peeps doing cool stuff – Page 4

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Two Things Worth Reading

1) A Hundredth Name, Chris Green (Abyss and Apex; Subscription Required to Access Archives) Click the link, you know you want too. No? Okay, let me convince you then. You should go read Chris Green’s story at Abyss and Apex because the man is freakin’ talented and understands things like brevity and leaving empty spaces for the story to breathe. I’ve critted Chris a bunch of times and it’s a bloody hard thing to do, because he crams more story into two thousand words than there should actually be allowed and he fits the damn things together so tight that pulling one segment out causes the whole damn thing to unravel in your hands. You should read his story because he’s one of the few people I know who manages to give the impression of being genuinely, fearlessly interested in everything and somehow manages to filter that down into his fiction, even though his bailiwick seems to be horror rather than any

PeterMBall 31/07/2009

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Female Appreciation Month

So the erstwhile editor of Twelfth Planet Press, Girliejones, has dubbed this month Female Appreciation Month in response to the all-around sausagefest that was the Triple J Hottest One Hundred of all Time*. Being a fan of female musicians in various genres, my immediate thought was “sure, I’ll be in that” and I went and pulled about thirty-odd albums out of my collection to serve as my listening for the coming month. All involve either female singers or female songwriters. Being the utter High Fidelity loving nerd that I am, I’m trying to resist the urge to blog at you about the absolute awesome of every single album on this list with top-five lists and random gushing. I may well break at some point. Until then, you’ll probably see a theme running through the Friday Youtubery posts. And I should be rocking out with a month full of XX chromosomal goodness. *This list, incidentally, has completely cured me of this lingering desire

PeterMBall 14/07/2009

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

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

In the absence of context, I’m going with “really? Cool!”

So the nominations for the Australian Ditmar Awards have been released after a few weeks of my friends-list being packed with reminders to send in nominations and reminders about the 2008 works that are eligible. Unlike the Aurealis Awards, which I followed for years before I actually started writing SF, the Ditmars are something of a mystery to me – I lack the context to understand how they fit into the wider scheme of Australian fan culture and speculative fiction. I figured I’d get a chance to puzzle that out at while attending Conjecture, since that’s where they’re awarded this year. Then the list came out: Best New Talent ————— Peter M. Ball Felicity Dowker Jason Fischer Gary Kemble Amanda Pillar And you know what? Context for understanding or no, that’s kind of cool. I’m going to stump for the Fisch to win, of course, since he’s both a fine writer and the man who is putting me up during the con, but as

PeterMBall 09/05/2009

News & Upcoming Events

Today’s Post Courtesy of…

Data-Point the First: The latest issue of Apex Magazine is out, which includes my story Clockwork, Patchwork and Ravens. Go forth, read, and while you’re there consider picking up some of the fine works of fiction Apex Publishing has out (I’m currently stroking the cover of Open Your Eyes, which showed up in yesterday’s post and gets coveted like a covety thing because I haven’t yet had time to read it). Data-Point the Second: Edits for Horn rolled in last night, which means I’m going to be AWOL for a few days longer (baring posts where I show up and pimp stuff, like this one, but I figure you’ll forgive me my exhibitionist tendencies by now). Data-Point the Third: The blog silence up to this point has been generously provided by a head cold and a mild fever that kept me awake. Avoided the blog because I figured endless posts of I’m sick weren’t that interesting (and I sufficiently grumpy

PeterMBall 06/05/2009

Journal

The Tangled Bank

A very cool open-call for a fiction anthology, put together by clarion-peep Chris Lynch: This year marks 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin, and 150 years since the publication of The Origin of Species. To mark the anniversaries, submissions are invited for The Tangled Bank, an e-anthology of speculative fiction, artwork, poetry, and comics exploring the legacy of Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution. Illuminate — or obscure — the line between the real and the fantastic. The fiction may be of any speculative genre or cross-genre; demand to be included by the quality of your submission. Artwork and poetry need not be strictly speculative in nature, but must engage with Charles Darwin or evolution. Submissions for The Tangled Bank open May 1st and close June 30th, 2009. The Tangled Bank will be published by Tangled Bank Press in late 2009, and an advance on royalties of 20 per cent will be paid to all contributors. For

PeterMBall 17/03/2009

Tag: peeps doing cool stuff

Two Things Worth Reading

Female Appreciation Month

Story Recommendations

Write-Club

In the absence of context, I’m going with “really? Cool!”

Today’s Post Courtesy of…

The Tangled Bank

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