I remain astonished at how much time my personal projects take up. I hate to realise I literally don’t have the time to maintain a blog. Use socialmedia, they say. I can’t. Two semi-professional mags, weekly reviews for Amazing, contributions to FAPA, my new perzine, aiding a 92-year-old pioneer helicopter pilot write his memoirs, and occasional stabs at my novel, consume enormous amounts of time and energy. On a typical day I’m at home working on my computer anywhere from twelve to fourteen hours at a stretch. The rest of the time I’m too exhausted to do anything except read or watch a movie.

So, what I’ve decided to do is write a monthly blog for my perzine. That you can read when I post the zine on this website. Not much of a personal promotion website, but all I can manage.

Yep! The first issue of my new perzine (personal fanzine) is free for you to read. Contains articles on novel writing, H.P. Lovecraft, ancient Greek and Roman literature, my life as a 15-year-old science fiction fan in 1967, and my account of a 1981 train ride to the ancient Mayan city of Palenque… with pictures!

Just go to “Great Galloping Ghu! Current/Back Issues” and click on the link.

The OBIR Magazine site became obsolete when I started publishing my reviews in my column in Amazing Stories (online) Magazine.

I am now converting the site into a personal blog wherein I promote my publications and writing projects. This will take a while.

The site is now titled “OBIR Blog and Observations.” Just take it for granted that OBIR now stands for the occasional biased and ignorant reasoning of yours truly.

Cheers! Graeme

Finally! Issue #5 with 3 novel reviews and 24 short story reviews is online and available for free download. Just click on “Current Issue/Back Issues” above.

Just realised I forgot to mention I’m doing nothing re: OBIR Magazine (or Polar Borealis Magazine for that matter) while I’m Chairing VCON 41. Gearing up and running a mid-sized SF&F convention (700-800 people) is simply too much work to allow for anything else. So OBIR is on hold.

However, VCON 41 ends October 2nd. I’ll probably crash for a week or two. Then start work on the next issues of both magazines. Probably get them both out sometime in December. Then, hopefully, back to a regular schedule,

Cheers!  Graeme

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Polar Borealis Magazine now has a web site of its own.

If you want to download current or back issues for free, or submit a short story, poem, or art work for consideration for an upcoming issue,

please go here:  http://www.polarborealis.ca/

I’m working on establishing a web site to house POLAR BOREALIS Magazine. Once it is up the relevant material on this site will be reduced to a link to the new site.

This should make it easier to find POLAR BOREALIS through Google.

All current and future issues will be made available at the new site for free download.

The second issue will be out in a month or two and will feature poetry by Rissa Johnson, Mary Choo, Eileen Kernaghan, Rhea Rose and J.Y.T. Kennedy, as well as stories by Stan G. Hyde, Steve Fahnestalk, Michael John Bertrand, Holly Schofield, David Perlmutter, R. Graeme Cameron, Catherine Girczyc, dvsduncan, Nina Munteanu, Matthew Hughes and Spider Robinson, plus a wonderful cover by Eric Chu.

Cheers!  The Graeme

The first issue of my non-profit semi-professional paying-market SF&F fiction magazine POLAR BOREALIS is posted this site (click on “Polar Borealis Magazine” above, then “Current/Back Issues,” and then “Polar Borealis #1”) aimed at beginning Canadian writers eager to make their first sale, with some pros to provide role models.

With art by Jean-Pierre Normand, Lynne Taylor Fahnestalk, and Taral Wayne.

Poems by Rissa Johnson, Eileen Kernaghan, and Rhea Rose.

Stories by Christel Bodenbender, R. Graeme Cameron, Steve Fahnestalk, Karl Johanson, Rissa Johnson, Kelly Ng, Craig Russell, Robert J. Sawyer, T.G. Shepherd, Casey June Wolf, and Flora Jo Zenthoefer.

Hope you find it of interest.

Cheers!  The Graeme

Just click on the current issue upper right. Issue # 4 has 40 reviews, including the three novels ‘The Black Bottle Man,’ ‘Goddess Gambit,’ and ‘Signal to Noise.’ Also an interview with ‘The Graeme’ by Lynda Williams, an essay on the H.P. Lovecraft controversy, and two guest reviews by Gregg Chamberlain.

Plus an announcement on plans to start up a semi-pro SF fiction zine which will pay 1 cent a word for stories 3,000 words or less. See POLAR BOREAL Magazine for info.

But only if you want to.

I started giving out the Faneds (based on popular vote) in 2011. They promote and celebrate Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy fanzines and all who contribute to them.

Though fannish in nature, the quality of writing and criticism in them is often astonishingly high. ECDYSIS by Jonathan Crowe (currently nominated for an Aurora Award) and BROKEN TOYS by 11-times Hugo nominee & Rotsler Award Winner Taral Wayne are particularly noted for their very thoughtful, literate and well-written essays and articles (often reflecting wider interests than SF&F topics).

Though Canadian zines are few in number compared to American or British zines, they are as varied and interesting as any. Our first Canadian expression of “amateur SF&F magazines” appeared in 1936 with the publication of THE CANADIAN SCIENCE FICTION FAN by an unknown editor (name not mentioned in a Donald Wollheim review) who became the recipient of the first Faned “Hall of Fame Award” in 2011. My point being that Canadian SF&F fanzines date back to the very beginnings of organized SF fandom. We are not newcomers.

If you are interested in amateur literary phenomena, check out my Press Release and Ballot. Just click on “Weird Zines” (in the banner masthead above) and then “Faned Press Release.”

And if you are already a reader of Canadian SF zines, then copy the Ballot portion of the article into a word document and follow the instructions if you wish to vote.

By the way, OBIR Magazine counts as a fanzine, belonging to the category of “Perzine” or “personal fanzine,” but since I didn’t begin publication till this year, and the 2015 Awards celebrate Zines published in 2014, OBIR is not eligible. But NEXT year…