I haven’t posted anything here for ages. Haven’t been reading other blogs much either. The culprit , I believe, is Twitter and it’s a problem that warrants some consideration. More raw data might be streaming past my face with Twitter, but am I actually learning as much as I used to learn from reading great slabs of text?Things are quiet here. I’m beavering away at a couple of writing projects, keeping on top of Cosmos slush, still waiting for news on the novel publication front. Applying for various grants. Getting my new Wordpress site up and running. I won’t post a link because it’s all over the shop at the moment. I’ve been scanning old photos and cleaning them up in Photoshop, finding interesting images I never knew I had. Remembering places I’d forgotten I’d been. The quiet, homey sorts of things you do in winter rather than actually leave the house.
Year’s Best SF 16
I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to seeing my own name included in a table of contents with these people:Year’s Best SF 16 edited by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer“Sleeping Dogs” by Joe Haldeman“Castoff World” by Kay Kenyon“Petopia ” by Benjamin Crowell“Futures in the Memory Market ” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman“A Preliminary Assessment of the Drake Equation, Being an Excerpt From the Memoirs of Star Captain Y.-T. Lee” by Vernor Vinge“About It” by Terry Bisson“Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra ” by Vandana Singh“Under the Moons of Venus ” by Damien Broderick“All the Love in the World ” by Cat Sparks“At Budokan” by Alastair Reynolds“Graffiti in the Library of Babel ” by David Langford“Steadfast Castle” by Michael Swanwick“How to Become a Mars Overlord ” by Catherynne M. Valente“To Hie from Far Cilenia” by Karl Schroeder“The Hebras And The Demons And The Damned ” by Brenda Cooper“Penumbra ”…
Year’s Best SF 16
I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to seeing my own name included in a table of contents with these people:
Year’s Best SF 16 edited by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer
book launch
Hoping some of the Sydneysiders might come along to this one. On Thursday evening, April 28th, my friend Ken Enderby is launching his debut fantasy novel Trail of Deceit, at Concord Bowling Club, at 7 pm. Actually, well-known thespian Lex Marinos will be doing the launching honours. Here’s where you click to buy it on Kindle.
lifestyle
We spent a pleasant evening in Sydney with friends sitting on their high rise inner city balcony sucking up the stunning Sydney skyline while sipping expensive champagne. Earth hour, I note, was a bit of a fizzer. Most of those office block lights stayed on. We turned ours off and ate spicy pumpkin risotto by moonlight, enjoying the antics of the fruit bats overhead.I’ve been so busy these past few weeks. Overloaded with reading, my own writing, other people’s writing, the selection and shaping of stories and the administration that goes with such things. Graphic design and photographic work for writing-related events, all mixed in with the general business of living. I swear I go in to my day job for a bit of time out & R&R! Something definitely wrong with the picture somewhere.My story ‘Dead Low’ was accepted for Midnight Echo 6, the science fiction horror special issue.…
gutshot
I’m very excited by the fact that a story of mine, ‘The Alabaster Child’, is to be included in a PS Publishing anthology: Gutshot – Weird West Tales, edited by Conrad Williams. I almost fainted when I learned I would be sharing a TOC with Stephen Volk, Joe R Lansdale and Sarah Langan, amongst others! Conrad hopes the book will be ready by the end of the year and I do too.