Category: News & Upcoming Events
News & Upcoming Events

Me Teach You to Write Good, eh?

There’s a more substantive blog post coming, but I’m just dropping past to announce the following to anyone who may be interested in this writing course that’s kicking off next Wednesday Night. It’s an introductory course run as part of my dayjob at the Queensland Writers Centre. ‘Course, I’m a sucker for talking about writing, which is one of those reasons I regard the dayjob as one of the best-damn-dayjobs ever Details as follows: Introduction to Creative Writing Presented by Peter Ball If you’re the kind of person who loves books and films, who gets brilliant ideas for characters and plots while sitting on the bus, who scribbles in a journal or is just inspired to imagine and create stories… well, it’s quite likely you’re a writer! Take the plunge and join us for this four-week course where you will explore your unique writing voice, discover your own abilities and learn new tools and exercises to nurture that inner storyteller.

PeterMBall 28/02/2012
News & Upcoming Events

Things I wrote doing stuff out in the world

I’ve been meaning to drop past and blog a few things for the last couple of days, but my times largely been taking up by packing and writing and desperately trying to reach the pre-moving deadlines, and so most of this is old news to anyone following me on twitter or facebook. In any case, my story Dying Young from Eclipse 4 has been selected to be part of Gardner Dozois’ Years Best Science Fiction athology due out next year, which means I can go scratch another thing off the big ol’ list of places I’d like to get published but rarely talk about. There’s a full ToC over on SF Signal, and it looks like a very cool book to be included in. I should also mention that my story, The Girl in the Next Room is Crying Again, is online over at Daily Science Fiction so that those who don’t want to subscribe can go check it out.

PeterMBall 13/12/2011
Journal

Un-Moroccan Chicken and Un Lun Dun

It’s Monday morning here, but due to the vagaries of international timezones I suspect there will not be much of Monday left by the time Say Zucchini, and Mean It arrives in my in-box. Such are the drawbacks of living on the other side of the world, I suspect. Tonight I shall make the most un-Moroccan Moroccan chicken imaginable, given that it will consist primarily of pumpkin soup with chickpeas and bits of chicken in it, spread over a layer of couscous. The couscous, by and large, is probably going to be the best bit. Possibly also the only bit that qualifies as Moroccan. It will, at least, be healthy un-Moroccan chicken, if the Australian Heart Foundation website is to be believed, and that’s probably a good thing after the week of pizza that occurred when I was last chasing a deadline. # There’s a rather nice review of both Horn and Bleed over on the Living in SIN blog,

PeterMBall 16/05/2011
Gaming

I just walked up these stairs and, man, I’m buggered…

Once upon a time I didn’t own a car and I lived in a city with a laughable idea of public transport. Since I was also young and broke and generally wanted to go to places buses didn’t really go, I ended up walking everywhere and got quite good at it. It became a big part of my identity. My name was Peter and I walked places; any trek that required less than an hour or two meant I didn’t really bother with public transport. Naturally, the walking went away after I acquired my first car, even if the mental image of myself as a guy who walked didn’t. And about a year after driving everywhere I walked fifteen minutes to the shops down the street and it utterly wiped me out. I found myself huffing and puffing my way home, two liters of milk tucked under my arm, wondering what the fuck, exactly, had happened. Because I am not terribly smart, this

PeterMBall 09/05/2011
News & Upcoming Events

Blatant Self Promotion: February

Okay, since February is deveoted to the Gauntlet, I’m just going to cram a whole months worth of blatant self promotion into the one post. Strap yourselves in, ’cause it looks like February is a busy one: – Descended from Darkness volume II is out, collecting another twelve months of short fiction originally published in Apex Magazine (including my story To Dream of Stars: An Astronomer’s Lament). For a limited time you can pick this up with the first Descended from Darkness collection (which included my story Clockwork, Patchwork, and Ravens) for only $25US. – My story Briar Day is live over at the Moonlight Tuber site, as part of the line-up of the “Moonlight Tuber #2 – Captain Homonculous Dines with ‘That Irascible Mizzen Mast’ – Part Three” issue of the zine that’s available for online reading or as a downloadable PDF. I think this officially marks editor Ben Payne as the man whose acquired more of my short fiction

PeterMBall 03/02/2011
News & Upcoming Events

Electric Velocipede

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s a new issue of Electric Velocipede on the horizon and I have a story in it. Apparently Electric Velocipede were handing out promotional postcards at World Fantasy that challenged people to match six opening lines with the authors who wrote them. You’re invited to follow the link and find out why this causes me some form of squee. There may well be some kind of contest associated with it,  although there’s no closing date mentioned in the post and I’m a little behind the times, so it’s entirely possible said contest no longer applies. Or can’t be entered online. I can’t really say for sure from perusal of the post, but I’m all for embracing the mystery. After seeing the full table of contents I have to admit that I’m looking forward to the double-issue, largely ’cause I share a ToC with the esteemed L.L. Hannett and I’m always pleased

PeterMBall 20/11/2010
News & Upcoming Events

The Mike & Carly Story in Shimmer 12

So I’m spending some time away from the internet this week, trying to get some life stuff sorted out, but I figured I’d drop by to mention the following: Issue 12 of Shimmer magazine is out This is always a source of joy, largely ’cause Shimmer is one of the magazine I consistently subscribe too regardless of financial circumstances. And to quote from their webpage: Issue 12 contains wonders and marvels, from Peter M. Ball‘s punk-not-emo teenage werewolf story, to Josh Storey‘s gorgeous take on the tale of Orpheus, to Monica Byrne‘s story of stigmata in a colony on a distant planet. We’ve got an imaginative reinterpretations of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wizard of Oz, and a sweet little zombie love story. And more! We packed 9 stories into this issue. What they don’t actually mention in that excerpt is that Issue 12 also contains the inimitable Ben Francisco’s Crepuscular, which takes the concept of a firefly and

PeterMBall 14/10/2010
News & Upcoming Events

Reviews and Other Stuff

Today has been long and slightly odd and overburdened with irritating moments and it involves me cutting back on coffee (which is somewhat akin to saying “flee, mortals, for I will lay waste to your world”), so for obvious reasons there will not be much by way of bloggage this evening. So instead I’m going to point you towards Narelle Harris’s review of Bleed and another review of the same over on Averagely Inadequate. And if you remember the mysterious squee and snoopy-dance of acceptance that I was being very vague about just prior to Worldcon, there might be a clue as to what I was freaking out in the last paragraph of today’s post on Jonothan Strahan’s Coode Street blog.

PeterMBall 21/09/2010
News & Upcoming Events

Just Sayin’

Should you find yourself in the market for a signed copy of Bleed and not be in a position to corner me in my natural habitat, it’s worth noting that Pulp Fiction Bookshop in Brisbane’s Anzac Square Arcade got me to sign a bunch of the stock when I was in there earlier today (which also included a few copies of Horn, should you be looking for one). This isn’t a regular occurrence for me (in fact, it’d be the very first time I’ve done it), so I have no idea how long they’ll have said signed copies in stock and such. But they have them. On sale, like. For you to buy. And I get to add one more reason to the long list of reasons I fricken’ heart the Pulp Fiction staff. Of course, should you not be in Brisbane, then this probably doesn’t help much. Sorry about that. Although I should probably mention that there are still

PeterMBall 15/09/2010
News & Upcoming Events

Hi

Between the Worldcon aftermath and the recent story going up at Apex Magazine, it seems like there’s been a spike in the number of folks walking past this here blog to have a gander (which would be Australian for “have a look” not “have a male goose”). It’s left me all a-fluster, for if I’d known company was coming I would have put on a better shirt before posting today. And possibly some pants. And I would have made sure I was posting from my computer at home, which is shiny and easy to use, rather than the clunky Mac at my parents place. Nevertheless, make yourselves comfortable and allow me to offer you a hot beverage of your choice. Okay, so I guess I should make introductions. First up, this blog is maintained by this pair: The chap at the foreground is Fudge, better known around these parts as the Spokesbear of Doom, who is the taskmaster that keeps

PeterMBall 10/09/2010
News & Upcoming Events

L’esprit de L’escalier live at Apex Magazine

So the latest issue of Apex Magazine is now online and features my story L’esprit de L’escalier about a guy, and endless staircase, and the things you think about during the descent. There’s already some discussion about the story taking place over at I09 which has left me thinking, among other things, “wow, I really do need to read House of Leaves.” And since we’re talking Apex, I’m going to take the opportunity to re-post something that the Apex Chief Alien Jason Sizemore put up on their blog recently. It interests me for two reasons: firstly, because Apex has been pretty good to me as a writer. This is the third of my stories they’ve published, and the first two have managed to sneak onto the occasional recommended reading list and awards shortlist, but I was a fan of the magazine long before I was published there. I subscribed, back when they were a semi-pro hardcopy magazine, and I’ve signed up to

PeterMBall 09/09/2010
News & Upcoming Events

Portrait of an Author with a Shiny New Book

It’s the wee hours of the morning on the second day of Aussiecon 4 and I’ve had far to little sleep, so I’m going to limit myself to firing up the laptop webcam and posting this: New Book! Wooo! It Exists! Now I’m off to shower and prepare for another day of geeky awesomeness.

PeterMBall 03/09/2010