On Saturday I dropped off a couple of my books at the Little Library on Perth's Gore Street, and spent some time in their heavenly Stewart Park. The perfect way to see out summer!
C.K. Kelly Martin’s YA writing is the kind you want to give the teens in your life. It’s written for them, not adult crossover readers, and it meets teens where they live.
— Quill & Quire
✮ Pre-order on Barnes and Noble
Anyone interested in speculative fiction might want to check out my upcoming sci-fi novel, Rise, Tomorrow Girl, which I'll be releasing as Cara Martin. In the near future seventeen-year-old Canadian Leanne Khoury watches a second twenty-first century global pandemic—this one highly fatal in young adults—steal the life of her best friend. When Leanne is stricken ill too her affluent parents have her cryogenically frozen in a facility performing experimental procedures. Reanimated and cured of virus years later, Leanne isn’t the same. Her awareness intermittently ‘disconnects’, stalling her body and mind. But it’s more than that. Snatches of memories from evolutionary ancestors bleed through her consciousness, leaving her feeling as unnatural as Frankenstein’s monster on the inside.
Over a billion people perished during the pandemic, decimating a generation, and when Leanne's released from the cryo facility she struggles to integrate into a Canada and world that has technologically and socially moved on without her. Although the virus is no longer a threat, Leanne is far from safe. In the United States organized extremists threaten legitimate government, regularly committing attacks on U.S. soil. Then radical American expansionist soldiers invade parts of Canada and Leanne, along with others not accepted by the radical invaders, must fight for her survival.
Book release date: June 21, 2024
ISBN-13: 978-1-7383458-0-9
EBOOK: 978-1-7383458-1-6
The below entry has been cross-posted to my www.justlikeyousaiditwouldbe.com site. With Microsoft Designer in free preview I recently fooled around with the software—purely for fun—and ended up falling down a rabbit hole generating AI photos of Amira and Darragh. I'm not going to tell you how many pictures I ended up with (a completely wild amount! Also, a bizarro image of a 60s glam rock band fighting off a bunch of shark men and one of a delicious looking spaghetti and meatball cake, but let's leave those aside for now). The first problem was that Dall-E obviously didn't know what Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge looked like and in response to my entered description continually offered up a slew of other bridges that sometimes weren't even footbridges instead. There were also a few issues with unusually large, weird-looking eyes and the well-known problem that AI often has generating hands. Other times the couple (or sometimes half of them) simply didn't match the images of Amira and Darragh I have in my head. Quite often the couple simply looked far too shimmeringly sophisticated, or had faces that unnervingly resembled Sims characters.
If you've read Just Like You Said It Would Be you've probably formed your own images of the characters which might be a little different than mine, but here are some of what I consider to be the most convincing Amira and Darragh in pseudo Dublin locations pairings generated by Dall-E. You might notice I relocated the couple to Grafton Street then Trinity College and Temple Bar for several of the below images, at first hoping to avoid bridge weirdness and then, well, getting carried away. I've started with Amira and Darragh in the rain, but there were a bunch of suitable results amid the slew that didn't match my criteria.
I wouldn't use these images professionally in any capacity for ethical reasons concerning AI's impact on the arts but it was certainly a fun experiment and I'll be posting a few other photos relating to Shantallow on my Instagram soonish. Now how about a slice of spaghetti and meatballs with green olives cake?
Today is the 15th anniversary of the release of my first book, I Know It's Over. To celebrate I've designed and released a fresh cover and put e-copies on sale for $1.99 U.S. (or equivalent in other currencies) at Apple, B&N, Kobo, Amazon and Google until October 15th.
If I Know It's Over was set in Ontario, Canada today Sasha would likely seek a prescription for Mifegymiso, undergoing a medical abortion rather than a surgical one. At the time I wrote I Know It's Over sadly this option was not available to Canadian girls and women.
However, there are no laws restricting or criminalizing abortion in Canada and it's a publicly funded procedure in most provinces. You can read more about that here:
https://nafcanada.org/abortion-coverage-region/
And if you want to learn more about accessing abortion pills, which was approved in Canada in 2015, please see the below resource:
https://teenhealthsource.com/blog/faq-can-i-get-the-abortion-pill-in-canada/
Included here are previous covers for I Know It's Over, including the Bulgarian edition which was named "Ще си останем приятели, нали?" This translates as "We'll stay friends, right?"
The following is aimed at residents of Canada. If you live here you already know we're in a health care emergency across the country. As Prime Minister Trudeau and Health Minister Duclos go into healthcare meetings with the provincial government, we need to make sure they don't just write a blank cheque to provinces but attach conditions that will protect public healthcare in Canada. Please sign the Lead Now petition and help convince Trudeau and Duclos to negotiate so the deal doesn't allow public money to be funnelled into private, for-profit healthcare, but instead builds thriving and resilient healthcare systems. Petition link: