Continuum 8 Program
The Continuum 8 program is up, and I’m delighted to be part of some awesome panels and reading sessions. If you’re in Melbourne for the long weekend and are up for some Natcon excitement, swing past the Rydges on Swanston — Friday’s admission is a mere gold coin donation! Bargain!
In case any of you want to drop in and say ‘hi’, or if you want to avoid me altogether, my sessions are:
Friday, ‘Splicing Genres’ 16:00
with Jane Routley, Jenny Blackford, Lisa Hannett, Claire Corbett, Rjurik Davidson
Fantasy murder mysteries, horror spy novels, science fiction romance… do the best stories defy genre boundaries?
Friday, ‘Tales as old as time’ 18:00
with Angela Slatter, Lisa Hannett, Jenny Blackford, Kirstyn McDermott, Jane Routley
Fairytales are in vogue again, all over TV and movie screens and for years collected by Ellen Datlow in retold anthologies. Why are we so fascinated with these stories? And with so many retellings and versions out there how do writers make them new again?
Saturday, ‘Readings’ 16:00
with Claire Corbett, Angela Slatter, Lisa Hannett, Felicity Dowker
The program is packed with lots of excellent sessions, and though I haven’t yet had a chance to decide which panels I’ll attend (other than the ones I’ll be on, of course!) I will certainly be there to cheer everyone on at these events:
Friday, ‘Twelfth Planet Press Hour’ 19:00
Ever wondered how your favorite Twelve Planet collection would taste like in cupcake form? Then come along to the Twelfth Planet Cocktail hour, to celebrate the launch of the newest Twelve Planets, Through Splintered Walls, by Kaaron Warren, and Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan, plus the new TPP novella Salvage by Jason Nahrung and a surprise announcement! Each book will be lovingly interpreted as a cupcake by master baker, Terri Sellen. Your cocktail choice is entirely your own…
Saturday, ‘Ishtar Launch’ 14:00
Launch of Ishtar, edited by Amanda Pillar and KV Taylor (includes novellas by Deborah Biancotti, Cat Sparks, and Kaaron Warren)
Sunday, ‘Bread and Circuses Launch’ 16:00
Ticonderoga Publications launch of Bread and Circuses by Felicity Dowker
And of course the Ditmar / Chronos Awards on Sunday evening — I love a good awards show!
Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror, Vol 2
Hooray! SO happy to see ‘Forever, Miss Tapekwa County’ on this awesome ToC! And the cover art for this volume is so pretty!!!
Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene have compiled 32 fantastic stories and poems first published in 2011, from New Zealand’s and Australia’s finest writers.
The contents are
- Peter M Ball “Briar Day” (Moonlight Tuber)
- Lee Battersby “Europe After The Rain” (After the Rain, Fablecroft Press)
- Deborah Biancotti “Bad Power” (Bad Power, Twelfth Planet Press)
- Jenny Blackford “The Head in the Goatskin Bag” (Kaleidotrope)
- Simon Brown “Thin Air” (Dead Red Heart, Ticonderoga Publications)
- David Conyers and David Kernot “Winds Of Nzambi” (Midnight Echo #6, AHWA)
- Stephen Dedman “More Matter, Less Art” (Midnight Echo #6, AHWA)
- Sara Douglass & Angela Slatter “The Hall of Lost Footsteps” (The Hall of Lost Footsteps, Ticonderoga Publications)
- Felicity Dowker “Berries & Incense” (More Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga Publications)
- Terry Dowling “Dark Me, Night You” (Midnight Echo #5, AHWA)
- Jason Fischer “Hunting Rufus” (Midnight Echo #5, AHWA)
- Christopher Green “Letters Of Love From The Once And Newly Dead” (Midnight Echo #5, AHWA)
- Paul Haines “The Past Is A Bridge Best Left Burnt” (The Last Days of Kali Yuga, Brimstone Press)
- Lisa L Hannett “Forever, Miss Tapekwa County” (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)
- Richard Harland “At The Top Of The Stairs” (Shadows and Tall Trees #2, Undertow Publications)
- John Harwood “Face To Face” (Ghosts by Gaslight, HarperCollins)
- Pete Kempshall “Someone Else To Play With” (Beauty Has Her Way, Dark Quest Books)
- Jo Langdon “Heaven” (After the Rain, Fablecroft Press)
- Maxine McArthur “The Soul of the Machine” (Winds of Change, CSFG)
- Ian McHugh “The Wishwriter’s Wife” (Daily Science Fiction)
- Andrew J McKiernan “Love Death” (Aurealis #45, Chimaera Publications)
- Kirstyn McDermott “Frostbitten” (More Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga Publications)
- Margaret Mahy “Wolf Night” (The Wilful Eye – Tales From the Tower #1, Allen & Unwin)
- Anne Mok “Interview with the Jiangshi” (Dead Red Heart, Ticonderoga Publications)
- Jason Nahrung “Wraiths” (Winds of Change, CSFG)
- Anthony Panegyres “Reading Coffee” (Overland, OL Society)
- Tansy Rayner Roberts “The Patrician” (Love and Romanpunk, Twelfth Planet Press)
- Angela Rega “Love In the Atacama or the Poetry of Fleas” (Crossed Genres, CGP)
- Angela Slatter “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter” (A Book of Horrors, Jo Fletcher Books)
- Lucy Sussex “Thief of Lives” (Thief of Lies, Twelfth Planet Press)
- Kyla Ward “The Kite” (The Land of Bad Dreams, P’rea Press)
- Kaaron Warren “All You Can Do Is Breathe” (Blood and Other Cravings, Tor)
The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011 is scheduled for publication in July 2012 and can be pre-ordered at indiebooksonline.com. The anthology will be available in hardcover, ebook and trade editions.
Arts SA rocks!
I just got more great news!! My recent ‘Professional Development’ grant application has been successful!
Woo hoo!!
Thanks, Arts SA, for helping me to attend World Fantasy in Toronto this year! This will be my first WF convention, and I’m REALLY excited that I’m getting the chance to go. Three cheers for Arts SA!
Aurealis Awards 2012 (In Which I Smile and Squee and Lose All Words)
What a weekend! I always have a blast at the Aurealis Awards, but Saturday night felt like a dream. SpecFaction NSW put on an incredible show in Sydney; the drinks flowed before and after the awards, the ceremony ran super-smoothly (Kate Forsyth in her AWESOME red leather gloves was a fantastic MC) and the vibe throughout the evening was electric.
This photo of Cat, Liz and I (taken from Cat Spark’s photoset) sums up the mood on Saturday night: happy, boisterous, supportive, and so much fun. Like the Australian speculative fiction community in general, I’d say. Everyone was all dolled up — which is another thing I love about the Aurealis Awards! — and smiling, smiling, smiling. If you look at Cat’s photos, or at Tehani’s set, you’ll be greeted with a collection of people having a wonderful time, and all the smiles are genuine.
Of course, I was walking around on cloud nine all night. I was so surprised to have won the Best Collection award that I fell out of my shoe on the way up to the stage. I felt so lucky just to have been on a shortlist with Paul, Tansy, Deb and Sue that, as much as everyone likes to win, I really was totally stoked with just having my name next to theirs for all the world to see. So I floated up to the stage, dropped my shoe (luckily my dress was long) and then floated back to my seat. And there I was, feeling the adrenaline starting to ebb, feeling so relieved that I’d managed to make a speech that sounded somewhat composed and moderately articulate… and then I heard Kirstyn say that I’d tied with Paul Haines for the Best Horror Short Story award. It was at that point that I lost all composure, and with it All The Words.
Photo by Cat Sparks
I wish I could have had the presence of mind to say what an incredible honour it was to be on the winner’s podium with Paul. And, again, to have been on a shortlist with Deb Biancotti! Angela Slatter! And OMG MARGO LANAGAN! But as everyone saw, all I could muster was a goofy smile, a wide-eyed expression, and about a dozen shocked ‘thank yous’ before I sat back down. I was so happy to see Thoraiya Dyer win for Best Fantasy Short Story — two years in a row! — and loved that Kim Westwood’s The Courier’s New Bicycle won for Best Science Fiction novel (also loved her speech!), that Jack Dann’s Ghosts by Gaslight won Best Anthology, and that the Galactic Suburbia podcast was awarded the Peter McNamara!
The Rydges after-party was a wonderful, champagne-filled romp (note to self: next year, eat dinner first!) and it was so much fun catching up with friends I don’t get to see anywhere near enough, seeing Facebook and Twitter friends in 3D, and chatting and chatting and chatting — until the bar staff kicked us all out!
Tuesday Therapy: A Few Keys to the Kingdom
Before reading this week’s Tuesday Therapy session, wander over to Jack Dann’s website and have a gander at his publications pages. Here, I’ll make it easy: clickity-click here and here.
Gobsmacking, isn’t it?
Over the past four decades, Jack Dann has edited or written over seventy-five books, including the international bestseller, The Memory Cathedral, the World Fantasy Award-winning Dreaming Down Under (which had the honour of being the first Australian book to win this award) and most recently Ghosts By Gaslight, which was shortlisted for a Stoker Award and also for an Aurealis Award this year.
Jack is a recipient of the Nebula Award, the Australian Aurealis Award (twice), the Ditmar Award (three times), the World Fantasy Award, the Peter McNamara Achievement Award, the Peter McNamara Convenors Award for Excellence, and the Premios Gilgamés de Narrativa Fantastica award. He has also been honoured by the Mark Twain Society (Esteemed Knight). In other words, he knows a thing or two about writing excellent stories, so you might want to take notes. 
Anyone who has met Jack knows he’s a legend. I was lucky enough to have him as a tutor at Clarion in 2009, and his passion for storytelling, for teaching, and for people was infectious and inspiring (but how the man still had so much energy after back-to-back-to-back crits remains a mystery…) If any of you get the chance to take a workshop with Jack, jump at it! You’ll leave with a trove full of gems like the ones he has been kind enough to share with us today.
I once wrote an article called “A Few Keys to the Kingdom” for Writers Digest, which was directed to budding writers. It has been reprinted quite a bit. Here are some of those “keys”:
1. You must begin. Every day you must write, no matter what.
2. Give the best part of every day to your writing. Get up early and write if you can. If you can’t, read or put your desk in order or do research. It’s important to establish the habit of working every day.
3. Make appointments with yourself to write. Make yourself feel as guilty as possible. Do whatever you must to get to the computer.
4. Copy! Don’t plagiarise, but find writers you admire, and read and reread their best work. Dissect their prose sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph. Memorise passages if you have to, but get into the weave of the writer’s work. It will give an unconscious form and balance to your own work. Don’t worry, no one else will know. You will put these unconscious “forms” through your own sensorium.
5. Read constantly and widely.
6. Be prepared to be surprised and upset by what you write.
7. Don’t try to be a critic while you’re writing. The first stages of writing are often intuitive, right-brained work. But once you have a draft, or you become blocked on a story, you must rethink and rework.
8. If you’re having trouble with a sentence or a passage or a plot twist, ask yourself if something doesn’t need to be cut. If you have an especially elegant sentence that just isn’t working with the rest of your humdrum prose, cut out the sentence. It’s probably purple, anyway.
9. If you find yourself blocked, take a break and read and take notes and read and take more notes. Being blocked is natural. It’s your unconscious asking for more information.
10. Rewrite everything until you feel that what you have on paper corresponds as closely as possible to that wonderful image you originally had in your mind.
11. Keep working toward making clear sentences and building solid story structures. Style is really only transparency of thought and idea. Writing well is a result of clear thinking. Cut out everything that sounds nice but doesn’t convey the specific meaning you want. Find the exact word to express your thought: that’s what Roget made his Thesaurus for. The particular way you think, the way you experience and perceive the world, will become your “style”.
12. Read Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.
JACK DANN is a multiple-award winning author who has written or edited over seventy-five books, including the international bestseller The Memory Cathedral, which was #1 on The Age Bestseller list, and The Silent, which Library Journal chose as one of their ‘Hot Picks’ and wrote: “This is narrative storytelling at its best… Most emphatically recommended.” Dann’s stories have been collected in Timetipping,Visitations, and the retrospective short story collection Jubilee: the Essential Jack Dann. The West Australian said it was “Sometimes frightening, sometimes funny, erudite, inventive, beautifully written and always intriguing. Jubilee is a celebration of the talent of a remarkable storyteller.” His collaborative stories can be found in the collection The Fiction Factory. Dann lives in Australia on a farm overlooking the sea and “commutes” back and forth to Los Angeles and New York. You can visit his website here.
“A Few Keys to the Kingdom” by Jack Dann. Copyright (c) 1989, 2000, 2012 by Jack Dann. First published in different form as “A Few Keys to the Kingdom: Thoughts on Getting Published, and on Being the Best Writer You Can Be” in Writer’s Digest 69 (January, 1989). All rights are reserved by the author. This work cannot be reproduced–electronically or in any other form–without the express permission of the author.
Tuesday Therapy: Inhabiting Your Characters’ Skin
Juliet Marillier needs little introduction, really. Since the publication of her first novel, Daughter of the Forest, in 1999 she has published over a dozen fantasy novels, which combine historical fiction, folkloric fantasy, romance and family drama. There are also strong elements of fairy tale and mythology in her stories (Wolfskin and Foxmask draw on Old Norse lore, which obviously really appeals to me!) but ultimately her stories focus on human relationships and the personal journeys of the characters. Juliet’s work has won so many awards it’s almost impossible to keep track — and, calooh callay! she has more books in store for us: the Shadowfell series, as well as a collection of short stories to be published by Ticonderoga in April 2013.
What makes a novel a must-read for me is character. I like characters (point of view characters in particular) to be real. This doesn’t mean they must resemble my next door neighbour or the man who runs the corner shop. But I need to be able to inhabit their skin while I’m reading. My favourite writers do character so well that I am immediately sucked into the point of view – no time to start working out what technical tricks are being employed, no being distracted by niggling uncertainties of style. Two writers who take us right inside their characters’ heads are Margo Lanagan in her remarkable novel Tender Morsels, based on the fairy tale Snow White and Rose Red, and Joe Abercrombie in any of his dark, twisted epic fantasies. Margo uses a well-considered combination of first person and tight third person; Joe is a master of tight third.
I strive to create characters as skilfully as these writers do. There are two parts to it. One is technical: putting together various elements to create a particular voice, including the approach to point of view. That’s too big a topic to discuss here.
The other is intuitive and relates less to the process of writing and more to how the writer interacts with other people in real life. Writers who can portray flawed, cruel, selfish characters in a way that leaves us reluctantly liking those indivduals must surely have a deep understanding and acceptance of humankind, warts and all. Whether it’s easier to portray noble, good and wise characters is debatable. Of course, in fleshing out those characters, the writer may discover hidden flaws and frailites that make them entirely real.
You don’t get that kind of understanding from sitting on your bum in front of your laptop, folks. You get it by living life, by getting out there and meeting all kinds of people and by recognising that under the surface every human being is worthy of your respect and compassion. The key to character is learning to understand and accept your fellow human beings from the inside out. It’s being able to walk in their shoes and see the world through their eyes.
I couldn’t agree more. Thanks so much for sharing, Juliet!
Juliet Marillier was born and brought up in Dunedin, New Zealand, and now lives in Western Australia. Her historical fantasy novels for adults and young adults have been translated into many languages and have won a number of awards including the Aurealis, the American Library Association’s Alex Award, the Sir Julius Vogel Award and the Prix Imaginales. Her lifelong love of folklore, fairy tales and mythology is a major influence on her writing. Juliet is currently working on the Shadowfell series, a story of tyranny and rebellion set in a magical version of ancient Scotland. The first book in the series, Shadowfell, will be published by Pan Macmillan in July, and by Knopf US in September. Juliet is a full time writer; her other job is Mad Dog Lady. She blogs monthly on http://www.writerunboxed.com and her website is at http://www.julietmarillier.com.
Norma K Hemming Award Shortlist
Cool news!
I just found out that Bluegrass Symphony has been shortlisted for the 2012 Norma K Hemming Award for race, gender, sexuality, class and disability in Australian speculative fiction. I’m gobsmacked! What an incredible honour to be included on this awesome shortlist:
Black Glass by Meg Mundell (Scribe)
Bluegrass Symphony by Lisa L Hannett (Ticonderoga Publications)
The Devil’s Diadem by Sara Douglass (HarperCollins)
Eona by Alison Goodman (HarperCollins)
Hindsight by A A Bell (HarperCollins)
Nightsiders by Sue Isle (Twelfth Planet Press)
Road to the Soul by Kim Falconer (HarperCollins)
The Shattered City by Tansy Rayner Roberts (HarperCollins)
Yellowcake Springs by Guy Salvidge (Interactive Publications)
Winners and Honourable Mentions will be announced at the awards ceremony at Continuum 8 (51st Natcon on 8-11 June 2012). Congratulations, all!
Everyone Needs a Winter Writing Hat…
This is definitely the weirdest hat I own. I’ve got woolen hats with pom-poms, 1920s felt cloche hats, off-kilter fedoras, and handmade toques… but this is my first ever faux-fur, wannabe koala-head hat. It also has furry tassels, which you can’t see in the picture. How could I resist?
In all seriousness (though it’s hard to be serious with a fake koala on your head), autumn is swiftly giving way to winter here, and our house is COLD. In the summer, the cold rooms are my saving grace, but in winter the chill makes me feet freeze, and my hands, and my brain. I am often too busy thinking about when it was, exactly, I last felt my toes to be able to give my full attention to the plights of my characters… which is not particularly appealing at the moment, considering Angela and I are a whisker away from finishing Midnight and Moonshine, and I am still toiling away at The Familiar.
So this year, enter Koala Head and Tall Uggs: my Survive Winter Writing Gear.
Oh. So. Warm.
Guest Post at Booklife: Collaboration
On Friday, the first of two guests posts Angela and I wrote about our collaboration process went up over at Booklife. It was such fun writing these posts (the second one in particular, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see it!) and great to get a chance to share a bit about how we work together.
For the most part, writing is a solitary activity. An idea strikes and you mull it over, jot notes, think about character and setting and plot. You may surround yourself with the company of other people, other writers — go to workshops and critique groups, to coffee shops with your laptop, or travel with notebook in hand — but when it comes to turning vague ideas into a story, when it comes to actually writing, it’s all about you and the blank page. No net.
Writers often prefer it this way. Some of us are natural introverts; we like solitude and the quiet processes of creating narratives, well-turned phrases, and engaging characters. Many of us squeeze writing in between jobs, family life, friends — so we steal a few moments out of our days to retreat into our imagined worlds. Others simply like to keep their work to themselves until it’s completely polished, until all the embarrassing plot-holes are filled and the clunky writing all tightened up. Also, the majority of writers are control freaks — we are gods in our own little cosmos.
Read the rest here.
Six stories on Ellen Datlow’s Year’s Best Honorable Mentions List!
So exciting! Ellen Datlow has just published the full list of Honorable Mentions for Best Horror of the Year, Vol 4 — and she gives the nod to SIX of my stories!
Hannett, L. L. “Gutted,” Shimmer 13.
Hannett, Lisa L. “Carousel,” Bluegrass Symphony.
Hannett, Lisa L. “From the Teeth of Strange Children,” Bluegrass Symphony.
Hannett, Lisa L. “Fur and Feathers,” Bluegrass Symphony.
Hannett, Lisa L. “Them Little Shinin’ Things,” Bluegrass Symphony.
Hannett, Lisa L. White and Red in the Black,” Dead Red Heart.
Wow! Lots of fantastic Australian writers also get mentions, including Angela Slatter, Cat Sparks, Kaaron Warren, Deb Biancotti, Margo Lanagan, Peter M Ball, Thoraiya Dyer, Alan Baxter, Kirstyn McDermott, Joanne Anderton… Hooray for everyone! And thanks to Charles Tan for passing on the link 
Writing Process: Building Sandcastles
The second half of my ‘Writing Habits and Processes’ post for Nicole Murphy is now live. Such a great series — so glad I could be a part of it.
Do you have a different process for writing short stories versus novels?
The content is certainly different — the novel’s world is more detailed, descriptions are often lengthier and more specific, and there are more subplots and characters than there are in short stories — but the process of putting the narratives together is almost the same. The biggest difference in process is in revising and redrafting. Karen Miller once told me that writing the first draft of a novel is when you’re “telling yourself the story” and this is exactly what’s happening with The Familiar. I’m figuring things out as I go along, leaving some parts roughly sketched out, knowing that I’m going to have to go back to early chapters and rewrite large parts of them, add new characters, delete others, tighten up the plot, and so on. This is something that never happens when I work on short stories…
Read the rest here.
Writing Habits, Or How Lisa is Addicted to Her Diary
Design by fotografik
In other news, Nicole Murphy is running a fantastic series of interviews on her website, in which she has asked a slew of authors about their writing habits and processes. There have already been such a wonderful responses, from the likes of Sean Williams, Angela Slatter, Joanne Anderton, Kate Forsyth, Justina Robson — and so many more! You can find the complete list to-date here.
There are two posts per writer: one focusing on habits, the other on processes. This week, it’s my turn to give my two cents — and my first post, in which I reveal what an anal-retent I am, is now live. Thanks, Nicole!
Chilling Tales 2
It’s not coming out for a while yet (2013), but Michael Kelly has posted the awesome ToC for Chilling Tales 2: In Words, Alas, Drown I, the all-Canadian horror anthology being published by EDGE. Gemma Files, Claude Lalumière, Simon Strantzas — and so many more amazing authors! I’m so delighted to have a story in this book!
‘In Libitina’s House’ by Camille Alexa
‘Gingerbread People’ by Colleen Anderson
‘Meteor Lake’ by Kevin Cockle
‘Homebody’ by Gemma Files
‘Snowglobes’ by Lisa L Hannett
‘The Dog’s Paw’ by Derek Künsken
‘The Flowers of Katrina’ by Claude Lalumière
‘Goldmine’ by Daniel LeMoal
‘The Salamander’s Waltz’ by Catherine MacLeod
‘Weary, Bone Deep’ by Michael Matheson
‘The Windemere’ by Susie Moloney
‘Black Hen A La Ford’ by David Nickle
‘Day Pass’ by Ian Rogers
‘Fiddleheads’ by Douglas Smith
‘Dwelling on the Past’ by Simon Strantzas
‘Heart of Darkness’ by Edo van Belkom
‘Fishfly Season’ by Halli Villegas
‘Road Rage’ by Bev Vincent
‘Crossroads Blues’ by Robert J. Wiersema
‘Honesty’ by Rio Youers
Inspiration: Paolo Roversi
Time for another episode of Lisa Gushes About Art.
Now, some people may not label fashion photography ‘art’ per se, but when the images are captured by Paolo Roversi’s lens, they can’t be considered anything less. Like Eugenio Recuenco, whom I raved about a few months ago, the aesthetic of Roversi’s portraits really works for me. The overexposed black & whites, the blue tint to the colours, the Romantic / Gothic scenes and costumes — as well as the ‘vintage’ close-ups so reminiscent of 1940s starlet headshots… All so gorgeous. All so inspirational. The tone, mood, setting, vibe — whatever you want to call it — is something I aspire to one day capture in writing.
And OMG THE ONES WITH THE SNOW. (See the whole series, which Roversi shot for ‘W’ magazine, here.)
Other things I missed during the Attack of Throat Alien…
1) A fantastic review of The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2010 in which Katharine Stubbs heaps praise on my story ‘Soil From My Fingers’ (and also on ‘Slow Cookin” by the lovely Angie Rega, one of my fellow Clarionites from 2009! Yay Angie!) Sure, this review was published in December, but it’s still news to me!
2) Over at Weird Fiction Review, I share a few words about my favourite literary monster as part of their 12 Days of Monsters feature. (My Anglo-Saxon World students will not find my answer surprising at all!)
3) HarperVoyager farewells Stephanie Smith after 20 years of excellent work as the imprint’s Associate Publisher, and welcomes Deonie Fiford as Voyager’s new Associate Publisher. Farewell, Stephanie!
4) Miscellaneous coolness: The picture featured above is Victor Hugo’s bedroom. It is so wonderfully OTT! Thanks to Abigail Nathan for sharing this on FB — click here to see more photos in the 15 Writers’ Bedrooms series. (Some of the rooms are so spartan! Some so depressing…)
While I was sleeping…
Last week, I caught some sort of throat-alien-lurgy-cobweb head-congestion-sleeping illness, and I’ve spent the past week sicker than I’ve been in years. Coughing sneezing coughing sleeping coughing sleeping sleeping sleeping… Not very productive, unless you count getting well as being productive (and, for the record, I kinda do!)
But while I was sleeping, my guest post for Gillian Polack’s Women’s History Month series went up. Such a great project, and I was delighted to be included. I wrote about South Australian artist Rita Hall (one of my favourites, whose paintings I adore and covet):
Beauty often appears in unexpected places. Not just in famous galleries, or on Parisian runways, or spread across the landscape in breathtaking vistas — sometimes really beautiful things can be found in drab, infrequently used university tearooms, hung in a corner where busy academics are least likely to notice them.
An image of two crows, for example, rendered in thick black lines and deep grooves. One a flurry of motion, feathers scribbled upwards, winging its charcoal way toward the edge of a large rectangular frame; the other quiet, a beige echo of the bird above it, sharp beak and wings gouged into the rust-coloured background. A composition so simple — the wood bisected into two sections: above and below, day and night, before and after, presence and absence — and yet so striking. While working on my PhD, this picture drew me to that god-awful tearoom every day, despite its lack of spoons, its pervasive scent of microwave dinners. The crows were part of the university’s collection — all the artworks on campus were — but unlike the rest of them, there was no identifying plaque on the wall, no indication of who had made these frenzied creatures, this incredible expression of flight and stillness. Just a name scrawled in the corner: Rita Hall.
Read the rest here.
Tuesday Therapy: Small Goals
Every time I start to feel like I need to do all the writing, and do it all now, I am going to click on this post because the advice Tansy Rayner Roberts has shared with us this week is awesome. Seriously.
Tansy is an award-winning — and prolific! — author of fantasy novels, novellas, and short stories. Power and Majesty (Book One in the Creature Court trilogy) won the Aurealis Award for ‘Best Fantasy Novel’ last year (and if you haven’t read it yet, go! Read! It’s such a fun book!) and The Shattered City (Creature Court, Book Two) has just been nominated for this year’s ‘Best Fantasy Novel’ AA. Plus, her fantastic boutique collection, Love and Romanpunk, has been nominated in this year’s ‘Best Collection’ category, including a story that’s been given a nod in the ‘Best YA Story’ category! Meanwhile, Tansy somehow also finds the time to read voraciously and bring us all loads of spec-fic news with Alisa and Alex as part of the Galactic Suburbia podcast.
How does she get it all done? Perhaps this week’s therapy session will give us some insight…
Small, achievable goals.
It’s the piece of advice I dole out most often to my friends. Some of them have learned to recognise the look on my face, and chorus it with me, because it’s not the first time I’ve said it to them.
I’m sure there are people in the world who need advice on how to think bigger, and grander, how to take their tiny, hesitant plans and turn them into something epic and world-beating. But I don’t have many friends like that. My friends tend, on the whole, to be crazy ambitious people with ideas too enormous to fit into their heads. The kind of people who beat themselves up because they’re not doing EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW.
Not just the writers, oh no. It works as writing advice, but it’s also good advice for life. Sometimes, the goal is just too big, and you can’t get there today. So break it down into small, achievable goals.
One of the hardest things I ever did was to get back to writing after my first baby was born, and my PhD had finally been put to death. I couldn’t write the way I had in the days before my life changed so drastically, and it was hugely frustrating. So I took on a challenge of tiny bites, which was to write 100 words (of anything) every day for 100 days. If you missed one, you started again.
It seemed like a ridiculously small thing to try to do. I had novels to write, lots of novels, and I wasn’t going to get my career back on track with 100 words at a time, five minutes a day.
But it was exactly what I needed. There were days when I wrote a lot more than 100 words, but there was something so deeply satisfying about hitting that target, regularly, which gave me my confidence back. And of course there were days when I forgot until just before bed, and hauling myself back to the laptop and chipping out those words before I let myself sleep made me feel like a superhero.
These days, whenever the balance of parenting and writing and editing and TIME THERE IS NO TIME FOR ANYTHING gets too much for me, I try to breathe, and hit my targets, and keep moving, one small and achievable goal at a time.
It doesn’t always work, but it keeps me on my feet, and some days that’s enough to count as a win.
Tansy Rayner Roberts was first published at the age of 20 back in 1998 with a comic fantasy novel called Splashdance Silver, which won the inaugural George Turner Prize. Her recent book releases include The Creature Court (Harper Voyager), Love and Romanpunk (Twelfth Planet Press) and the Siren Beat half of Siren Beat/Roadkill (Twelfth Planet Press). She is currently working on a novel about Nancy Napoleon, the heroine of Siren Beat. You can visit Tansy’s website here or tweet her @tansyrr.
Aurealis Awards Finalists Announced!
The internets are abuzz this evening because the Aurealis Award Shortlists have just been announced!
There are so many awesome stories on these lists, I honestly don’t know how the judges narrowed it down. And I’m so stoked to see my work nominated in two categories: Best Collection (for Bluegrass Symphony) and Best Horror Short Story (for ‘The Short Go: A Future in Eight Seconds’). Wow!!!
Without further ado, here are the finalists:
2011 Aurealis Awards – Finalists
FANTASY NOVEL
The Undivided by Jennifer Fallon (HarperVoyager)
Ember and Ash by Pamela Freeman (Hachette)
Stormlord’s Exile by Glenda Larke (HarperVoyager)
Debris by Jo Anderton (Angry Robot)
The Shattered City by Tansy Rayner Roberts (HarperVoyager)
Ditmar Award Nominations Open
It feels like only yesterday that I last mentioned the Ditmar Awards on this website, but apparently a year has passed already! Ditmar nominations are now open — until April 13, 2012.
There is an incredible list of eligible works and potential nominees this year (as is also the case with the Aurealis Awards) — so many great stories for us to read, so much great writing happening in Australia at the moment! You can peruse the list of Ditmar-eligible works here, bearing in mind that this list may need tweaking, and some of the pieces might not be arranged under the right categories at the moment.
People active in Australian fandom and full or supporting members of this year’s Natcon, Continuum8, can nominate works for the Ditmars. The Awards rules are here, and nomination forms are here.
It always feels weird pointing out my own eligible works — it’s a bit of self-promotion I feel awkward doing — but still, here goes. If any of you have liked my stories this year and want to nominate them for an award, here’s the list:
Best Collected Work
Bluegrass Symphony (Ticonderoga Publications)
Best Novella / Best Novellette
‘From the Teeth of Strange Children’ (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)
‘To Snuff a Flame’ (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)
‘Wires Uncrossed’ (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)
Best Short Story
‘Down the Hollow’ (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)
‘Fur and Feathers’ (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)
‘The Short Go: A Future in Eight Seconds’ (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)
‘Carousel’ (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)
‘Depot to Depot’ (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)
‘Forever, Miss Tapekwa County’ (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)
‘The Wager and the Hourglass’ (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)
‘Them Little Shinin Things’ (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)
‘Gutted’, Shimmer, Issue 13
‘White and Red in the Black’ (Dead Red Heart, Ticonderoga Publications)
That’s it for 2011!
Now, on a similar but non-self-serving note, I want to nominate Angela Slatter’s ‘Drive-by’ interview series for a Ditmar. Angela ran this series for a couple of years, including all of last year, and the final post went up at the end of December 2011. Have a look at the breadth of interviews, the variety of excellent speculative fiction writers, editors, artists, and fans that participated — such a lot of work! Such a great series for all of us to read and re-read. It would be cool for it to be recognised with an award of some sort.
Any thoughts on what Ditmar category this series might fit into? ‘Best Fan Publication’? ‘The William Atheling Jr Award’? Please leave me a comment if you know which one would be best!
The Mere Touch: Bluegrass Symphony reviewed at Weird Fiction Review!
So cool to get an email from my publisher today with a link to Maureen Kincaid Speller’s first column at Weird Fiction Review, which is a detailed essay / review of five excellent books, including Bluegrass Symphony!
I love how the reviewer has integrated the reviews into a larger discussion of ‘what is weird fiction’ — we get to learn more about the books themselves, while also being offered an insightful exploration of the question at hand. Fantastic stuff.
“The mere touch of cold philosophy.” – Keats
Reviewed in this column:
Glorious Nemesis by Ladislav Klíma
The Orphan Palace by Joseph S. Pulver
Bluegrass Symphony by Lisa L. Hannett
The Man From Primrose Lane by James Renner
Sleight by Kirsten Kaschock
Since I accepted the invitation to become Weird Fiction Review’s book reviewer, I’ve been thinking a good deal about what I mean when I say ‘weird fiction’. The ostensive definition – what I point to when I say ‘weird fiction’ – can only go so far in accounting for my choices in this and future columns and so some sort of rule of thumb is maybe in order. But while definitions have their uses the reviewer can all too quickly be transformed into gatekeeper, determining how weird is weird enough rather than being open-minded. In part one defines by discarding, so for me weird fiction is mostly not science fiction, nor classic and contemporary fantasy, nor urban fantasy nor paranormal romance, nor ghost story … except that it might have elements of all or any of these and be weird as well. Likewise, experimental form does not automatically mean weird content but the two do, on occasion, go together. And anyway, rules exist to be broken.
Read the rest (including the lovely things she says about Bluegrass) here.
The Week That Was: In Pictures and Words
It’s fair to say that I’ve been a hermit since the Year of the Grant began. January and February have flown by in a whirl of words, chapters, stories… and very little else. Sure, I’ve emerged from the oubliette once or twice — for provisions, say, or to reassure my friends that I’m still alive — but I think I’ve been storing up my energy all these months, stockpiling my non-writing time, so that I could spend it all in one massive exciting hit this week. My computer has grown mighty lonely since Adelaide’s festival season began, and this is why…
Last Friday, we spent the evening outside in Elder Park with Ennio Morricone and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The show started right before sunset (see pic on the left) and because I’d booked the tickets about six months ago, we had excellent seats. The weather was glorious — in fact, the breeze was in tune with Morricone’s outstanding music: early on in the concert, when the orchestra was thrilling us with pieces from The Untouchables and Once Upon a Time in America, the wind would gust just as the violins crescendoed, catching the ladies’ hair and tossing it about dramatically in time with the chorus. At least, that’s how it seemed…
Night fell slowly, dropping a luminous navy curtain behind the stage in increments, the clouds hanging low and beautiful above the white dome. Morricone led the orchestra through pieces from Cinema Paradiso, Once Upon a Time in the West, A Fistful of Dynamite, and when the first breathy notes from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly sounded, the audience broke convention, whooping and clapping long before the end of the set. It’s mean of me to say that you had to be there to appreciate how magical the night was, how perfect the setting, how memorable and moving the performance… How, when ‘Gabriel’s Oboe’ from The Mission began playing, people wept. But there you have it.
Saturday morning kicked off Adelaide Writers Week, which ran until Thursday, and I can honestly say that this was the best Writers Week we’ve seen in years. The program was under new direction this year, and it showed: the tents in the Pioneer Women’s Garden were new, the venue’s layout updated, and the guests included a healthy smattering of genre authors — Kelly Link, Robert Shearman, Margo Lanagan (to whom the entire week was dedicated), Garth Nix, not to mention authors of crime fiction, such as Jo Nesbø and Megan Abbott. (more…)
Sublime juxtaposition and gravitas: in the Lair with Jason Nahrung
Today we kidnapped the delightful Mr Jason Nahrung (yes, the man who competes with Sean Williams and Trent Jamieson for the title “Nicest Man in Australian Spec-Fic”). Jason is the author of the novel The Darkness Within and the new novella Salvage (which is by turns disturbing, frightening, affecting, and always elegant), as well as some very fine short fiction.
Alas, the vortex manipulator experienced some technical difficulties (okay, we might have been drinking), and landed Jason in a tree. He took it all in good humour (although characters looking and sounding rather like us might die horribly in his next novel), and kindly answered questions about committing Gothic badness, vampires as serial killers, what the loss of religious significance means for vampire lore, and why a vampire should be a bona fide cape-wearing agent aimed at upsetting the status quo.
Dr Lisa: You’ve described your new novella, Salvage, as “seaside Gothic” and your website is called “Vampires in a Sunburnt Country” — both of which suggest that the Australian landscape is a crucial element in your writing. What is it about our fair country that inspires the darkness in your stories?
Jason: There are two elements there – the landscape and the darkness. I grew up in the bush, so it doesn’t scare me so much – it’s the cities that frighten the bejeezus out of me. A large part of my taking the step from writing stories to seeking to get them published was the desire to see the kinds of stories I loved set in my own country, with my own cultural background. I love the landscape here with all its variation, and I have a healthy respect for the dangers that distance and isolation can bring. Distance and isolation are natural partners for the Gothic, and Gothic is one of my favourite genres. Adapting Gothic to the sunny Australian landscape is half the fun – that sublime juxtaposition can be quite effective. 
Dr Angela: Which recent works do you think have actually done a good job of turning vampires back into what they should be, i.e. scary motherfuckers? I found Cronin’s vampires in The Passage pretty damned creepy, with that sense of something utterly implacable and beyond control.
Jason: I couldn’t get into The Passage – maybe I should try again. I agree that vampires should be Other, not superheroes; I want mine Gothic to the nines. One of the best portrayals I’ve come across lately is that by Kim Harrison, although I guess that’s not that recent – Ivy is such a lethal, conflicted package. And the American Vampire graphic novel, guest-written by Stephen King; that had a suitably scary bunch of vampires doing some Gothic badness. Lindqvist’s Let the Right One In was a beautiful portrayal. The problem with some of the more violent ‘monster’ vampires is that they often lose their metaphoric qualities – they swarm like zombies, they might as well be zombies (and even zombies are being humanised now). I think they began to lose some of their threat power once the religious equation was lost; without the threat to soul – without the alienness of being Undead — they became just another serial killer. And now some kind of ultimate plastic surgery offered by a BFF for which the price of admission is nowhere near high enough.
Tales from the Oubliette: Full time writing, month two
This month has flown by. February is a short little month, but still. Where did all those days go?
Anyhoo, things I’ve learned in the past four weeks:
1) Apparently, there will be one week in which all the writing I do is deletable crap. So, as was the case in January, the first week’s worth of work this month went straight into the recycle bin. I am also learning to be fine with this. (March’s week of non-writing will be spent swanning around Adelaide Writers Week — so, true to form, my “month’s” totals will actually only be three-week totals…)
2) 1,500 good words a day is far more satisfying progress than 5,000 words of (deletable) crap.
3) I get much more work done if I avoid the internet — namely, Facebook and Twitter. You may have noticed that my posts are more sporadic this month than they were last, and that’s because I’m doing my best to put words on the page instead of on my status updates…
4) Working on two major projects at once is a blessing and a challenge. Last month, I focused solely on The Familiar, in an attempt to get a good start on the novel before the deadline for Midnight & Moonshine starting creeping up on me. But as of the first week of Feb, Angela and I have been giving a good chunk of our writerly attention to completing this collection — which has been great, in one sense, because when I’ve been stumped on the novel I have another important project to work on, so I can do so without feeling guilty. I procrastinate from one book by working on another book — which is awesome. Shifting mental gears and working on completely different stories in a completely different world has been excellent: I’ve gone back to the novel after a day or two, refreshed and excited about moving forward. Balancing both books at once has also been difficult, though, because I’ve always got the collection’s deadline looming in the back of my mind. So even when I’m progressing on the novel, I have Midnight & Moonshine on the backbrain…
It’s also hard to calculate word-related progress on the collection because I’ve spent days editing and rewriting parts of our stories, which wreaks havoc on the monthly totals. There is new wordage, but it’s not always easy to pinpoint exact word counts…
Even so, I’ll make a stab at this month’s totals.
The Familiar now stands at: 42,135 (15,164 up on last month)
Midnight and Moonshine is now over 50,000 (I’ve added about 5,000ish words in rewrites)
I also wrote and submitted a new short story, which is being held for further consideration (yay!): 6,750
All told, I’m only about 60 words off last month’s total!
January: 26,971 words
February: 26,914 words
In March, I want to break the 30k barrier… (Of course, I’ve just jinxed myself by saying that, but whatever. I’ll give it a shot!)
Evil Children in Art (and other tabs I need to close)
I have a terrible habit of leaving about 40 tabs open on my browser at once. Whenever I find something interesting, worth revisiting, or just plain cool, I leave the tab open so that I can look at it again and again throughout the day. Or over the next couple of days. Sometimes over a week. Or more.
Sure, I could bookmark the page, but let’s face it: I’ll click that little star, close the page, and then forget about it. So to ensure that my latest obsessions don’t get obliterated in the Never-Neverland of Lost Tabs, I thought I’d share a few of them with all of you.
First, from Flavorwire, a survey of evil children in art (click ‘view as a single page’ for the best effect). This one has remained open since February 1st because of Ray Caesar’s wonderfully bizarre images:
One day, when there is less writing to do and more time for dilly-dallying on the internetz, I’ll Google him and find out what other treasures he has in store for me, but for now these will have to suffice.
