ve been away from a computer for that long. Even my vacations usually involve a lot of writing. If not, they involve reading…and I think I’ve read all of one chapter during this time. This weekend hasn’t been a vacation. I moved on Friday — from an apartment into a house. It’s been a massive amount of work, with the occasional snag to keep things interesting. There have been literal blood, sweat, and tears. There’s an errands list that’s getting longer instead of shorter. My feet hurt. But.  

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Last weekend, a man walked into a crowded food court here in Toronto and pulled out a gun. He had a target, who was killed. Six others were hurt, many others traumatized. Here’s the part that makes it really scary for me. I go to that mall, Eaton Centre, at least once a month. I’ve eaten in that very food court many times. It’s not going to look the same to me anymore. I don’t know about you, but when I hear about violence in my city, I rationalize.  That was a gang killing, or a bad area of town, or an argument at 3 AM outside a club. I know better than that. It wouldn’t happen to me. Except…it could.

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There’s an advertisement on the subway that I’ve been half-noticing for years. It’s a woman in a backyard holding a piñata. In front of her is a blindfolded little girl taking a swing with a baseball bat as the woman cringes away. The caption? “You really need a tree in your backyard.” For years I’ve been staring at it and thinking, “That’s a dumb ad.” Okay, I thought it was clever at first, but it’s been around for quite some time now, and I’m tired of looking at it. Fast-forward to now. I’m buying a house – a house with no trees on the property. Suddenly the advertisement comes into focus again. I remember the web address for long enough to look it up. It doesn’t seem so dumb anymore.  

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This weekend I had a glimpse into a different world: the Old Book & Paper Show. Imagine an indoor market, four long rows of tables laden with vintage paper products of all kinds. Advertisements, magazines, maps, trading cards, postcards, comic books, WWII propaganda posters, concert programs – ephemera, they’re called, the sort of thing that most people would throw away, that might gain value after years. (The nightmare of a person already prone to keeping clutter, or perhaps more accurately the nightmare of the person who shares a home with her…)  

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Today I want to talk about the intersection of fanfiction, cosplay, and crafting. You’ve probably heard of fanfiction – people writing unofficial stories set in the world of Harry Potter or Star Trek or what have you. You may also have heard of cosplay – people dressing up as characters from their favourite books or anime series or science fiction/fantasy movies (usually during fan conventions such as San Diego Comic-Con). The impulse for both of these activities comes from a love of the source material, the desire to stay in the world of the book or movie a little longer, to delve into the characters a little (or a lot!) more closely. There’s also a strong aspect of community or kinship with other fanfic writers or cosplayers, a kinship born of that shared love.

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We here at Turtleduck Press like oddities, in case you couldn’t tell from our name. We like finding things that are cool and unusual, or noticing things that might otherwise fall through the cracks. All of this isn’t such a surprise if you know us, because we’re strange people too – or at least some might think so. Take my Saturday this week, for example. I got up early (okay, early-ish) to go to a group where we sat around making clothes with pointy sticks and string. Then I did crossword puzzles with my significant other…and not just any kind, but cryptic crosswords, the kind where the very clues are puzzles to be solved. And we thought this was fun.

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Siri here. I’m excited to introduce our first guest blogger for 2012, Megan Crewe. Megan is, as of today, the author of two published YA novels. She’s also a cat lover, a critiquing guru, a kung fu fighter (yes, really), and a Torontonian (like me). Like Megan, many Canadian authors’ primary market is the United States, but that can lead to a culture clash. Here she is to explain… — Growing up next to the US, watching American TV shows and movies and reading American books, I saw their stories and Canadian stories as being pretty much the same.  Sure, I changed my “centre”s to “center”s and “colour”s to “color”s when submitting a story to a US magazine or anthology–to make it easier for the editors, who’d have to do it anyway if the piece was accepted. It was only when I started publishing novels with American publishers that I realized how many little cultural and linguistic differences there are, as my Canadian foibles were corrected in copyedits.  Where I’d say “grade ten,” Americans say “tenth grade.”  I use “washroom” interchangeably with “bathroom,” but to most Americans it sounds old-fashioned.  And everything from high school classes to the health care system works differently.

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The past year has been an exciting one for us here at Turtleduck Press, and I’d like to recap some of the highlights for those of you who are just finding us. We launched our website December 1, 2010, with three book releases:

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To celebrate the release of our new anthology, Winter’s Night, I’d like to share the inspiration behind the short story I’ve included in the anthology.   I’ve always loved Christmas – the lights and the glitter, the sense of mystery, the traditions, the celebration at the coldest and darkest time of year. And this from a northern Canadian. But for our winter anthology, I decided instead to write about Inuit mythology.

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Siri here. I’m very pleased to introduce our guest blogger for today, Nancy Kelley. Nancy is a friendly Tweeter, a hardworking writer, and an indie author with a twist. Here she is to explain… — I write Jane Austen sequels. My new book, His Good Opinion, is Pride and Prejudice from Mr. Darcy’s point of view. The novel I wrote this year during National Novel Writing Month is a sequel to P&P, focusing on Colonel Fitzwilliam and Georgiana Darcy. I have two additional Austen novels turning over in the back of my mind, waiting for their turn. A humorous conversation plays out many times when I tell people I’m an author. “Oh really! What’s your book called?” “His Good Opinion. It’s a Pride and Prejudice sequel.” (Long pause, often accompanied by a blank look) “Oh. People do that?”    

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