Day: January 29, 2009
Madcap Adventures and Distracting Hijinx

Interview Meme, part three

Another round of questions, this time from the ever-stylin’ Ben Francisco. He starts with a big genre question that’s very close to the thesis that’s rattling around my head, then asks a bunch of tricky questions to follow up, so I’m going to be long-winded for this one. Consider yourself warned: 1. You were once somewhat active with the Goth community, and your stories are still often influenced by Gothic tropes (and noir tropes) just as much as they are by spec fic tropes. What is it about these other, darker genres that attracts you? Is it just the make-up and sexy black outfits, or is it something deeper? I think the phrase you’re looking for is “just barely active within the goth community” -I was a goth lurker, for the most part. At the time I was living on the Gold Coast, which is one of those places that’s fairly isolating if you’re young and you don’t have a

PeterMBall 29/01/2009
Smart Advice from Smart People

Thursday Linkfest

Yesterday was busy and thus thesis-less, plus I got very little sleep thanks to some very unfomfortable shoulder pain, so odds are I’ll be saying little of interest today. Instead, I’ll entertain you with links to stuff that I’ve found interesting over the last week (or so): My good friend Chris Slee reflects on the Edisonade (aka the pre-history of Science Fiction) and what was the best thing *before* sliced bread. The ever-stylish Ben Francisco cherry-picks the SFnal highlights of the authors@google youtube series and gathers them together in a single handy post (although he’s missing Neil Gaiman in the line-up). If you’ve not seen these, particularly the John Scalzi, I recommend going and taking a look. The Aurealis Awards are announced and the results posted on their website. Cat Sparks has posted photographs of the night, in which a bunch of writer-types have scrubbed up pretty well (and I show up looking marginally less shabby than usual in the vast flicker

PeterMBall 29/01/2009