Meanwhile, over at SF Signal: The Dream Anthology

The delightful John DeNardo at SF Signal asked a few people to pick and choose for their dream anthology, citing what you’d choose and why. The answers were so big, they had to split the post in two.

Mine is here, as is that of Nancy Kress (hallowed be her name), Violet Malan and other interesting folk.

Part Two is here.

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Last Day of WorldCon

Have fallen victim to the con-lurgy that’s been circulating since 1953. Packing up the hotel room so it doesnt look quite so much like a bomb crater. Periodic drive-bys will resume eventually.

All Russell’s con stock of The Girl with No Hands & Other Tales has sold out, as has his stock of Tartarus Press’ Sourdough & Other Stories. And so has TP’s Kaaron Warren’s luscious Dead Sea Fruit.

More to come when I am back in Brisneyland and have had a sleep and a hot lemon drink.

Slatter out.

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The Baggage Drive-by: Gillian Polack

Gillian Polack is an Australian hsitorian and writer of fantasy. She is the author of the novel Life Through Cellophane, edited Masques (CSFG) and the new anthology for Eneit Press, Baggage, which contains stories from such luminaries as Kaaron Warren and Deborah Biancotti. She has written fantastic entries for one of the most useful books on my shelf, Lindahl’s Medieval Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs. She’s also a medieval foodie and she bloggeth here.

1. You recently edited the Baggage anthology for Eneit Press – how did that come about?
I thought it came about because I was involved in a discussion with my editor (of Life Through Cellophane) about my dream book, but it recently transpired that she set the whole thing up. In other words, Eneit Press wanted an anthology from me, because Sharyn rather thought I could do something she would want to publish.  From my end, though, it went something like:

Sharyn Lilley:  “What’s your dream anthology?” 

Gillian Polack: “Cultural baggage, of course, Australian and very spec fic.  Pushing boundaries.  Giving writers nightmares.” 

Sharyn Lilley: “Who are your dream writers?” 

Gillian Polack:  “In the real world, I’d have to think about it.  In a perfect world, I’d start with Jack Dann and Janeen Webb and Lucy Sussex and KJ Bishop and Simon Brown and Maxine McArthur and Kaaron Warren and…” 

Sharyn Lilley:  “Write to them today.  Just the first ones on the list, mind.  You can write to the others later, if there’s space.  Offer them a place in Eneit Press’s new anthology.”

Gillian Polack: “But I’m shy.”

Sharyn Lilley:  “Don’t care.  Write now.  This minute.”

Those weren’t the exact words, but that was how it happened.  I never even got to the rest of my list of dream writers, because the first list mostly said ‘yes.’  And their stories gave at least three of the writers nightmares.  I thought I was sweetness and light and a gentle soul, but it seems not.

2. You get to be your favourite fictional character for a day with no consequences: who are you, where do you go and what do you do?
I am so torn. I want to be Belle from the Disney cartoon, simply so that I can own her library.  I’d find the lost books of Livy there and spend my day reading them. Or I’d look up the books that have the unwritten Jewish history I’ve only seen hints of in stories.

I also want to be Aslan, so that I can fix up the Susan error and create my own world. 

I want to be Emma in Emma Tupper’s Diary and to be non-meek and still inherit the Earth (why does she have to be so nice and so gentle, even under provocation?).

I want … to be a bunch of characters, not just those few.  There are too many things to do and too many places to imagine.  I think I’d better give up and become a writer.

3. You are forced to choose: editing or writing?
Writing, of course. With writing I still get to edit, but with editing it’s always the dreams of others.  I hope I never have to choose, though, because the dreams of others are so very wonderful.

4. How much does your academic work feed into your fiction writing?
Who I am feeds into my fiction writing.  The academic side of my brain shows in my fiction, if you look closely enough. I edit my own work so that you can pin it down to a precise time.  No vaguely ‘contemporary’ for me, because I can see the history happening and I use it in my writing.  If I set a novel in 2004 in Canberra, then there are going to be scars from the bushfires.  Not just landscape scars, but in peoples’ minds.  This is the historian in me, reminding the writer in me that place and time count.  We’re not neutral about them.

On a more obvious note, I’m currently writing a novel mostly set in the Middle Ages, but with modern characters.  That uses my academic self extensively.  The trick is going to be not letting the historian take over and not overload the whole thing with footnotes and analysis. 

There’s a third direction where my academic self feeds into my fiction self. Very little of my fiction is free from theses.  I don’t always make them obvious, but they’re there. I’m always poking holes in someone’s ideas and prized thoughts with my fiction.

5. Donuts (or doughnuts) or danishes.
It depends on the recipe.  It depends on the date of the recipe.  If you added ‘the early 80s’ to your question, I’d say danishes for Australia and doughnuts for the US, for instance.  I like both, though.  Good ones.  The sort you can’t eat more than once a year without losing a bit of your soul.

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And, launched!

The Girl with No Hands and Other Stories has been launch! Huzzah! As has Kaaron Warren’s Dead Sea Fruit. Thanks to everyone who came along, bought a book, listened, ate Haigh’s choclit frawgs, etc! Thanks to Russell and Liz at Ticonderoga for everything and to Lisa Hannett for the glorious cover and to Kaaron for being such a lovely author with whom to share a launch :-). Pics to follow!

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Invitation

This is the launch invitation for Kaaron’s and my TP books. We know there are lots of panels on at the same time … but there will be Haigh’s choclit frogs at our launch … so come along.

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WorldCon Schedule

Huzzah!

The program is now up at AussieCon 4!

Make plans, take notes, plot strategically – learn where the bar is on the first day and stake a claim on your favourite chair.

My con obligations are below:

Fri 1100 Rm 203: (Book Launch) Dead Sea Fruit/The Girl with No Hands.
Kaaron Warren, Angela Slatter, Russell Farr, Kim Wilkins

Fri 1500 Rm 210: Directions in Australian horror.
Tracking the movement from the traditional to the ne, and maybe back again.
Panel: Stuart Mayne, Bill Congreve, Angela Slatter, Trent Jamieson, Honey Brown

Sat 1100 Rm P3: To market: how to sell your short stories.
Submitting a story to a journal, anthology or magazine might seem as simple as attaching a Word document to an email and firing it off, but is it? How do you know the appropriate market for your fiction? How much is enough money to be paid for your work? How should you approach an editor? What are the dos and don’ts of getting published in the speculative short fiction marketplace?
Panel: Cory Doctorow, Robert Silverberg, David D. Levine, Angela Slatter

Come to the book launch – there will be Haigh’s chocolate frogs. Oh, and also:

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Check it out

Russell B Farr looking like a happy publisher with Kaaron’s and my books 🙂 :-).

More stuffly goodness is here.

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ToC for Dead Sea Fruit

Squeal of excitement – the ToC for Kaaron Warren’s Dead Sea Fruit collection with Ticonderoga Publications has been announced:

Introduction by Lucius Shepard
Dead Sea Fruit
Woman Train
Down to the Silver Spirits
Fresh Young Widow
Coalescence
Buster and Corky
Cooling the Crows
Edge of a Thing
Guarding the Mound
State of Oblivion
The Softening
The Grinding House
Green
Sins of the Ancestors
Doll Money
The Gibbet bell
In the Drawback
The Census-Taker’s Tale
His Lipstick Minx
Polish
The Coral Gatherer
Bone Dog
A Positive
The Capture Diamonds
Ghost Jail
The Gaze Dogs of Nine Waterfall

Dead Sea Fruit is available in two editions, a tradepaperback and a limited edition hardcover, 100 copies only signed by all contributors. Cover artwork by Olga Read.

Dead Sea Fruit will be launched at AussieCon4, Melbourne, September 2010. Pre-orders will ship late August.

Kaaron Warren’s new collection, Dead Sea Fruit, published by Ticonderoga Publications, is now available for pre-ordering from indiebooksonline.com

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Cover-licious

Here’s teh covah for Kaaron Warren’s Ticonderoga collection, Dead Sea Fruit – gorgeous!

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Today’s Drive-By: Kaaron Warren and the lace of rot …

The first thing I ever read of Kaaron Warren’s was The Grinding House and I was struck by the raw power of her prose. The woman knows how to write a good scare. The next thing that found me was Dead Sea Fruit, reprinted in one of the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies, which was one of the most confounding-of-expectation stories I’ve read. It’s also, coincidentally, the title of her collection of short stories coming out via Ticonderoga Publications this year. She’s won the Australian Shadows Award, been short-listed for the Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel, and sold a jaw-dropping 70+ stories. She has stories out in eight different anthologies this yeae, including Ellen Datlow’s Haunted Legends, Eneit’s Baggage and Twelfth Planet Press’s Sprawl. She is also an author with Angry Robot, who’ve produce Slights and Walking the Tree (http://angryrobotbooks.com/our-authors/kaaronwarren/).

If she wasn’t so damned talented you’d slap her. Oh, did I say that out loud? Nah, she’s awesome and she’s talented and she’s very nice indeed. And a little bit scary. Here, she answers my questions -and I’m very happy to be sharing a book launch with her at AussieCon 4 :-).

1. A story can always be improved by the addition of …
A character’s backstory. Also the words ‘the lace of rot’.

2. How many rejection slips did you get before your first sale?
I started sending stories out in about 1988, and didn’t make a sale until 1993 (god, those numbers look alien! Was that a hundred years ago?). I reckon I sent out ten stories a year at least, so probably 50 rejections.

3. Of all your stories, which is your favourite?
OI Lei, as they say in Fiji to express disconcertment! How does one choose? I really like the one I’m working on now, called The History Thief. I like Gaze Dogs of Nine Waterfall, because it landed on the page exactly how I wanted it to land. I like the Glass Woman because I captured the sense of confinement I wanted to capture.  That one was inspired by the biography “Monster in My Bedroom” by Janine Hoskings, about Jo Ann Dolan, a quadriplegic.

4. If I wasn’t a writer, I would be …
I always wanted to be a murder detective.

5. Donuts (or doughnuts) or danishes?
Strangely enough, I can say no to both. Cake and Icecream, too. My diet plan is that if I don’t really love it, I don’t eat it. I eat a lotta lollies, though. And the chocolate ganache I made to ice a cake is slowly being eaten by the spoonful.

For more Kaaronesque goodness, go here http://kaaronwarren.wordpress.com/.

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