Latest posts filed under 'News'

What the Wind Brings, my historical fiction magnum opus, has won the Endeavour Award, sponsored by Oregon’s annual science fiction convention, OryCon. The award has been given annually since 1999 for “a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book written by a Pacific Northwest author or authors.”

I believe I’m the first Canadian author to win. The judges chose two books, mine and The Witch’s Kind by Louisa Morgan, a Seattle author.

What the Wind Brings is a historical novel with magical realism elements published by Pulp Literature Press, of Langley, BC. The novel is based on real persons and events that began when shipwrecked African slaves melded with indigenous peoples of sixteenth-century Ecuador, and together they outfought and out-thought the Spanish conquistadors who plotted to subdue them.

I waited more than forty years to write the novel, after first learning of the shipwreck in a footnote to a university textbook back in 1971.

You can read the opening here: https://curiousfictions.com/stories/2726-matthew-hughes-what-the-wind-brings

I’ve made all the corrections (quite a few typos) and a few revisions to Barbarians of the Beyond asked for my John Vance and Koen Vyverman.  The ms is now effectively complete.  Probable next step:  create a typeset that can be circulated as an Advance Reading Copy.  A number of big-name authors have said they will read and blurb the book.  I can also think of some reviewers who would like to receive an ARC.

We’re hoping to generate as much advance buzz as we can, so your comments on blogs and social media are welcome and encouraged.

For a lot of Vance fans, this may be a significant event.  We’d like to see more readers outside the Vancephile community become aware and interested, too.