Tim Jones's Blog, page 50

Blogging Au Contraire: Day Two: SpecFicNZ launch, Getting Published in NZ Panel, Why I'm Not A Bookseller

Plenty of highlights at Au Contraire today - some of which I attended, and others of which I heard about - but a diminishing level of energy to blog about them. So hey ho, let's go.



SpecFicNZ



The new Speculative Fiction Writers of New Zealand organisation, best known as SpecFicNZ, was launched this evening by Ripley Patton and other members of the SpecFicNZ team. As the organisation's web page says,

SpecFicNZ is the association for creators, writers and editors of speculative fiction in...

Blogging Au Contraire: Day One: "A Foreign Country" Book Launch

I'm pushing it a bit when I say that I'm blogging Day 1 of Au Contraire, since all I attended today was the launch of new short fiction anthology A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction. I'll be much more thoroughly present at the Con tomorrow and on Sunday.



But here are some quick observations:



* The book launch was short but sweet. Anna Caro introduced the book, Claire Brunette read her story from the collection, "Beneath The Trees", and then much signing and photographing was ...

Getting Ready For Au Contraire

I'm looking forward to Au Contraire more than I've looked forward to a science fiction convention for a long while.



My convention-going extends back to 1980 and the second New Zealand National Science Fiction Convention (Natcon) in Wellington. I have been to a couple of World Science Fiction Conventions - Aussiecon Two in 1985, and ConFrancisco in San Francisco in 1993, where I was daunted by the sheer scale of the event - and I've attended other conventions in Melbourne and Edinburgh.



But ...

Tuesday Poem: Lockdown

Lockdown



Turbid sky,

uneasy ground.

The face of a guest

turned away at the door.



His hands like roses

hunch a cigarette.

I hear his boots

make full confessions to the rain.



Tim says:"Lockdown" was my contribution to the Winter Readings Poetry Wall in 2007. It is as yet uncollected.



Check out all the Tuesday Poems.You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.

Status Report! Status Report!

Unless I'm spruiking a new book, this blog sails along in parallel to my writing, sometimes close but never together.



So it feels like time to give an update on what's been happening with my writing, and what's coming up.



The Immediate Past



I started this year aiming to finish two manuscripts: my third poetry collection and my second novel. I've met one of those two goals: my third poetry collection, the one I'm calling "Men Briefly Explained", has now been completed and sent out to its...

Tuesday Poetry Review: Bartering Lines (2009) and Daybook Fragments (2010), by Michael Steven

Reviewed: Michael Steven's Bartering Lines (2009) and Daybook Fragments (2010), published by Kilmog Press.



Book availability: Currently the books are available at Parsons Books in Auckland or Dunedin Public Art Gallery in Dunedin, and online from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery: Bartering Lines and Daybook Fragments. The RRP for both books is $45.00.



Dunedin's Kilmog Press has built an excellent track record of producing high-quality, limited edition poetry collections. These two books by...

The Hole Where The Sun Goes

Mummy wouldn't talk to her, so Katie went to play in her sandpit with her toys. There was a digger and a car. The car used to live inside, then it got too sandy.



Katie played with the digger and the sand for a while. Then she got bored. She looked up in the sky and saw the moon. Mummy said the moon only shone after Katie went to bed, but sometimes Katie could see it during the day. Katie loved the moon. Daddy used to love it too.



It was getting a bit dark. Katie thought it might be going...

Tuesday Poem: As you know, Bob

As you know, Bob



As you know, Bob, our numbers are dwindling. Genetic factors are to blame: our Y chromosomes, fragile to begin with, have proved uniquely vulnerable to the combination of pollution, rich food and grain alcohol. Only in the pristine environment of space can we truly flourish — but that is the preserve of a lucky few. The rest of us dwindle in protected enclosures, pacified by large-screen televisions, released only to be the subject of scientific research, the unexpected...

Books In The Trees

Books in the Trees



As soon as I understood what a book was, I resolved to become a bookkeeper. To the dismay of my parents, I was forever climbing trees in hopes of catching an unwary volume. Of course, I never did; they were far above me, flapping unmolested from branch to branch.



My proudest achievement was to bear back to earth a whole egg, but my pride turned to dismay when my mother scolded me and insisted that I put it back in the nest immediately. "That might be another Calvino or ...

Tuesday Poem: The Fasting Season, by Tishani Doshi (video)

Tim says:This poem comes from the collection Countries of the Body, which won Tishani Doshi the 2006 Forward Poetry Prize. Her first novel, The Pleasure Seekers, drawing on her own experience as a person of Indian and Welsh heritage, was published in 2010. And, as if all that wasn't marvellous enough, she also blogs about cricket.You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.