It was nearly -10 and windy outside today, but that is rarely enough to get between me and going to a cool book launch. And so I did! Mr. BooksandTea and I went downtown this very afternoon to the Lillian H. Smith public library to attend the launch of Premee Mohamed’s latest book, One Message Remains. She flew in all the way from her hometown of Edmonton to attend. Bakka Phoenix Books hosted the launch and Michael Kelly, editor-in-chief of Undertow Publications, acted as emcee.
One Message Remains is a collection of medium-length fiction in the same setting as Premee Mohamed’s novelette “The General’s Turn“, which originally ran in horror magazine The Deadlands. (Both The Deadlands and One Message Remains are published by Psychopomp, an independent press based in Vermont.)
First, she read an excerpt from “The General’s Turn”, which is reprinted in the collection, to provide context. Then, she and Kelly sat down and had a wide-ranging conversation about such heavy-hitting topics as:
- The secondhand PTSD that results from curating letters from dead soldiers
- The perils of trying to “write what you know” and how such advice can be limiting
- The ghettoization of speculative fiction in the Canadian literary community and grant-giving institutions
- Mean-girl behaviour at the Banff Writers Residency
- Her efforts at building community by being the writer-in-residence for the Edmonton Public Library
- How she determines who her protagonist should be when writing a story: by asking herself, “Who is having the worst time?”
Once the discussion and Q&A from the crowd finished, we all lined up to purchase copies of her books and get them signed. The auditorium in the basement of the Lillian H. Smith library was packed. The lineup for signatures reached out of the main doorway!
In addition to One Message Remains, I also bought The Butcher of the Forest, a novella of hers published by Tordotcom. In fact, I’m already about two thirds of the way through as I write this. The whole thing gives off a leafy, decaying vibe worthy of Guillermo del Toro.
Toronto’s science fiction community is small and fairly tight-knit, and I had the pleasure of running into many friends of mine there. Here’s hoping that whenever Premee Mohamed returns, there will be even more people coming to see her and buy her books.