Category: News & Upcoming Events

Two quick addendum’s to yesterday’s post. ONE: NEW STORY AT DAILY SF My latest story, The Place Beyond the Brambles, deals with bees and mysteries and missing love, and it just went live over on the Daily Science Fiction website. When last I saw you, my sweet, my love, you were shrunk to the size of Grandma’s thimble and plucked from the porch by the bees of the forest. We heard your cries, your wild shrieks of delight, as they carried you to the place beyond the southern brambles. Listened, after, to the silence that followed, to the empty fields and the dark shadows beneath the trees where no bee remained to hum its evening song. You’ve been gone now a five-month, and grandma does not remember you, nor does Jordy or Cousin Ferdinand or our dear, sweet Claudette. Whatever magic was used to shrink you, to make your final exit possible, has stolen your memories from those you once

I had this crazy idea in my head. I thought things would slow down, once GenreCon was over. Self, I said, if you get through this, it’s all unicorns and nachos. You can finish your writing project, bugger off to Melbourne for a holiday, get ready to kick off 2016 right, you know? For the most part, that’s still happening: I’ve got a few days away from the office; I head off to Melbourne this time next week; I’m scribbling away on the laptop or a notebook most mornings. I’ve watched too many Jason Statham movies on Netflix, without really meaning too. But the writer’s life, it’s all about the hustle, and 2015 still has a few things I should mention before it’s done. THING THE FIRST: CREATING CHARACTERS WORKSHOP On DECEMBER 6 Should you have a burning desire to taught how to write by yours truly – and honestly, I cannot think of any reason why you wouldn’t – you

By the time you read this, you and I are living in different worlds. You are living in the real world, where real things happen. I have travelled to Conference Land, where my head disappears into spreadsheets and phone-calls and a couple of hundred people wanting things done all urgent-like. There is no downtime once you enter Conference Land. There are simply times when you are working on the con, and times where you are sitting quietly, not really doing anything, ready to leap into action the moment the next emergency lands. GenreCon begins Friday. One of those phrases that resonates through my consciousness with a big, earth-shattering KABOOM! And in the silent aftermath, amid the desolation where all thought is wiped away, I start thinking of random things I should be telling people about. FIRST: LAMENT FOR THE AFTERLIFE, BRISBANE LAUNCH If you’re in Brisbane for GenreCon and looking for something to do on Thursday night, might I suggest heading along to

I’ve got an email here from Heather Wood, the editor behind the Gods, Memes, and Monsters anthology, that the books is now out and available for sale at the book-purchasing options of your preference. I’ve been looking forward to this one coming out. The brief, way back at the start of 2014 when Heather asked if I’d be interesting in taking part, was to create an entry for a 21st Century Bestiary that reinterpreted mythological beasts for the new millennium. And so I went off and wrote about the people who are looking for the Jinn, on the internet (’cause how else would you explain rule 34?), and had probably the most fun writing that out of anything I sat down and worked on last year.   And because I am terrible at email, this all came about the same point I heard from Sarah, the Shadow Minion of the Apocalypse (or, at least, of Apocalypse Ink, who has far better job titles than

At work, we run this regular feature called the Wednesday Night Writing Race. The theory behind it is simple: every Wednesday, around 8:00 PM, we get a bunch of writers together on Facebook, fire the starter’s gun, and let them write like there’s no tomorrow for 60 minutes. Essentially, it’s like a mini write-club for people who don’t have the advantage of being friends with Angela Slatter. . Occasionally, to spice things up (and, honestly, as a cool perk for the intern, who gets to program the guests), we bring in Guest Racers – writers who can show up and talk about writing and publishing in detail. This week, our current intern has scheduled Sean Williams as the guest, which is one of those rare occasions where we’ve got a guest that I’m well-and-truly psyched about. If you’re interested in writing – and, odds are, you are if you’re heading here regularly – then this Wednesday Night from 7:45 PM is

So, I’m hanging out the Gone Fishing shingle again. I set out to write 25,000 words on my five days off last week. My total was closer to 20,000, which means there’s still a ways to go if I want to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat this month and hit my 50k total. I have to write 3,750 words a day for the last four days of April and I’m golden. This is not impossible. Not easy, but not impossible, especially if I put my head down and refuse to look at the internet/go see the Avengers/get distracted by wrestling between now and Thursday. To this end, I will probably listen to my favourite hit the fucking deadline song on repeat: I’ll see you all next week. Peace out.

I woke up this morning to find the publisher’s notes for Crusade in my email. I’ve got a week to go through things and get it back to the fine folks at Apocalypse Ink, then they go and do their arcane voodoo that transform it from a word file to a books. The e-book for Crusade comes out in June. (Out of curiosity, I went over to cover artist Mark Ferarri‘s site this morning. There’s previews of the Crusade cover and the cover for the print edition of Flotsam in his online gallery, for those who are curious, and allow me to say, well, holy shit I’m looking forward to seeing that print compilation. It’s so fucking pretty.) Coincidently, starting tomorrow, I also have five-straight days off from work. My goal – gods and sleep apnea willing – is to get about twenty-thousand words down on the next novella on my list, which is all about ghosts and werewolves and boxing and some particularly unpleasant underworld types.

ZOMBIE STORIES I had a new story out at the start of November. The folks behind the mobile/tablet game Dead End Alley commissioned a bunch of Australian horror writers to put together a micro-fiction based on the prompt: A blind alley, a swarm of hungry zombies, a chainsaw, and you. What could possibly go wrong? Naturally, when asked to write a story about an apocalyptic zombie uprising, I went and wrote a love story. Originally I’d intended to dedicate it to my friends Al and Nic, who did actually have a zombie survival kit in their house when I first met them, but it ended up being a downbeat for that kind of thing. In any case, you can my contribution over on facebook, along with zombie stories from Alan Baxter, Deborah Biancotti, and the delightfully creepy Kaaron Warren. CHEAP NOVELLAS & E-BOOKS Exile, the first novella in the Flotsam series, has been added to the Under an Enchanted Skyline boxed set, featuring