Tim Jones's Blog, page 62
July 15, 2009
Book Review: Tom, by Mark Pirie (Sudden Valley Press, 2009, RRP $29.99)
There is probably no author in the world I am less well qualified to review objectively than Mark Pirie. Mark and I have known each other since the summer of 1996-1997. At that stage, I was working as the Course Materials Editor for the Department of Library and Information Studies at Victoria University, and Mark came to help me out with that job over the summer. At that stage, I was a budding short story writer with a few publications under my belt who wrote the occasional poem, while
July 11, 2009
Chapter and Verse: Podcast Discussion on New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy
This afternoon I took part in a live discussion on science fiction and fantasy writing in New Zealand. Chaired by Radio New Zealand's Lynn Freeman, it featured writers Helen Lowe, Russell Kirkpatrick and myself, and publisher Larain Day - see below for further details.
The podcast of this 13-minute discussion is now available in MP3 format at http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/art/art-20090712-1430-Chapter_and_Verse-048.mp3
I enjoyed taking part - and thanks for inviting me, Lynn - but I felt we were ju
July 9, 2009
Ain't No Stopping Us Now
Hard on the heels of the news that a short story collection by science fiction writer Chris Beckett has won the prestigious Edge Hill Short Story Prize, beating collections by Anne Enright, Shena Mackay, Ali Smith and Gerard Donovan, comes the slightly less big - but still welcome - news that Radio New Zealand (National Radio) is holding a panel discussion this coming Sunday afternoon (the 11th) on writing science fiction and fantasy. Here's the official announcement:
2:30 Chapter and Verse
A pane
July 6, 2009
Consult and Survive: The First Session
I've just come back from the first session of the New Zealand Government's consultation meetings on New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for 2020.
Climate Change Minister Nick Smith was faced with an audience of between 300 and 400 people. After his twenty-minute presentation, doing its best to send a message of "we'll sign up to a target, but don't expect it to be substantial", members of the audience had the chance to speak — and, one after another, they implicitly or explici
July 5, 2009
Consult and Survive
Twelve days. That's how long the Government has allocated to the public consultation process to decide what greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for 2020 New Zealand will take to the Copenhagen climate change negotiations at the end of 2009.
There have been many international climate change negotiations down through the years, but the Copenhagen negotiations are shaping up as the most significant since the Kyoto negotiations that led to the much-debated Kyoto Protocol. The prognosis for the
July 1, 2009
The Stars Their Destination: Wellington, Palmerston North, The Edge of the Universe
2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, and so it's fitting that there's an astronomical theme to several forthcoming writing events. (If you know of more astropoetry events, please tell us about them in the comments.)
If the combination of poetry and astronomy interests you, then I recommend Emily Gaskin's Astropoetica, not only a fine online magazine of astronomical poetry, but a paying poetry market!
Wellington
Montana Poetry Day events in Wellington on 24 July include an all-day open mike
June 28, 2009
Coming Attractions, Bloggy Goodness, and A Little Bit of History
As Helen Lowe pointed out to me recently, I haven't run many interviews with poets on my blog this year. But this is about to change! Because Montana Poetry Day is on Friday 24 July, several poetry books are being launched on or about this date, and I will be interviewing three poets with books just on the shelves: Mary Cresswell, Joanna Preston, and Tim Upperton. I'm also going to review Mark Pirie's verse novel Tom.
As promised in Part 1 of Down in the Flood, I'm going to mars
June 24, 2009
Down in the Flood (1): Going Under
Well it's sugar for sugar and it's salt for salt
If you go down in the flood it's going to be your own fault (Bob Dylan)
As a writer, I spend quite a lot of time flooding things. In my poem First Light, I flooded a fair chunk of the Manawatu. (I read this poem in Palmerston North, and it didn't prompt undue alarm.) Several stories in my recent collection Transported feature the rising, or risen, sea:
I cut the engine in the shadow of the motorway pillars and let the dinghy drift in to the Wadestown
June 21, 2009
Is Star Trek What You Think Of When You Think of Science Fiction?
Star Trek isn't what I think of when I think of science fiction. But it's very clear that it's what many people think of, including members of the media. That surprises me - but maybe it shouldn't.
There are two poems about Star Trek in Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand ("In Which I Materialize, Horribly Maimed, in the Transporter Room of the Enterprise" by John Dolan, and "Lament of the imperfect copy of Ensign Harry Kim" by Tze Ming Mok). For the record, there's also a poem abo
June 16, 2009
Voyagers, Vogels and Montanas, Oh My!
Voyagers
Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand is getting good exposure in the Dominion Post this week. Louis Johnson's poem from the anthology, "Love Among the Daleks" was the Wednesday Poem in the DomPost, and in Saturday's Indulgence section, there will be a short piece about the book written by Tom Cardy, whom I completely deny knowing since we were callow youths in Dunedin.
It bears repeating: You can buy Voyagers from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle e-book; New Zealand Books
