Tag: Ben Francisco

Smart Advice from Smart People

Thursday Linkfest

Yesterday was busy and thus thesis-less, plus I got very little sleep thanks to some very unfomfortable shoulder pain, so odds are I’ll be saying little of interest today. Instead, I’ll entertain you with links to stuff that I’ve found interesting over the last week (or so): My good friend Chris Slee reflects on the Edisonade (aka the pre-history of Science Fiction) and what was the best thing *before* sliced bread. The ever-stylish Ben Francisco cherry-picks the SFnal highlights of the authors@google youtube series and gathers them together in a single handy post (although he’s missing Neil Gaiman in the line-up). If you’ve not seen these, particularly the John Scalzi, I recommend going and taking a look. The Aurealis Awards are announced and the results posted on their website. Cat Sparks has posted photographs of the night, in which a bunch of writer-types have scrubbed up pretty well (and I show up looking marginally less shabby than usual in the vast flicker

Madcap Adventures and Distracting Hijinx

More Interview Meme

Another five questions answered (see Yesterday’s post for the meme rules). Today’s interview comes courtesy of Lee Battersby. 1. 20 000 word unicorn novella, hey? What’s the follow up? If everything goes to plan, a 20,000 word noir story about a PI and her magical-talking cat partner. I’m thinking there may well be more after that, depending on the kind of fantasy tropes I come accross and want to corrupt, but I figure the magic talking cat genre is the next one I want to pit the gritty realities of noir against. 2. Where is this writing journey taking you, ultimately? I wish I knew. I’ve never really planned my writing career, just followed the chain of opportunities and challenges as they came along. For a long time that meant writing poetry, then writing and publishing RPG material, and now it’s the short story. Given that I finally seem to be getting a grip on the novella, which was the

Works in Progress

28 Days of Thesis Updates: Day Twelve

Minimal writing yesterday (50 or so words), but that was intentional. While I’m still behind, I now feel like a rational human being who lives in a nice flat in which things are clean, rather than an angst-written PhD student who lives in a hovel in which dishes pile up in the sink. Some random stuff, not really thesis-related, from the last few days: –  New review of Dreaming Again in Locus (Jan ’09), courtesy of Gardner Dozois; I actually scored a short mention among the discussion: Straightforward fantasy (as opposed to horror, although sometimes the line is hard to draw) is best represented by “Twilight in Caeli-Amur” by Rjurik Davidson, “The Last Great House of Isla Tortuga” by Peter A. Ball (another zombie story, but a considerably more subtle and elegant one), and “Manannan’s Children” By Russel Blackford… –  The Fantasy Magazine best story of 2008 poll/comment contest is still running – have you voted yet? They’ve named the top five stories in the