Last year Laksa Media published Strangers Among Us: Tales of the Underdogs and Outcasts, an anthology of stories focusing on mental health. It included writers like Kelley Armstrong, A.M. Dellamonica, Gemma Files, A.C. Wise, Hayden Trenholm, and more. The book included a number of good stories, but perhaps my favourite thing about the project was that upon publication Laksa Media donated $1000 to the Canadian Mental Health Association, and then part of the proceeds later went to that same charity.
Last Fall I met the editors, Susan Forest and Lucas K. Law, at CanCon and we got around to talking about the book. After some discussion on disability and caretaking, they asked if I would be interested in writing the introduction to their next book The Sum of Us, an anthology of stories about caregiving and caretaking. I’ve been in a caretaker position, and I’ve also had people support me throughout my life with my disability, so these are subjects that matter to me. I was flattered as well as touched, and I accepted.
Now Laksa Media has released the cover and the table of contents. (Look, that’s my name on the cover.) As with Strangers Among Us, the publisher will be donating $1000 upon publication to support one of the programs provided by the Canadian Mental Health Association, and then part of the proceeds will also be going to one of those programs. It is quite a lovely project, and I hope you’ll consider supporting it. (I mean, come one, you get good fiction AND you get to support a good cause!)
Table of Contents
Foreword, Lucas K. Law
Introduction, Dominik Parisien
The Dunschemin Retirement Home for Repentant Supervillains, Ian Creasey
Bottleneck, A.M. Dellamonica
Mother Azalea’s Sad Home for Forgotten Adults, James Van Pelt
Things that Creep and Bind, Christie Yant
The Gift, Bev Geddes
The Gatekeeper, Juliet Marillier
The Healer’s Touch, Colleen Anderson
The Crystal Harvester, Brenda Cooper
The Burdens We Bear, Hayden Trenholm
A Mother’s Milk, Heather Osborne
The Mother’s Keepers, Edward Willett
The Oracle and the Warlord, Karina Sumner-Smith
The Beautiful Gears of Dying, Sandra Kasturi
The Gardener, Amanda Sun
Number One Draft Pick, Claire Humphrey
Orang Tua Adventure Home Academy, Charlotte Ashley
Sunshine of Your Love,- Nisi Shawl
Good-bye is that Time between Now and Forever, Matt Moore
Ambassador to the Meek, Alex Shvartsman
Gone Flying, Liz Westbrook-Trenholm
Am I Not a Proud Outlier?, Kate Story
Blinders, Tyler Keevil
Dreams as Fragile as Glass, Caroline M. Yoachim
Afterword, Susan Forest
The Sum of Us is due out on September 8th, 2017. You can pre-order the book from Laksa Media.
Laksa Media also released the ToC for another anthology, Where the Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy, this one edited by Lukas K. Law and Derwin Mak, with a nice blurb by Aliette de Bodard. The anthology is in support of Kids Help Phone.
Dominik Parisien 