Kaaron Warren's Blog, page 9

That Girl

St Martin’s was clean, you could say that at least. Apart from the

fine mist of leg hair, that is.

from “That Girl”, in The Gate Theory

This story is like a travelogue of my time in Fiji. I lived near a graveyard like the one I describe in the story, one festooned with decaying saris and scarves.

I travelled to Raki Raki where the grave of the so-called Last Cannibal sits.

Actually, go read my story Circling Fiji (an actual travelogue) in Lee Harris’ Hub Magazine.

Then read ‘That Girl’, and you will feel as if you’ve travelled with me.

Purity

Therese was clean on the inside, but her mud-slapped, filthy, stinking home – with its stacks of newspapers going back as far as she was born, spoons bent and burnt, food grown hard and crusty – kept her skin dirty.

from “Purity”, in The Gate Theory

This story first appeared the anthology Scenes from the Second Storey, edited by Amanda Pillar for Morrigan Books. It’s a gorgeous concept; each writer was asked to write a song inspired by the album of the same name by The God Machine. My story was Purity.

At the same time, I became fascinated with the sort of hysteria that leads whole towns to dance or laugh for days, sometimes to the point of death. What is it in us that causes us to follow blindly sometimes? When I saw an old man in a supermarket (I’m often inspired by the things I see in the supermarket queue!) who was dressed beautifully but was wearing a baseball cap that seemed to be leaking blood, I knew I had my cult leader.

The Gate Theory

The Gate Theory is live!

This electronic reprint collection brings together these five stories for the first time. Over the next five days, I’ll post the first line of each one, and talk about the spark that made the story.

Very, very excited to be the first book produced by Geoff Brown and Cohesion Press.

World Fantasy Awards Shortlist

The World Fantasy Awards Shortlist has been announced, and I’m proud to say that my novella Sky, from Through Splintered Walls, is on it. Stunning!

I’m now trying to figure out if I can make it to Brighton for the World Fantasy Convention.

Life Achievement Winners

Susan Cooper
Tanith Lee

Novel

The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Some Kind of Fairy Tale, Graham Joyce (Gollancz; Doubleday)
The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
Crandolin, Anna Tambour (Chômu)
Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson (Grove; Corvus)

Novella

“Hand of Glory”, Laird Barron (The Book of Cthulhu II)
“Let Maps to Others”, K.J. Parker (Subterranean Summer ’12)
The Emperor’s Soul, Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon)
“The Skull”, Lucius Shepard (The Dragon Griaule)
“Sky”, Kaaron Warren (Through Splintered Walls)

Short Story

“The Telling”, Gregory Norman Bossert (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 11/29/12)
“A Natural History of Autumn”, Jeffrey Ford (F&SF 7-8/12)
“The Castle That Jack Built”, Emily Gilman (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 1/26/12)
“Breaking the Frame”, Kat Howard (Lightspeed 8/12)
“Swift, Brutal Retaliation”, Meghan McCarron (Tor.com 1/4/12)

Anthology

Epic: Legends of Fantasy, John Joseph Adams, ed. (Tachyon)
Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic, Eduardo Jiménez Mayo & Chris N. Brown, eds. (Small Beer)
Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane, Jonathan Oliver, ed. (Solaris)
Postscripts #28/#29: Exotic Gothic 4, Danel Olson, ed. (PS Publishing)
Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Random House)

Collection

At the Mouth of the River of Bees, Kij Johnson (Small Beer)
Where Furnaces Burn, Joel Lane (PS Publishing)
The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories Volume One: Where on Earth and Volume Two: Outer Space, Inner Lands, Ursula K. Le Guin (Small Beer)
Remember Why You Fear Me, Robert Shearman (ChiZine)
Jagannath, Karin Tidbeck (Cheeky Frawg)

Artist

Vincent Chong
Didier Graffet and Dave Senior
Kathleen Jennings
J.K. Potter
Chris Roberts

Special Award—Professional

Peter Crowther & Nicky Crowther for PS Publishing
Lucia Graves for the translation of The Prisoner of Heaven (Weidenfeld & Nicholson; Harper) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Adam Mills, Ann VanderMeer, & Jeff VanderMeer for the Weird Fiction Review website
Brett Alexander Savory & Sandra Kasturi for ChiZine Publications
William K. Schafer for Subterranean Press

Special Award—Non-professional

Scott H. Andrews for Beneath Ceaseless Skies
L. Timmel Duchamp for Aqueduct Press
S.T. Joshi for Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction, Volumes 1 & 2 (PS Publishing)
Charles A. Tan for Bibliophile Stalker blog
Jerad Walters for Centipede Press
Joseph Wrzos for Hannes Bok: A Life in Illustration (Centipede Press)

Update

My contributor’s copies have arrived for two books. The covers of both are brilliant!

 

The Lowest Heaven

Pandemonium Press (the amazing Jared Shurin and Anne C Perry)

 

 

Grimscribe’s Puppets (Miskatonic River Press, edited by Joe S. Pulver)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How gorgeous is this cover for The Gate Theory? Cohesion Press’s Geoff Brown is the designer.

 

 

Finally, I hope those of you in Canberra or nearby will be about to join me and my dear friend, Norwegian writer Anne Ostby, for an event at the Paperchain bookstore.

Spinifex Press and Paperchain Bookstore invite you to join Anne Ostby, author of Town of Love, and Kaaron Warren in conversation about women, confinement, and inspiration.



Friday September 6

5.45 for 6.00pm



RSVP

Telephone 6295 6723 or

email info@paperchainbookstore.com.au





The Town of Love exposes the hidden dark side of India: a workforce of trafficked girls and women forced to offer their bodies for sale to feed their families. It is a legacy of prostitution, a tradition handed down from one generation to the next. But can Tamanna break free and create a new life for herself and her daughter? This breathtaking novel explores the possibilities of empowering women to change their situation as well as highlighting the obstacles they face in a society resistant to change.



Anne Ostby is a Norwegian writer of books for adults and young people who previously worked as a journalist. She is a guest at the 2013 Melbourne Writers’ Festival.



Shirley Jackson Award winner Kaaron Warren has lived in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Fiji. She has seven books in print, including the multi-award winning Slights and Through Splintered Walls. You can find her at kaaronwarren.wordpress.com and she Tweets @KaaronWarren

The Gate Theory

When Geoff Brown, of the newly-established Cohesion Press, approached me for a novella electronic reprint, I jumped at the chance to send him The History Thief. Edited by Gary McMahon for Visions Fading Fast, this is a story I consider one of my saddest.

It’s only 10,000 words, though and Geoff (who loved it) asked me if I’d like to submit four previously published stories, and make an actual collection.

I sent him four more.

He loved them.

This is all happening in a matter of hours, mind you, a pace almost unheard of.

Each of the stories explores loss and pain, the horrors of human behaviour, body image, obsession, love and despair.

As we worked towards a title, I read A Concise Encylopaedia of Psychiatry (see Refreshing the Wells 22) and came across the term The Gate Theory of Pain.

I knew I had my title.

As Geoff quotes on the Cohesion Press website, ‘We’re all in pain. We try to keep the gates closed by falling in love, travelling, avoiding responsibility, getting drunk, taking drugs… anything to lose ourselves. But the dull ache remains in each of us.

These stories are about the gates opening.’

 

AJ Spedding, a talented writer I mentored through the Australian Horror Writers Association, will write the introduction. I’m thrilled about this; I know she gets me and my stories. There will also be a link to an online story, written by AJ for this release. It’s a great initiative from Geoff Brown and Cohesion Press, with the intention of bringing readers to newer writers.

Wonderful stuff!

Refreshing the Wells 22

A Concise Encyclopaedia of Psychiatry

First published in 1972, this book is a testament to how things change, and how a powerful belief in one decade can become possibly horrifying, certainly different, in the next.

This is part of the description of a detention centre for ‘junior offenders’. “Officialy described as ‘brisk and firm’.

Narco-analysis was ‘a form of treatment used extensively in the war neuroses of the second world war’. They describe this as ‘slow intravenous injection of a short-acting barbituate’ and say that ‘deaths in some patients have been reported.’

It’s also full of brilliant story starters. Terms like Belle Indifference, hypnopompic phenomena, Latah and Effort Syndrome.

Fascinating stuff.

Shirley Jackson Awards

At one of my favourite conventions, Readercon, the Shirley Jackson Awards were announced. I’m thrilled to say that my story Sky won, in the best novella category.

As usual, the shortlist provides a brilliant reading list.

 

The winners for the 2012 Shirley Jackson Awards are:

NOVEL

Winner: Edge, Koji Suzuki (Vertical, Inc.)

Finalists:

The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (ROC)
The Devil in Silver, Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau)
Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (Crown Publishers)
Immobility, Brian Evenson (Tor)

NOVELLA

Winner: “Sky,” Kaaron Warren (Through Splintered Walls, Twelfth Planet Press)

Finalists:

28 Teeth of Rage, Ennis Drake (Omnium Gatherum Media)
Delphine Dodd, S.P. Miskowski (Omnium Gatherum Media)
I’m Not Sam, Jack Ketchum and Lucky McKee (Sinister Grin Press/ Cemetery Dance Publications)
The Indifference Engine, Project Itoh (Haikasoru/VIZ Media LLC)

NOVELETTE

Winner: “Reeling for the Empire,” Karen Russell (Tin House, Winter 2012)

Finalists:

“The Crying Child,” Bruce McAllister (originally “The Bleeding Child,” Cemetery Dance #68)
“The House on Ashley Avenue,” Ian Rogers (Every House is Haunted, ChiZine Publications)
“Wild Acre,” Nathan Ballingrud (Visions Fading Fast, Pendragon Press)
“The Wish Head,” Jeffrey Ford (Crackpot Palace, William Morrow)

SHORT FICTION

Winner: “A Natural History of Autumn,” Jeffrey Ford (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July/August 2012)

Finalists:

“Bajazzle,” Margo Lanagan (Cracklescape, Twelfth Planet Press)
“How We Escaped Our Certain Fate,” Dan Chaon (21st Century Dead, St. Martin’s)
“Little America,” Dan Chaon (Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, William Morrow)
“The Magician’s Apprentice,” Tamsyn Muir (Weird Tales #359)
“Two Houses,” Kelly Link (Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, William Morrow)

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

Winner: Crackpot Palace, Jeffrey Ford (William Morrow)

Finalists:

Errantry, Elizabeth Hand (Small Beer Press)
The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories, Andy Duncan (PS Publishing)
Remember Why You Fear Me, Robert Shearman (ChiZine Publications)
The Woman Who Married a Cloud, Jonathan Carroll (Subterranean Press)
Windeye, Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

Winner: Exotic Gothic 4: Postscripts #28/29, edited by Danel Olson (PS Publishing)

Finalists:

21st Century Dead, edited by Christopher Golden (St. Martin’s)
Black Wings II, edited by S. T. Joshi (PS Publishing)
Night Shadows, edited by Greg Herren and J. M. Redmann (Bold Strokes Books)
Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, edited by Sam Weller and Mort Castle (William Morrow)

Awards and other updates

The Aurealis Awards were held in May, and I was thrilled to receive the award for Best Horror Story for my novella “Sky”. I’ve only won one Aurealis Award before, though I’ve been nominated a number of times, so this was a particular thrill.

I spent a second weekend in Sydney at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. I knew Lauren Beukes was in town and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to catch up. Lauren and I published our first novels together, exactly four years ago, with Angry Robot Books. It was wonderful being surrounded by avid readers, and the buzz in the book sales room was heartening indeed.

I’m teaching an online horror fiction course with John Langan, Jeffrey Ford and Gemma Files, to raise money for the Shirley Jackson Awards. I love these awards and what the represent and am very proud to be on the shortlist this year. I’m talking about using history and landscape in your fiction and I plan to discuss the Throw Mama from the Train concept of idea sharing!

 

I received my copy of Cemetery Dance with my reprint story “The Left Behind”. I’m very fond of this story and love the magazine, so very happy about this one.

Two events happening in September for my friend, the author Anne Ostby, to discuss and promote her novel Town of Love, from Spinifex Press. It’s an important book and Anne is coming all the way from Norway for these events, one in Melbourne, one in Canberra. Anne and I shared an event when we were both in Fiji, because, while we write very different material, we do explore the same themes and have a similar way of approaching our work, and a similar way of absorbing the world around us.

I’m reading Captivated, by Piers Dudgeon, about the du Mauriers and J. M. Barrie. One of the most fascinating books I’ve read, partly because of my adoration for Daphne du Maurier. Once I’m finished I will read every one of her books again. It explores the nature of power and control, and of the ‘secret’ of the du Mauriers which meant that Daphne and her grandfather George could create the fiction they created.

Rockingcon

I feel as though I enjoyed a mini-con in Western Australia over the weekend!

Lee Battersby met me at the airport when I arrived on Friday. He wasn’t carrying a sign saying “Rockingham Rocks” or anything, but I concealed my disappointment and we headed out of town for Rockingham. Not sure if we stopped talking the whole way (Lego, writing, writers, movies, Dr Who, food, food again, family, writing). Lee provided a travelogue along the way, and I arrived at my B&B, The Anchorage, very well informed.

The Anchorage would prove to be a wonderful place to stay. A large old house, recently taken over by a new couple, it was close to the beach, close to cafes and restaurants and my room was comfy and quiet. The couple were so friendly and delighted to have an author to stay! I gave them a copy of Through Splintered Walls, hoping they wouldn’t read it before I left, because we all know my writing is a lot darker than my character may represent!

I had a quick shower and momentarily thought the place was haunted, because of the tiny, distant knocking sounds I heard. I realised, of course, that it was Lee and his son, come to collect me for dinner. Was I disappointed he wasn’t a ghost? Perhaps, again, momentarily.

Is Western Australia famous for mussels? Because I ate a bowl of the best mussels I have ever eaten, at Betty Blue Bistro. I think there were a hundred but I might be exaggerating. Lee and Lyn Battersby and I dissected stories, ideas, and future projects and I arrived back at the Anchorage feeling invigorated. Instead of writing, however, I watched crap on Foxtel.

On Saturday, I headed into the brand new Rockingham Arts Centre. My workshop was the very first event to be held there! We talked about using the landscape, and the landscape of memory, in writing. There were about 35 writers attending, and I was so thrilled when they started to read their pieces out. It was good stuff! Really, some wonderful stuff. Afterwards, a few of us ate lunch, where we shared ideas and I heard some amazing histories and some fascinating stories. I caught up with Arran Morton, journo for the local paper Sound Telegraph, and she took some snaps of the attendees.

Next, the launch of the Through Splintered Walls art exhibition! What an incredible thing. It is true, as I said in my little speech, that in 20 years of publishing, this is an absolute highlight. Alisa Krasnostein has pictures here. Amazing work, amazing people. It was so cool to talk to the artists and hear about their motivations and thoughts. I loved the irony that most of the pieces were positive; flowers, fruit, beauty, love, joy, using my book which is full of some of the darkest stories I’ve written.

A delicious pasta dinner with Alisa in Perth came after. Yum. Crab ravioli with a perfect napolitana sauce. I wish I had the leftovers, I’d eat them for breakfast.

Sunday, it was back to the Betty Blue Bistro. Sad to say I ordered the chilli mussels again, knowing that this might be the last chance ever to eat them! A wonderful array of Western Australian writers joined me for lunch, which went for six hours. The longest lunch I’ve had since I worked in Advertising! Actually, I lie. I love a good long lunch, and quite often, if you’re invited to lunch at my house, I’ll be feeding you dinner, too!

Monday I ventured into the Rockingham library to work, because my plane wasn’t until the afternoon. A very different area of Rockingham than the beach front. Lots of industrials, and the food was of the truck stop variety. I do like to try to local speciality, so when I heard two people in a row order the cheese sausage, I knew that was it.

Deep fried sausage. Stuffed with the kind of cheese that goes transcluent when you heat it.

I draw a veil over that.

Lee collected me to take me to the airport. He did such an amazing job pulling together the workshop and the incredible exhibition. And he’s a bloody good writer, too and quite amusing.

I had the whole row to myself going home, Skyfall was on the TV, and cheese and bikkies just when I was feeling peckish.

An inspiring, laughter-filled, delightful weekend.