Adelaide

Thursday Linkfest

PETERMBALL Smart Advice from Smart People , , , , , , ,

Another week where the list is far less complete than I’d like, but such is life these days…

  • Okay, did you know Angela Slatter has a blog now? No? Well, now you do. Do yourself a favour and go read it, for Angela is a phenomenal writer and a sayer of useful things – I recommend starting with her posts on dialogue or the Clarion South experience.
  • So Friday of last week I put forth some ideas about SF and Gender in response to debates that’ve raged across the Australian SF community of late. Most of the discussion seemed to occur over in the comments of my livejournal, but it also spawned a response from Ben Payne (which generates some interesting discussion on its own).
  • Scienceagogo on Biodeversity Regions as Hotspots for War (Courtesy of Chris Green)
  • Chris Green takes my standard screed on the awesomeness of being rejected and turns it into a yearly writing goal.
  • The Conjecture website has been updates after a long period of silence, suggesting that my time in Adelaide come June may consists of more than sitting around Jason’s house and figuring out how I’ll get myself a pie floater.
  • Nancy Cress on common writing mistakes.
  • Sean Williams is giving away free e-book copies of his fantasy novel, The Crooked Letter.
  • How to Write a Novel Synopsis in an Hour (Courtesy of Jason Fischer).

Thursday Linkfest

PETERMBALL Smart Advice from Smart People , , , , , ,
  • Jay Lake says sensible things about writers and psychotic dedication.
  • ASIF has posted their recommended reading list for 2008, with much love thrown in the direction of the ever-awesome Angela Slatter.
  • The 2007 Clarion Blog Nostalgia Extravaganza continues over at Lee Battersby’s site, with entries by clarion peeps Michael Greenhut and Helen Venn.
  • A photo-series on dead Asian themeparks. (snurched from Elizabeth Bear’s livejournal).
  • Gen Con Australia and  my former/sometimes current boss Hooly talks candidly about the 2009 convention (I am, for the record, involved in the con this year, but at a greatly reduced capacity – hence he’s only an intermittent boss these days)
  • If you’re in Brisbane and an aspiring writer-type trying to figure out what happens next, I’d recommend signing up for Marianne de Pierres workshop at Sunnybank library. It’s free and I can say from experience that Marianne’s workshops tend to be both informative and eye-opening.
  • And for the more artistic types – Small Beer Press is holding an open-call to find the cover-image for the next Interfictions anthology.
  • Sean Williams pokes people with a stick regarding the Australian Natcon in Adelaide and the ‘sploding comments thread of doom reminds me of why I’m booking flights to Adelaide regardless (That I’ve been part of a con that had similar public-communications issues and still managed a to hit a level of awesome on the day helps as well;).
  • Jeff Vandermeer talks about the genesis of Shriek: An Afterword complete with scans of annotated manuscript pages; my inner fascination with how other people work kicked in immediately.

A good reason to be in Adelaide in June…

PETERMBALL News & Upcoming Events , , , ,

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).