As if blathering about myself on twitter, facebook, and here were not enough, I can now be found over at the Toronto Public Library as well.  This is all to the good:  I will continue to post updates here about schedule changes (if any) and generally promote the program whenever I can.  Over at TPL, I'll have the opportunity to talk more about the process of writing as such, and about my experiences as writer in residence.  I will not be talking anywhere about the individual writers who've come to me with their work; our discussions are between us and confidentiality is extremely important to me.  But I'll let you know how I'm getting on, how the process gets refined, and any insights and learning that I've come to during my time with TPL.

I'm still not able to embed just any arbitrary video, but YouTube comes in just fine (unless you use certain flavours of Internet Explorer [but who would?]):

I've also added a static page for this and other videos I've done.  It's at www.kschroeder.com/about/video.  Check it out, because it also links to spots I've done for TVO's The Agenda and Michigan's Cult Pop videocast.

I noticed in adjusting the login that this site currently boasts 871 users.  Not bad!  The number of people who comment is low, however, and I'm pretty sure it's partly because having to log in every time you want to comment is a pain.  I was trying to create a Guest ID with low privileges this morning but couldn't get it to work right.  I'll keep trying.

Meanwhile, there's lots of features I could add to the site and probably will, given the time:  video feeds, Flickr-type photo collections, polls etc. 

...Of course, if you see me fiddling around in this way, it's a sure sign that I'm procrastinating, and you should probably tell me to get back to writing.

I've created a Japanese page for Sun of Suns (太陽の日曜).  This is an experiment, so if there's anybody out there bilingual enough to interpret what I've done, please let me know if there's any howlers or flat-out insults accidentally rendered into the page.  I used WorldLingo.com's automated translation service, so I have no idea whether any of the text I've dropped in there makes sense. 

If this works, I'm going to create pages for each of the other translated languages/works. 

So Irene Gallo, Rick Berry and I have been talking art lately, possibly with an eye to doing something on the tor.com website.  Rick wants to do some cover art for me, and has actually been working up samples:

Rick explains that this image is the height of cutting-edge sci-fi illustration and has graciously allowed me to present it to the world.  "Karl, the 'New Tunisian Retro Dog' is fine for your blog. Of course you'll have to explain that the "dogs" of New Tunisia are in fact cultured mollusks but just as friendly as the real thing. Mucus can be a bit of problem though."

I've just added a page for my short story collection, The Engine of Recall.  You can find it under the My Books item in the left-hand menu.

The success of this collection has inspired me to start writing short fiction again.  I'd won awards, and been nominated for awards, with some of my short work--but, you gotta understand, nearly all of it was originally published here in Canada.  Until very recently, American markets snubbed my short stories.  I'd concluded that, if my short pieces weren't actually bad (some were obviously very good) they didn't in any case match American tastes.  The U.S. and Britain being the biggest markets for short fiction, I'd concluded it wasn't really worth my while continuing to write the stuff if I only sold it locally.

Maybe it's because I'm now known because of my novels; maybe what was needed was all my stories combined together into one big indigestible lump for readers to buy; but now, I'm regularly receiving requests for short fiction from the U.S.  I'm happy to oblige--though slightly bemused, too, by the turnaround.