I’ve been a member of the bar at Baen and interacted with the people in the Science Fiction community long before The Gender Divide was published. I seldom have the time to visit the bar now, something that I miss. However, I have been fortunate enough to ‘meet’ many new people through the process of becoming a published author.

I’ve never actually met any of these people in person though. Through the magic of the Internet, I’ve been able to correspond with people all over the world.

• My publisher is located in Virginia
• One of my fellow authors is also located south of the border (which for Canadians means the United States, not Mexico)
• My editor lives in Japan but was stateside in San Diego part of the time while editing The Gender Divide
• The winner of the contest I was running is working in Brazil
• Many people in various forums who have residences all over the world
• Entrants and visitors to The New Covey Awards spanning more than fifty countries

The other day I had the pleasure of meeting someone face to face through an odd but serendipitous turn of events. Peter Halasz is a book collector, as well as the administrator of and researcher for The Sunburst Award. Since both of us live in the Greater Toronto Area, I was able to hand deliver an autographed copy of The Gender Divide to him, as well as provide him with the copies needed to enter The Sunburst Award. In return, he informed me of a couple of conventions held in Toronto.

This was just a quick meeting, but in a sense it was one more milestone on my journey as an author.

So to me Peter has become the face of Science Fiction in Canada… at least for now.