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In this post, I swear a lot for no apparent reason

PETERMBALL Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m sitting here on a Sunday trying to remember what I was going to blog about. There was plan a while back – perhaps even a written one – but I’m afflicted with a curse that causes me to forget anything remotely plan-like the moment I sit down at a keyboard. Fortunately, I have a back-up plan: 4 Random Things where I place Fuckin’ in the centre of the entry title.

1. DENNIS FUCKIN’ LEHANE

One of my favourite book stores is Brisbane’s Pulp Fiction, a speciality-store focused exclusively on Fantasy, SF, and Mystery/Crime fiction. When I first started patronising the store I stuck to the fantasy/SF side of things, revelling in the ability to pick up fiction from small presses and mid-list authors I wouldn’t ordinarily be able to track down. All that changed about…jeez, I don’t know, but a while back…and these days I tend to pick up a few things from the crime side of things. I’m a fan of the hardboiled mystery, after all, and I’m developing a growing affection of the cosy murder mystery, and there a depths of awesome in those genres I’m still to find.

But last week I picked up a copy of Denis Lehane’s A Drink Before the War and…well, holy shit, I kinda dig this book. There are certain writers who have the ability to engender trust in a reader, simply be deploying an opening paragraph that makes you think, well, yeah, this writer gets it, and Lehane is one of those. There’s a control there, an ability to deploy language in a certain way, that I knew from the opening paragraph how much I’d enjoy what follows (and, lo, I enjoyed what followed exactly as much as I expected).

I went back on Friday and picked up the second book featuring the same characters. I inhaled the damn thing in one manic night of reading, staying up until the wee hours when I should have been getting some sleep prior to going to the dayjob.

2. LL FUCKIN’ HANNET

It’s always nice when friends who do good work are recognised for, well, being fuckin’ aces at the things that they do well. Case in point: this year’s Aurealis Awards were given out over the weekend and while I’d offer congratulations to all the winners, I was really happy to hear that the immensely talented LL Hannett had walked away with the gong for both Best Collection (for Bluegrass Symphony) and co-winner of Best Horror Story (for The Short Go: a Future in Eight Seconds).

Congratulations, also, to Thoraiya Dyer for picking up the Best Fantasy Story nod for Fruit of the Pipal Tree (yes, she totally deserves her own entry as Thoraiya fuckin’ Dyer, but I’m not yet sure we know each other well enough for such familiarity not to be seen as offensive).

3. RED FUCKIN’ DAWN

Last night’s Trashy Tuesday Movie. Watchable, enjoyable, and utterly terrible. #Wolverines

Next week I’m watching Doom. Actually, next week I’m watching the *extended directors cut* of Doom. Because someone, somewhere, though it was a film that needed to be longer and my flatmate is the kind of person who pays money for such things.

I’m already afraid.

4. AMANDA FUCKIN’ PALMER

‘Cause, really, if you’re going to make a list of people and things with the word fuckin’ inserted in the middle of their names, it’s a fairly natural fuckin’ progression.

Also because I wrote a post for QWC’s blog about her recent kickstarter, John Scalzi’s commentary on it, and what that means for writers. I wouldn’t ordinarily bounce people from this blog to that one, but one of the curses of working on three different blogs every week is that occasionally there’s a conversation on one that you really wish could involve readers from another. Also, the QWC blog is shiny and new, so I figure it can’t hurt to send anyone interested in that direction.

5. AND ONE FINAL NOTE, WITHOUT SWEARING, REGARDING CONTINUUM

If there’s anyone whose heading along to the Continuum Nat-Con in June that may be interested in half a hotel room, drop me a line. It turns out the room that I’ve got has two queen beds, and many of the usual suspects I’d split a room with either aren’t coming along or already live in Melbourne. I’m not opposed to having the room to myself and all, but if the opportunity is there to split costs…

Cool News from the Day Job

PETERMBALL News & Upcoming Events , , , , , ,

So yesterday we made a small announcement at my dayjob. It went a little something like this:

Source: GenreCon News Blog

Genre Con

The Australian Writer’s Marketplace is pleased to announce the launch of the first annual GenreCon, a convention for professional and aspiring writers of romance, mystery, science fiction, crime, fantasy, horror, thrillers, and more. One part party, one part professional development: GenreCon is the place to be if you’re an aspiring or established writer with a penchant for the types of fiction that get relegated to their own corner of the bookstore. Featuring international guests Joe Abercrombie (Author, The First Law Trilogy, Best Served Cold, The Heroes), Sarah Wendell (co-founder, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books), and Ginger Clark (Literary Agent, Curtis Brown), with more guests being announced in the coming weeks. GenreCon is the place to be if you want to:

  • Educate yourself about the publishing industry
  • Learn what it takes to become a successful genre author
  • Network with other writers who are passionate about genre fiction
  • Meet editors, agents, publishers, and other genre publishing professionals
  • Celebrate the rich contribution genre fiction has made to Australia’s literary landscape

The 2012 GenreCon will be held November 2-4, 2012 at the Rydges Hotel, Parramatta, NSW. Registrations are open now, with the special Early Bird ticket price of $190 available to the first 50 registrations. To register, visit us online at genrecon.com.au

Special Guests

We’re pleased to introduce you to this years international guests: Joe Abercrombie, Sarah Wendell, and Ginger Clark.

Joe Abercrombie

Joe Abercrombie was born in Lancaster, studied psychology at the University of Manchester, and spent ten years working as a film editor before his first book, The Blade Itself, was published in 2006. The First Law trilogy, a modern take on epic fantasy, is now available in more than twenty languages.  His latest book, The Heroes, made no. 3 on the Times Hardcover Bestseller list.  He lives in Bath with his wife and children and writes full time. Find him online at www.joeabercrombie.com.

Sarah Wendell

By day Sarah Wendell is mild mannered and heavily caffeinated.  By evening she dons her cranky costume, consumes yet more caffeine, and becomes Smart Bitch Sarah of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. The site specializes in reviewing romance novels, examining the history and future of the genre, and bemoaning the enormous prevalence of bodacious pectorals adorning male cover models. Sarah is the co-founder of Smart Bitches, and the author of the book Everything I Know About Love, I Learned from Romance Novels and the  co-author of Beyond Heaving Bosoms: the Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels, published in April 2009 by Touchstone Fireside.

Ginger Clark

Ginger Clark has been a literary agent with Curtis Brown LTD (New York) since 2005.  She represents science fiction, fantasy, horror, and young adult and middle grade fiction.  In addition to representing her own clients, she also represents British Commonwealth rights for the agency’s children’s list.  She attends the Bologna and Frankfurt Book Fairs every year.  She sits on the Rights Committee of the Book Industry Study Group, and is a member of the Contracts Committee of the AAR.  She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and lives in Brooklyn with her husband.

I’d apologise for the big wall ‘o text, but that would be disengenious since I’m really pleased to have news of the con out in the public and registrations coming in. It means the convention has ceased being theoretical and now become a reality, that the focus shifts from I wonder if this could work to holy shit, people are actually coming, it’s time to work twice as hard to make it awesome and worthwhile.

The frustrating part about announcing this yesterday is that today is my regularly scheduled day off.

In truth, I should have known better. There is no such thing as a day off the day after you announce a convention and open up registration, and I’m pretty sure that I’m going to spend my day habitually checking my work email to see how registrations are going and whether there’s any queries to answer. I’m going to be putting together a rough plan for rolling out the next round of guests, since we’ve got a slew of Aussies coming along who are pretty fricken’ awesome in their own right. I’m going to be pondering how we can use the fact that the first three people to register for the Con are three of the most talented spec fic writers in Australia, especially since they’ve expressed their interest in being part of the program.

I’m going to wonder at the pace with which people are hitting the site, and the pace at which the early bird registrations are going (which is way, way faster than I expected).

And I’m going to spend the day thinking about how strange, and how delightful, it is to be involved in running a convention again, especially since this time around it’s almost entirely focused on the things that I really enjoyed working on the last time I had con-based day-job gig. That I keep ending up with dayjobs as unassailable cool as this one still freaks me out a little.

Now I’m going to go and try to write something, since that’s what the day off is meant to be for, although I may check my email just once more before I start…

 

Provocation

PETERMBALL Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption ,

I’m flying out to Rockhampton at six AM tomorrow morning, so I really should be in bed right now. And I will be soon, I swear, but for this: earlier today I learned the latest Review of Australian Fiction is out, featuring stories by Kim Wilkins and Meg Vann.

Perhaps this requires some context. Let me start again.

One of the nice things about being a writer is meeting people you find yourself liking. This isn’t one of those things that happens immediately. In fact, it starts quite slowly: you spend a year or two meeting people you kind of like, or don’t like at all, and then suddenly you’re are a writing event of some kind and you stumble over a reader or fellow writer who you get along with quite well. And then you keep going to writing events, or you start hanging out with other writers, and these same people keep showing up again and again.

This is, in a round-about way, how I came to know Meg Vann. For a while she was a person I recognised from writers’ workshops, then a friend of a friend, and some time after that she became one of the finest writers of crime fiction I know who hadn’t gotten around to being published yet. There was something criminal about that, too. Almost sinister, given how good Meg’s work is (I remember the first time I went to critique a chapter from Meg’s novel in a writing course; it was remarkably clean and precise and well-thought out and I sweated bullets trying to think of something to say beyond “well, I really like this,” and eventually decided that I should probably say just that). I was just on the verge of calling it the result of some kind of vast conspiracy when she announced she’d sold a novelette a few months back.

And so one of the finest unpublished crime writers I know has become one of the finest published writers I know. I can only wish her the kind of audience her work deserves, and direct people over to the book.ish purchase page in the hopes one or two folks will check it out.