There’s a new rider.. I mean: writer, on the Saskatchewan plains. C.C. Phillips was brought to our attention by his son who wrote “I hope I’m not too biased, but I believe (Phillips’) writing is high quality and worth promoting.” So do we, Dusty - and that’s not just because his initials stand for Creative Commons! Have a ride, I mean: read!

Death doesn’t wait for Preston Diamond in Way-cross, it rides out to meet him. And when the “Presidents’ man” arrives in town, Death is not long in catching up.

Way-cross is the hub of an illicit finance and real estate game that has turned sour. High stakes and rampant lawlessness have attracted the attention of the Whitehouse; Diamond has been sent to investigate. Staying alive is a full time job for the emissary though he occasionally allows romantic diversions. Will the most beautiful lady Preston has ever seen be the one to capture his heart? Or will she put a bullet through it?

Copyright © 2009 by C.C. Phillips. Cover Photo by Auburn Phillips. Book Design by Dusty Phillips.

Some Rights reserved. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada licence.

For more information on the author and his other books, visit http://www.ccphillips.net/

Xander and the Wind

Xander and the Wind is Book 10 from our favourite scribbler, MCM. If you haven’t gotten to know the man they’re calling “one of the most unique voices working in SciFi today”, click now!

Xander and the wind did not get along. Every time he had a balloon, it flew away. Every time he had an umbrella, it flipped inside-out. Every time he blew soap bubbles, they got in his eyes. Xander knew he had to learn to get along with the wind… but how?

June 25, 2009 / November 26, 2009 / Ages 3+

The Vector

The Vector is Book 9 from our favourite scribbler, MCM. If you haven’t gotten to know the man they’re calling “one of the most unique voices working in SciFi today”, click now or forever hold your peace!

Eva thought she could outrun the plagues, but she was wrong. The bio-hackers that ripped the world raw are targeting her hometown of Prague, and this time there may be no escaping it.

Now, hunted by police who think she’s a hacker herself, Eva must brave the rotting city streets to find her mother before it’s too late. But with a ruthless agent known as a “Healer” on the prowl, it may only be a matter of time before Eva becomes another victim of his blood-soaked carnage.

In this snowy, ash-strewn apocalypse, Eva’s greatest fear is this new threat may not be coincidence at all… it may be personal.

July 20, 2009 - 434 pages - Ages 15+

Contest to promote the open exchange of information

The SPARKY Awards is an international contest that encourages college/university students to create short videos to express their views on open, legal exchange of information in the digital age.

The SPARKY Awards challenges you to illustrate in a short video presentation what you see as the value of sharing information. Use your imagination to suggest what good comes from bringing down barriers to the free exchange of information.

Rules and Requirements

Videos must:
- Be submitted by December 6, 2009.
- Be no more than 2 minutes in length.
- Have been completed between January 1 and December 6, 2009.
- Be narrated or subtitled in English.
- Be posted on the Internet and available for public use under a Creative Commons license. Acceptable licenses include: Attribution, Attribution-NonCommercial, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike, Attribution- ShareAlike, Public Domain.

Visit the SPARKY Awards website for more details and to enter.

Our pal Mark Surman, Executive Director of the Toronto-based Mozilla Foundation, is planning to offer a Creative Commons Advice Booth as part of the upcoming Mozilla Service Week. The 150 .orgs and social entrepreneurs at Toronto’s Centre for Social Innovation will surely benefit from his counsel and you can too! If you want to help or attend, post a comment to Mark’s related blog post here.

We are proud to announce the launch of Creative Commons’ 5th Annual Fundraising Campaign. This year, more than ever before, it is vital that we all support choice and sharing online. Truly, everyone benefits from a free and open internet, and we have only just begun to see how beneficial a culture of sharing can be.

We are reshaping history as we speak. Millions of CC supporters across the globe – creators, consumers, and advocates – have shown that they believe in the importance of universal access to information online. If we want future generations to enjoy the kind of rich culture that we all deserve, we must invest today in the future of creativity and knowledge.

This year we have set an ambitious goal of raising $500,000. To kick start our fundraising efforts, we are thrilled to announce a special-edition remixed Creative Commons T-shirt, designed by Shepard Fairey. Fairey is widely known for his ability to build off both his own work and the work of others to create something new and wholly unique, a quality that resonates deeply with CC’s mission.

We are a non-profit organization, and as such we are all too familiar with the challenge of securing the resources we need to continue our work. We’ve been inundated with news regarding how difficult it is to raise money in today’s economic climate. However, CC doesn’t see this as an obstacle; we see it as an opportunity – an opportunity to call communities across the globe to action.

This campaign is not exclusively about fundraising; it’s about supporting CC – as the original architects of the licenses so many have come to rely upon, and an organization whose mission you value and uphold – in whatever manner you are able. Help spread the word about CC, start or continue licensing your work and using licensed work, and/or give what you can. Any amount helps and all is greatly appreciated.

Fission Chips is Book 4 from our favourite scribbler, MCM. 8 to go!

Gare Marx has been a PI for all of five minutes when he discovers he sucks at it. The mob wants money he never borrowed, he’s suspected of murdering someone he hasn’t met, and he’s hired to find a woman who may be involved in some extremely shady business. That, and his secretary is an amoral jiu jitsu-loving sociopath.

With only hours before his life is ended in multiple (possibly concurrent) horrible ways, he has to dig up the courage and/or resources to solve the case(s), before the cases “solve” him.

May 21, 2009 — Novel — Ages 15+

Fission Chips is a serialized detective mystery with a twist. Every week, you, the readers, get to vote on what Gare should do next. There’s a complex storyline just below the surface that is working on auto-pilot, waiting for you to interfere. And to further complicate things, FiftyWordStories.com’s Tim Sevenhuysen is The Antagonizer, in charge of complicating events every time you get close to solving one of the threads.

Giving It Away: Books, Business and the Culture of Free
Presented by Humber College and the Book and Periodical Council in association with Authors at Harbourfront Centre

When: Friday, June 19, 2009
Where: Harbourfront Centre, Enwave Theatre, 231 Queens Quay West, Toronto, ON

Who Should Attend:
Publishing Professionals
Writers
Booksellers
Librarians
Arts/Technology Media Professionals
Educators
Policy Makers
Cultural Commentators
Publishing Students

From our friend Mike Vardy in Victoria, BC…

50-Word Stories: Support Creative Commons

Existing work inspires my best creative work. The inspiring work seems to come in pairs: I watched an episode of Behind The Music followed by The Rutles, and an idea was born; I was thinking about productivity and watched The Colbert Report, and an idea was born.

Support Creative Commons.

TorrentBoy: Zombie World!” is Book 3 of MCM’s 12 Books in 12 Months write-athon and it does not disappoint.

Wesley is just your average kid at school, doing his best to stay out of trouble. But when disaster strikes the sewage treatment plant, Wesley quickly races to the scene and becomes the super-powered TorrentBoy!

TorrentBoy is the world’s first open source franchise, and you can be a part of it! Whether you write stories, draw pictures, record music or just love to immerse yourself in a crazy new world, this is the place to be! Visit the TorrentBoy project.

March 25, 2009 — 140 pages — 5 x 8 — Black and white — Paperback — Ages 7+