Pimp – Page 5 – Peter M. Ball

Journal

Links, Reviews and Dancing

I’ve been all words, words, words this week, resulting in big long posts both here and elsewhere, so today I’m aiming for short and brief. Lots of getting in, doing the pimpery, and getting out. And this time it’s not all about me, just like, two thirds about me. You know how it is. Cool Stuff: The Outlandish Voices Podcast A project set up by Laura E. Goodin, a friend from Clarion and fellow believer in the power of the middle initial, to deliver readings by Illawarra’s established and emerging science fiction, horror, and fantasy authors. Laura is one of those folks whose not content to be contained as far as her creative ambitions, so she’s managing this while simultaneously picking up momentum as a short story writer and playwright (with, I suspect, a host of novels getting written as well). I get tired just reading her blog and trying to keep up with her various projects, especially given her propensity for making them

PeterMBall 07/08/2009

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

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

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Horror Bail Out

As grass-roots movements go, this is kind of cool. 2013 Update: The post that inspired this is largely dead and gone now, but the basic theme was still pretty cool – help out small press horror publishers by going and buying a damn book already. It came with some handy suggestions, too, most of which are out of date. Oddly, my suggestion below? Still going strong four years later. In fact, they’re going stronger. ‘Course, not being a particularly straight-forward-out-and-out-horror kind of guy, the only company on their list I’ve got any experience with as a reader is Apex (whose bailiwick is SF-Horror fusion, and thus situates itself firmly in my mental cross-hairs as both a writer and a reader). Still, I’m all for people spending money on books, so for those of you on my friendslist who are inclined to set aside $20 for the small press horror industry I make the following recommendation: my inner pulp-geek has a fierce and hardcore

PeterMBall 01/05/2009

News & Upcoming Events

Cool Things

My parents read my blog. I’m still having trouble adjusting to that thought, as evidenced by the impulse to ring them when cool stuff happens since, in days gone by, they’ve remain unconnected to any of my primary methods of disseminating “check it out, cool stuff* happening” type news. These days they get to find out about it with the rest of you: Cool Thing the First: Apex Magazine has announced the line-up for their forthcoming print anthology, Descended from Darkness I’m in it, apparently. Which is pretty cool given that my story hasn’t yet made it up as a part of the magazine yet (I may show up in May, I suspect, given the trading-around of line-edits and bios we’ve been doing). The rambunctious Jason Fischer is included as well, making this the second time we’ve shared a Table of Contents. Cool Thing the Second: Interstitial Arts Foundation Call for Artists Back when the first interfictions anthology was released the IAF had

PeterMBall 23/04/2009

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

News & Upcoming Events

It still feels weird when people mention stuff like this…

Jack Dann gets interviewed for Flycon and says a bunch of useful things about being a writer. He also names a list of writers to watch in 2009 which includes such oft-mentioned to peeps as Angela Slatter and Jason Fischer as well as, well, me. Which is both cool and moderately terrifying and a great reminder about how much of this year is being swallowed up by things that are not writing. One of these days I’ll get around to writing a full post about how odd it is to think that stuff I’ve written is read by strangers (or distant acquaintances, or even people I only know through writer-type activities), but suffice to say that it’s still something that comes as a nice surprise when stuff like this happens.

PeterMBall 16/03/2009

Journal

On Getting My Groove Back & The Clarion South Donation Drive

I’ve sent off three four submissions in the past 48 hours. I’ve done a rewrite of an old story that I’ve kinda figured out how to finish. I’ve cooked meals. I’ve washed up. I’ve forced myself to query some submissions where responses have obviously gone awry (I hate querying; it makes me feel needlessly pushy). I’ve done pro-active things on a bunch of little projects. I’ve cleaned out my e-mail backlog until there’s only a handful of things left to answer. There are the beginnings of new stories. Tomorrow, if the small change in my bag blesses me with enough space to hit the laundromat, there will even be wishing. There is a groove, and I’ve almost got it back. Let’s see how I’m doing by this time tomorrow. Of course, in cleaning out the backlog I was reminded, yet again, that I hadn’t posted this all public-like. With that in mind: Due to a run of really bad luck,

PeterMBall 12/03/2009

Journal

The Catch-up Post

My brain is full of much-ness today. As in there is much I want to blog about, but little time and space in which to achieve this, so things kind of bump up against each other and nothing gets written. As always, I blame the thesis – in some ways it feels like I’ve been talking about it for so long that the opportunity to talk about something else triggers this rush of “oh, and that…” (I shall stop that train of thought there, I think, lest I start rambling; rambling is the symptom of a brain full of much-ness). Okay, lets focus on the news in short form: On the writing front, some good news – I sold a story, Clockwork, Patchwork and Raven, to Apex Online. This was the source of much huzzah around the writing the desk, as one might imagine. Also on the writing front – the Black Dragon, White Dragon anthology is available now. It’s one

PeterMBall 04/03/2009

Works in Progress

Today

I’ve done a short guest-post over at Lee Battersby’s blog to kick off a short retrospective about Clarion South 2007. I talk a little bit about what makes clarion great and a lot about the influence one of my classmates had on the first draft of what would eventually become Horn (formerly known around these parts as the untitled Unicorn novella). Go check it out, if you’re so inclined. The rest of the day was pretty busy, by my standards. A trip to the Gold Coast to discuss a subject I start co-teaching in a couple of weeks, a brief fight with the university library about fines for books I’ve already paid fines on, and a trip out to the movies to see The Wrestler. The latter really deserves a post all on its own, since it’s a solid and enjoyable movie (and I say that rarely), but suffice to say that I’d recommend it. Micky Rourke is as good as you’ve

PeterMBall 28/01/2009

Tag: Pimp

Links, Reviews and Dancing

Two Things Worth Reading

Female Appreciation Month

Story Recommendations

Today’s Post Courtesy of…

Horror Bail Out

Cool Things

The Tangled Bank

It still feels weird when people mention stuff like this…

On Getting My Groove Back & The Clarion South Donation Drive

The Catch-up Post

Today

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