A good reason to be in Adelaide in June…

Twelfth Planet Press has announced their 2009 Publishing Schedule over on GirlieJones’s livejournal. While there’s a bunch of fine-looking publications on that list (many of which will inevitably be showing up on my bookshelves once launched) there’s one announcement you might be particularly interested in:

Horn, by Peter M Ball – the second in our novella series. This book is currently scheduled to be launched at Conjecture: the 2009 Natcon in Adelaide, June 5-8.
Horn is a hardboiled urban fantasy detective story which may contain unicorns and a formerly dead person. Read about the conception of this story from the writer himself

I am 1) excited by this, 2) slightly terrified that people looking forward to seeing the book, and 3) definitely not getting naked at the launch, no matter how many people call for it (if for no other reason than I’ve been quietly laying away unicorn t-shirts to wear for the entire con).

Not a meme-post.

With the Aurealis Awards announced and the big surreal weekend of Brisbane being full o’ writers over, the AA judges have released their reports over on the Aurealis Awards website.  Among the notes for the Fantasy Short Story I spotted the following:

Review of Honourable Mentions
Peter M. Ball, ‘The Last Great House Of Isla Tortuga’
‘The Last Great House Of Isla Tortuga’ is a thoroughly engaging story with crisp and enjoyable prose and vividly three dimensional characters. The reader becomes completely lost in the world described by the author.

Which is pretty cool, all up, ’cause I didn’t even know that the AA’s had honorable mentions.

Best Fantasy-Magazine Story of 2008 Poll and Contest

We interrupt my obsession with the thesis to remember, for just a moment, that occasionally I write fiction. To whit:

Fantasy Magazine are running a reader-poll and contest to discover the best Fantasy story of 2008; one of the stories they published in 2008 was On the Finding of Photographs of My Former Loves, which I’m kind of fond of for obvious reasons. Logically I should be here asking you to head on over and log a vote for me, since there’s chocolate at stake for the winner as well as bragging rights, but I’ll be honest – Fantasy publishes good work and I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read there this year. Just go and have a poke around and then vote; it’ll be worth it. And, if you’re so inclined, leave a few comments – they’re giving away an Amazon voucher to a random reader who leaves comments. Voting details and complete 2008 story listing.