Bruce Ballon's latest roleplaying book is "From the Files of Matthews GenTech" for the superhero role-playing game "Silver Age Sentinels," published by the Canadian company Guardians of Order Inc. "It's a blend of SF, horror and superhero elements put together as a tribute to mad scientists and mutant monsters (plus a dash of Cthulhu to get just the right flavour)," Bruce says. It has garnered a few Stoker recommendations and is on the preliminary ballot for an Origins Award.

Mark Anthony Brennan's story "Return of the Native" is scheduled to appear in the upcoming issue of Andromeda Spaceways In-flight Magazine. The soon-to-be-released Monsters Ink anthology will feature his story "Freezer Burn." His work will also be appearing in Here & Now, Shadowland and Once Upon a World sometime in 2004.

E. L. Chen has a short story ("White Rabbit Triptych") in the current issue of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet as well as a short comic ("The New Girl") in Say...aren't you dead? She recently sold another comic (as well as cover artwork) to Say...why aren't we crying? and her short story "The Moment of Truth" will likely appear in the spring issue of OnSpec.

Candas Jane Dorsey was elected president, Susan Mayse vice-president and Annette Mocek secretary-treasurer of SF Canada at the annual general meeting held December 29 in Toronto.

Dave Duncan's latest novel, Impossible Odds: A Chronicle of the King's Blades, was published in November by Eos.

Matt Hughes's "very mild" horror short story, "Mean Mr. Mustard," is the cover story for the winter edition of Storyteller, the leading Canadian quarterly magazine of genre fiction. In addition, Matt has made his first sale to Gardner Dozois at Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, a,time travel story called "The Hat Thing," and sold a third Henghis Hapthorn story, "Relics of the Thim," to Gordon Van Gelder at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Tor will release his novel Black Brillion in November.

On the suspense side, Matt sold a novella, "Muscle," to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. It's about three socialite women who inadvertently find themselves hiring out as enforcers among the country club set.

The Stars As Seen from this Particular Angle of Night (Red Deer Press/The Bakka Collection, 2003), a speculative poetry anthology edited by Sandra Kasturi and featuring several SF Canada members among its contributors, was listed among November and December's "New and Notable Books" by Locus Online. It has also received several recommendations for the Stoker Award ballot.

Ahmed A. Khan recently sold short stories "The Maker Myth" to Kenoma e-zine and "The End" to Anotherealm (where it's cheduled to appear in March). Meanwhile, he's keeping himself busy with his Web site of short SF reviews.

Eileen Kernaghan has sold her third YA fantasy novel, The Alchemist's Daughter, to Thistledown Press; it will be out later this year.

Joe Mahoney's speculative fiction radio show Faster Than Light is proceeding to the next stage with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. "We're going to make yet another pilot (this will be number three)," Joe says, "but that's okay because this time it's more about establishing content and structure than auditioning. And it looks like we'll be given the time and money to do it up right."

Steven Mills's rticle "Story Resuscitation" appeared in the Spring/Summer issue of WordWorks.

Nina Munteanu sold a reprint of her short story "Angel's Promises" to Gateway-SF for its print issue #8 (Website Issue #9), scheduled for spring of 2004 (she thinks).

Sherry D. Ramsey's "On The Road With Fiamong's Rule" will be reprinted in the anthology Dark Highways, due out in 2004 from Cyber-Pulp.

Mark A. Rayner has sold his first novel, The Amadeus Net, to Emperor's New Clothes Press. It will come out "sometime early in 2005."

Spider Robinson has been asked by the Heinlein Trust to collaborate on a novel with Robert A. Heinlein. Called "Robert A. Heinlein's Variable Star by Spider Robinson," it will be based on a lengthy detailed outline Heinlein drew up in 1955--"Eerily," Spider notes, "the very year I first discovered his work, at age 6"--which was just discovered among his papers by the official Heinlein archivist, Bill Patterson. The book is being marketed by Spider's (and Heinlein's) agent, Eleanor Wood, using a proposal by Spider, Heinlein's original outline and handwritten index-card notes, and a 10,000-word sample Spider has already written. Spider isn't the novel's only Canadian connection: the novel opens in Surrey, B.C.

Says Spider, "No words can describe the flood of emotions I've experienced since I got the news--but joy unspeakable is definitely uppermost in the mix. Followed closely by mortal terror. My primary hope in this project is to avoid being torn limb from limb by the Ghost of The Beast. Pray for me, folks. And share my joy."

An interview with Spider will be featured in the February, 2004, issue of Locus Magazine.

Simon Rose's novel The Alchemist's Portrait received a very positive review in the Canadian Review of Materials.

Jean-Louis Trudel sold two short stories to the Italian magazine Carmilla. One is "Des anges sont tombés" (Where Angels Fall), which Jean-Louis says is "probably my most published (more than seven times) translated (more than three times) and pirated (twice) story," and the other is an original, "Soldats des bois, de la mer et du ciel" (Soldiers of the Woods, the Sea and the Sky).

Jean-Louis's short story "Le second carnet de Villard" (Villard's Second Notebook), first published in imagine... and reprinted in a French best-of anthology, will be reprinted in a "Franco-Ontarian anthology-cum-writers' repertory" sometime this year.

Élisabeth Vonarburg sold reprint rights for her story "Readers of the Lost Art" to a "fiction/theory volume" from MIT Press entitled reskin. Élisabeth notes, "I'll be rubbing shoulders with modern feminist SF luminaries like Raphael Carter, Nalo Hopkinson, Jewelle Gomez and L. Timmel Duchamp."

Edward Willett has sold his first adult SF novel, Lost in Translation, to Five Star. No publication date has yet been set. Lost in Translation is based on this short story of the same name, which appeared in the premiere issue of TransVersions in 1994.

On the non-SF side, Ed's children's non-fiction book Ebola Virus (Enslow, 2003) has been chosen as one of the 2004 Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students K-12 by the National Science Teachers Association and the Children's Book Council. His non-fiction children's books The Iran-Iraq War (War and Conflict in the Middle East) and Ayatollah Khomeini (Biographies of Arab World Leaders) are both now out from Rosen Publishing Group, and he's still looking forward to the spring release of J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of Imaginary Worlds from Enslow Publishers. In progress is a children's biography of bestselling SF and fantasy author Orson Scott Card, also for Enslow.