Angela Slatter – Page 3

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Angela Slatter’s Sourdough: Pre-order details

Okay peeps, for your edification I’m going to mention that Angela Slatter’s new short story collection, Sourdough and other stories, is avialble for pre-order from Tartarus Press. It’ll be a limited edition of 300 copies, and I heartily recommend it (I’ve read much of the collection, which is a themed series of linked story, and it moves beyond the realm of awesome and into the realm of quite extraordinary). “But Peter,” I hear you cry, “you already mentioned Angela’s short story collection was available for pre-order a few weeks ago.” “Nay,” I tell you, “a few weeks ago I mentioned that her OTHER short story collection, The Girl with No Hands, is available for pre-order from Ticonderoga Press. Sourdough is a completely seperate book, being put out by a boutique press that does glorious hardcovers full of win. Trust me, though. You cannot go wrong by doubling the ammount of Slatter works you’re planning to add to your bookshelf.” “What?”

PeterMBall 12/07/2010

Journal

Things that Happened While I Was Otherwise Distracted

I’ve been distracted of late – either by trying to get the latest version of Cold Cases ready or hole-in-my-head drama depending of the day – and I somehow managed to miss a whole heap of stuff happening around the traps. 1) The latest edition of the Terra Incognita Podcast is up, featuring me reading my story Black Dog: A Biography that came out in the Interfictions II anthology last year. Unlike most of the previous podcasts of my work this one actually involved me recording the reading myself, an experience that forced me to realise exactly how inarticulate I am in the verbal form (seriously; apparently I drop the consonants out of words and rely on vowel sounds and inflections to get things right, and we do not speak of how many times I had to restart things in order to avoid this). 2) Angela Slatter’s Brisneyland by Night is the feature story over at the Twelth Planet Podcast at the moment, which

PeterMBall 22/06/2010

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Don’t think, just follow the link and order

Angela Slatter’s short story collection, The Girl With No Hands and Other Tales, is available for pre-order in hardcover or paperback. And you’ve gotta admit that it’s a pretty awesome-looking book: The official launch is at Worldcon in September. It goes without saying that the book itself is going to rock and you should totally secure yourself a copy.

PeterMBall 09/06/2010

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Puttin on the Pimp Hat

1) Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet has announced the Table of Contents of its next issue due, which will contain work by two of my favourite peeps, Ben Francisco (a man oft-mentioned in this blog for his general awesomeness) and Dan Braum (a man of equal in awesomeness, although somewhat quieter on the internets and thus name-checked around these parts far less than he should be). If I didn’t already adore LCRW and subscribe, this would be the kind of one-two punch that’d convince me I need to pick up an issue. 2) Ellen Datlow’s released the honorable mention’s lists for her Best Horror of the Year anthologies and it includes Horn and the work of a bunch of folks such as Jason Fischer, Angela Slatter, Lee Battersby, Lyn Battersby, Chris Green, Paul Haines, and presumably a couple of other friends whose names I’ve missed in the quick skim I just did. This allows me to tick off yet another thing on

PeterMBall 16/04/2010

Journal

Only Thursday

‘Tis a Thursday, today. Somehow this fact managed to elude me until I rocked up for the Friday launch of my friend Chris Lynch’s Tangled Bank anthology, which wasn’t on for obvious reason. I really shouldn’t be trusted to run my own schedule. That said, the momentary mortification hasn’t really done much to dilute the fact that this is a week of awesomeness among my friends. There’s Chris’s launch tomorrow, the official announcement that Angela Slatter will be doing a short-story anthology with Ticonderoga Publications, due for release at Wordcon in September, and we’re counting down the days until Jason Fischer’s zombie novella After the World: Gravesend hits newsagents on Monday. On top of this there was discounted ginger marmalade on sale at the grocery story today (score!), my laptop repaired and came in towards the lower end of the projected costs (double-score!), and I’ve managed to start watching a TV series on DVD without spiraling into the twenty-four episode

PeterMBall 11/02/2010

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

This is my Pimp Hat

Three things worth noting: 1) Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts @ Podcastle The audio version of Ben Fransisco’s story Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts is live over at Podcast. Go forth and feast your ears upon it; you will not be sorry. 2) Fantasy Magazine Best Story of 2009 Poll If you haven’t had the chance yet, hie yourself over to Fantasy Magazine and place a vote in their 2009 reader poll to determine the favourite story published there last year. My votes swung towards Angela Slatter’s The Chrysanthemum Bride and Lisa Hannett’s The Good Window, but as usual you can’t go wrong with the majority of the stories that Fantasy publishes. 3) Apex Magazine’s First Annual Reader Poll Apex Magazine is also looking for your vote on the best story they published in 2009, although I’m steering clear of recommendations given that two of the stories involved were mine.

PeterMBall 12/01/2010

Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Awesome Things About 2009 (6/15): Write Club

I keep saying it, I know, but write club is awesome (For those wondering what the hell I’m talking about, I recommend this post and this post on Angela Slatter’s blog*). Turns out it’s a remarkably popular idea too – I’ve had a couple of conversations where people wondered how Write Club worked, and it seems Angela gets asked about it as well, so I figured I’d share my** thoughts on why write club works for those who may be curious. Reason 1) Angela Slatter is Fricken’ Awesome Granted, I say this quite a bit on this blog as well, but it doesn’t diminish the fact that it’s true. Even if you ignore the fact that she’s a superb writer whose keen critical eye has stopped me from looking like a goose a couple of times this year, and the fact that she’s generous with both her time and connections, she’s one of the people I enjoy catching up with once a week. If you’re

PeterMBall 11/12/2009

Writing Advice - Craft & Process

Some Awesomeness, Some Writing Advice, Some Help Needed, and Some Horn Spotting

1) Two Reasons Angela Slatter is awesome The latest Clarkwesworld magazine has an interview with eight Emerging SF authors, including the insightful and rather startlingly talented Angela Slatter. She says some smart stuff, as do the rest of the interviewees, and it’s well worth a read. If, however, you like you’re writing advice in a more direct and focused form, I really suggest heading over to Angela’s website and read through her advice on editing. Actually, I’d advocate printing out the entire post and keeping it handy next time you’re proofing something. I’ve been lucky enough to have stuff edited/proofed by Angela before and I can say with certainty that she knows of what she speaks here. 2) Interesting Writing Advice from Across the Interwebs Still on the writing front, I’d also recommend going and taking a listen to Mary Robinette Kowal’s guest-spot on the Writing Excuses podcast. It crams four really useful pieces of advice to fiction writers (based on

PeterMBall 04/09/2009

Works in Progress

Write-Club

I recommend going over to Angela Slatter’s blog and reading this entry on Write-Club. It should provide context for how I managed to achieve this in the space of two months*: The short version, for the click-link adverse, is that write-club is an agreement between two writers to sit in a lounge-room once a week and write. It also involves coffee, chocolate, short bursts of writer-angst, and screaming “write” at the top of your lungs whenever the other person looks like they’re slipping into dangerous levels of procrastination. The process works remarkably well, as evidenced by the fact that I may actually be capable of finishing a novel draft for the first time in about a decade. Angela Slatter (the other half of write-club) has already finished her novel draft, done a fair chunk of a novella she’s co-writing, and started the revisions on her novel. Angela has more detail. Go forth and read. I’m quietly confident that I’ll get

PeterMBall 29/06/2009

News & Upcoming Events

Another Fly-By Post

1) More Hornspotting today, this time courtesy of a review over at Horrorscope by Craig Bezant. 2) Apex Publishing are offering pre-orders on Descended from Darkness, the anthology that brings together a years worth of stories (including my story Clockwork, Patchwork, and Ravens) from Apex Magazine. 3) Last night there was write-club, and I wrote up a storm on the Black Candy draft between chatting with Angela Slatter and exchanging texts with Jason Fischeras he had his own write-a-thon in Adelaide. Then, because my sleep patterns are horribly messed up and 1 AM seems like a really appropriate time to be doing things, I came home and wrote even more. Net result was about six and a half thousand words:

PeterMBall 28/06/2009

Journal

Drinks

Today was full of busy-work: sending of short-story contracts; making a trip to the bank; doing some spot cleaning around the house (a futile effort); booking flights to Adelaide in June; putting together the final touches on a job application; followed by heading off for drinks this evening with the ever-awesome Angela Slatter and the mighty Jason Nahrung, upon which time there was discussion on the matter of writing, not writing, what might be written, not having time to read, procrastination, and other topics which tend to crop up when writer’s gather in one place. All in all, a fine day, albeit not the kind of day from which great blog posts are made; nor, for that matter, the kind of day that results in a satisfied writerly glow of contentment that comes from knowing one has done what’s necessary to produce words and such. Fortunately I felt so lazy after said chat that I came home and had a short burst of work

PeterMBall 14/04/2009

Smart Advice from Smart People

Thursday Linkfest

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

PeterMBall 05/03/2009

Tag: Angela Slatter

Angela Slatter’s Sourdough: Pre-order details

Things that Happened While I Was Otherwise Distracted

Don’t think, just follow the link and order

Puttin on the Pimp Hat

Only Thursday

This is my Pimp Hat

Awesome Things About 2009 (6/15): Write Club

Some Awesomeness, Some Writing Advice, Some Help Needed, and Some Horn Spotting

Write-Club

Another Fly-By Post

Drinks

Thursday Linkfest

Book Information?

Need Help?

About Laautor

Support

Newsletter