Welcome to 2013! To get in the mood, here’s a shiny new clip from Brisbane band Tycho Brahe, courtesy of cool Lego clip maker Forlorn Creature:
Now I’m sure there’s a little Depeche Mode in there …
In other recent-ish news:
Way to kick off a new year or what?!
Wow. December already. It’s been all hands on deck here at Chez Hectic, but outside the wheels have been turning. Some happenings of interest, 12 in fact, because that’s suitably Christmassy:
People who love books don’t steal books. But, you know, they might lend or borrow books, they might sample books and only pay for the ones they do love, they might torrent a book they have already bought in hard copy, they might pay what they think they can afford. They will do these things whether we like it or not. And it’s probably not in our interests to treat every illegal download as an act of aggression. As an empirical matter, it may turn out that that download has led to a handful of legitimate sales. Or it might not. We just don’t know. We can be pretty sure that insisting that book-lovers are our enemies will be self-fulfilling and soon self-defeating
I hit if:book Australia’s Bookcamp last Friday, and it was cool. I found out about some very neat exercises in geo-writing: Matt Blackwood’s MyStory project, and his other exercises in using QR codes to bring readers to stories, or vice versa. Locative narrative, geocaching stories, however you describe it, puts the story inside the location, or allows the reader to experience the actual setting of the story at the same time as the story … here’s a video interview out of this year’s Emerging Writers Festival that explains it better.
On a similar theme, Hitotoki ties experience to a map, some working better than others: status updates, not so interesting; environmental interaction, w00t!
Another cool link to come out of the ‘unconference’: Small Demons. Linking books by subject matter. I’ve yet to delve into it too deeply — somewhat time poor at the moment and this website looks like a massive procrastination tool — but I love the idea of tagging books by quirks, locations, songs … When I think of all the music I’ve discovered thanks to mentions in books, and the joy to be found in paying homage to musos in the written word in the hope of spreading similar love, yeah, this idea really appeals. Chartreuse + Cocteau Twins = Poppy Z Brite and ? and ?
And finally, a word of wisdom from guest Craig Mod for those going digital: can you do it better than Amazon?
A musical note to finish on: big hugs to Sarah Calderwood, whose solo album As Night Falls was a finalist in the ARIAs for best world music album (announced today, being segregated from the ‘popular’ categories announced in November)! Right up there with Dead Can Dance! What a thrill to see a mate earning such renown!
HarperVoyager has invited submissions of 80,000–120,000 words (preferred) using an online portal, 1–14 October only. Details are on the website. The limited move follows a popular shift among legacy publishers to consider manuscripts sent in by email — there’s a list here. The program is for digital rights only and does consider reprints, as long as the author has the rights, naturally. It seems to be part of the push into the digital realm flagged by Publishers Weekly in July, involving HarperCollins’ ramping up output from its digital-only imprint, Impulse.
The Herald Sun‘s ‘Weekend’ section ran a review of Salvage on 25 August by Corinna Hente. Grand to see a novella published by a small press getting a run!
The lovely Sonja at Joy 94.9 FM‘s Sci-fi and Squeam invited Kirstyn and myself into the studio recently to discuss ‘horror’, Gothic and the language of writing. The longplay podcast is online.
And Noosa Today has run a pic from my visit to the wonderfully supportive Noosa Library earlier this month, sharing the Salvage love and talking writing and publishing. Sorry to the guys who came in a little later and missed the surprise photo op! I love the kaffeeklatsch style of yarning with enthusiastic writers and readers.
The Queensland Literary Awards short-lists have been announced. How wonderful to see how the community rallied to support these awards when the Queensland Government couldn’t be arsed. As the LNP rips the state apart looking for spare change and some cheap point-scoring, something has been built. Even the Courier-Mail ponied up some cash, brilliant given the chaos that Murdoch’s empire is in at the moment, slashing jobs wherever they can be found to slash — latest on the line, photographics. But the good news — well done, y’all!
The press release is here and the short-lists here. Yay Margo Lanagan, with Sea Hearts in the, ahem, YA section!
Elsewhere, some good advice, especially that from Dr Kim!
China Mieville, at the Edinburgh international writers conference, quoted in the Guardian’s round-up:
Our job is not to give readers what they want, it is to try to make readers want what we give.
Kim Wilkins, on being distracted from your work by, um, writing this blog post:
reframing your internet procrastination as wandering away from your work can really help
And Marianne de Pierres shares productivity tips over at Louise Cusack’s place, my favourite being: persevere. Something of a personal mantra.
Great news from the weekend: Salvage has made #8 on the Brisbane Independent booksellers bestsellers list as published in the Courier-Mail newspaper. Kudos to Pulp Fiction and especially Avid Reader, who hosted the launch on August 10, and to all those who slapped down their hard-earned for a copy this past week.
Salvage has one more outing coming up, at the Melbourne Writers Festival on Sunday in the very fine company of eight — count’em! — Twelfth Planet Press authors, with Talie Helene laying down some smooth grooves and Kerry Greenwood breaking a bottle of bubbly over the bow of the Twelve Planets series of awesomeness. It should be an absolute hoot.
While I was up north, exciting things have been happening. For instance:
Meanwhile, Ego Likeness have released a new single. This band give great ear worm; I can’t wait for the new album to land.
An Aussie voicing Judge Dredd: that’s pretty cool. Alan Baxter reports there’s a new mobile phone game set in the world of Judge Dredd, with the said judge voiced by Kevin Powe, a Melbourne actor I’ve had the good fortune to run into in bars (as you do). Better than Sly? You can be the judge of that.
Have you been following the Wonder Women Are blog posts over at Tansy’s place? Delightful overviews of various star women characters in the comics world. The focus has been on DC and Marvel, with this week dedicated to the Bat-family. As a one-time massive buyer of Batman comics, it’s been great to see not only how stories have progressed and been reinvented, but how the comics honchos have moved with the times … or not. I may even have to make some further investments for the collection. Outside of Batman, two of my favourite titles back in the day were Kabuki and Shi: I wonder how they hold up today? Hm, I know they’re here somewhere…