Jason Fischer – Peter M. Ball

Journal

Posts of a Random Sleep-Zombie

Very random attack of insomnia last night, especially since there wasn’t any of the usual triggers that set off my sleeplessness. In the old days I used to welcome such things, since I could just wander off and do other things and sleep in the day afterwards, but I am now a working man with a dayjob that starts in the wee hours, and insomnia has become a thing that I no longer care fore. Things I should post about today, and would do so in more detail were I not yawning: – Jason Fischer’s short story collection, Everything is a Graveyard, scheduled for release by Ticonderoga Publications in October 2013. The collection’s slated to revolve around Jason’s post-apocalyptic and zombie-themed work, which is the kind of news that makes me extremely happy, if only because it’d be damn handy to have all those stories in the one place. – The May issue of the Edge of Propinquity is up,

PeterMBall 17/05/2011

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Mmm, BBQ

S0 yesterday was pretty good day. There was a delayed birthday dinner with the family, whereupon we set out for The Smoke in New Farm and ate our own bodyweight in American-style BBQ, then we set out to see Wil Anderson at the Brisbane Comedy Festival, and then because I was full of food and happy I stayed up to listen to the latest Galactic Suburbia podcast instead of going to sleep. Somewhere in there the home internet was fixed, so I rejoined the online world, and I wrote some things. About 1 o’clock I went to bed and actually slept for five hours, which is something I rarely do since starting the dayjob and discovered that being employed is actually far more stressful and soul-destroying than being unemployed (who knew?). So yesterday was a pretty good day, against all expectations, and tonight I make chili in the hopes that it’ll redeem today in much the same way. # The

PeterMBall 23/03/2011

Journal

Storms & Minotaurs & OMG, Sleep

On the evening of my dad’s sixtieth birthday we were all sitting on the thirteenth floor balcony while a storm rolled in. If we were in a movie the rapidly moving sheet of clouds would have been the special effect that signified the end of the world is nigh, so we all unearthed our mobile phones and digital cameras to take photographs. About fifteen minutes before I took the shaky, blurred mobile photo featured in this post the view from the thirteenth floor was all clear skies and blue ocean, and it was pretty enough that even my jaded-towards-beaches approach to life acknowledged that it was a pretty good place to celebrate someone turning sixty. I gave my dad a book – the Collected Stories of Gabriel Garcia Marques, ’cause everyone should read A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings – and a CD/DVD of Leonard Cohen’s 2009 tour ’cause we were meant to go to Cohen’s show last year,

PeterMBall 23/02/2011

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

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

18 Days ’til Worldcon

– There’s a bit of this going on this morning, for I’ve had my second short story acceptance for the year. Details to come once I’ve signed contracts and such, but it looks like this one might see publication sooner rather than later. – If you’re not following the Drive-By Interviewsover at Angela Slatter’s blog, well, you really should. – Ditto The Coode Street Podcastfeaturing Jonothan Stahan and Gary K. Wolfe. There’s something immeasurably pleasurable about getting to hear two very knowledgeable people talk about the history of SF, publishing, reviewing, and (perhaps most importantly) the BOOKS YOU DON’T NEED TO READ in order to understand out field. After listening to one of their earlier episodes, I feel myself utterly absolved of having to finish the rather dire Princess of Mars. – And, hell, lets throw out the rather fine fortnightly podcast from the Galactic Suburbia crew, for I’m a fan of that too. – Also, if you’re interested in scoring

PeterMBall 16/08/2010

Journal

Bwah-ha-ha-ha!

This morning I woke up in the pre-dawn hours to hie myself over to the airport and pick up the globetrotting pair of friends whose house I’ve been living at for the last month. They’re now safely ensconced in their house and I am, officially, FREE OF THE DAMN CAT. Unfortunate news for those of you who’ve enjoyed the cat-posts for the last few weeks, but not a moment too soon for me – I ran out of antihistamines five days ago and decided against restocking under the hopes that I may have acclimatised to the cats presence. Turns out I hadn’t, so much of the last week was spent flaked out on the couch with a running nose, eyes so red you’d think they were bleeding, and a severe headache that defied the raw power of codeine. Some things that happened while I was away 1. I was the victim of a Drive-Byover on Angela Slatter’s blog. 2. I

PeterMBall 02/08/2010

Big Thoughts

Apropo of Nothing

My friend Jason Fischer has expressed his consternation regarding author bios that mention cats in the past, so I feel obligated to mention this in the interests of scientific research: People love them some cats. I mean, seriously, the spike in visitors once I started blogging about the cat-sitting scares me a little (and that was *before* Angela linked to them). I find myself thinking of the motivational poster that went up on John Scalzi’s site a few days after he taped bacon to his cat. People love cat-related stories, Mister Fischer. They like knowing the cats exist and that you have them. Give it up, mate. The Cats win. ________________________________________ Current Writing Metrics Consecutive Days Writing (500+ words): 3 New Short Stories Sent Into the Wild: 9/30 Rejections in 2010: 12/100 Black Candy Word Count (Finish Date: 31st August)

PeterMBall 24/07/2010

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

Awesome Things About 2009: Hail to the Peeps edition

Among the many things to be thankful about in 2009 is the fact that it’s been a very good year to a lot of my friends who also toil in the wordmines. There’s nothing quite so awesome as being part of a community full of folks doing cool stuff, and it seems like virtually everyone I know has spent the last twelve months firing on all cylinders. Among the highlights are Ben Francisco‘s story Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts in Realms of Fantasy, seeing photographs from the set where one of Angela Slatter‘s stories being transformed into a short film, and the news that Chris Lynch will be launching his publishing company’s first anthology before the year is out. Basically, lots of folks have done lot of cool things this year. And given the time you can bet that I’d loudly and assertively celebrate the awesomeness of every single one of them until you too became a fan of what

PeterMBall 16/12/2009

Journal

Your regular transmission is interrupted with this breaking bulletin:

Jason Fischer – Clarion Peep, Awesome Dude, and purveyor of zombie stories – has won the second quarter of the Writers of the Future competition and a trip to LA. The Fisch has been chasing this dream for about three years now, often coming tantalisingly close to earning a spot, and there are no words for how happy I am that he’s finally picked up the victory. Honestly, it couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke. By all rights I should be kneeling in the rain, shirt torn, playing air-guitar to November Rain in honor of this achievement (ask Jason why and maybe he’ll explain). Instead I’m blinking, bleary-eyed, into the dust-cloud of doom that seems to have enveloped Brisbane (and Sydney), and somehow it just doesn’t have the same effect.

PeterMBall 23/09/2009

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Story Recommendations

It’s Friday night. If you too are at home, wondering how you’re going to fill in your Friday evening without a working television, I’ll make two short story recommendations: In the Lot and In the Air, Lisa Hannet (Clarkesworld) The Imogen Effect, Jason Fischer (Faraggo’s Wainscott) Between them these two stories have clockwork sideshows, Minotaur phallus, dirigibles and Led Zepplin’s Immigrant Song. And really, does your evening need anything more than that?

PeterMBall 03/07/2009

Tag: Jason Fischer

Posts of a Random Sleep-Zombie

Mmm, BBQ

Storms & Minotaurs & OMG, Sleep

Blatant Self Promotion: February

18 Days ’til Worldcon

Bwah-ha-ha-ha!

Apropo of Nothing

Puttin on the Pimp Hat

Only Thursday

Awesome Things About 2009: Hail to the Peeps edition

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