C.H. Pearce's Blog

Awards Eligibility and 2024 Round-Up

It's that time of year again... awards eligibility post time! If you're not familiar with this tradition for speculative fiction and horror awards Lyndsie Manusos wrote an excellent overview on BookRiot in 2022 and the indefatigable A.C. Wise maintains a current list and an explainer here: https://acwise.net/what-have-you-done-what-have-you-loved-2024/

I had 3 short stories published this year I'm really proud of, and I’m also eligible in Fan Artist categories.

Just noting that none of the ...

Querying your novel post-2020 - Resource list

Querying, it's the worst! Querying in a post-2020 publishing landscape, especially. Let's get that out of the way up front. However, cold querying remains a good way to find a literary agent. I connected with my wonderful agent Carleen Geisler at ArtHouse Literary through cold querying in July 2023, after querying 2 novels over 1 1/2 years.

Rather than writing a post about my querying journey, or reinventing the wheel by explaining the querying process when many excellent minds have already do...

Publishable Program with the Queensland Writers Centre in 2023

With the Publishable manuscript development program currently open for submissions, I thought I’d write a post about my experience in the program last year, and encourage others to apply.

Publishable is a manuscript development program for emerging authors, run annually by the QLD Writers Centre. Application details here:

https://queenslandwriters.org.au/publishable

YMMV - this is my experience with a specific project, workshops, mentor, etc, so there are variables which may make your ex...

Awards Eligibility and 2023 Round-Up

It’s that time of year again, somehow—awards eligibility post time! (If you're not familiar with this tradition Lyndsie Manusos wrote an excellent overview on BookRiot last year).

I had 3 short stories published in 2023, and I’m also eligible in Fan Artist categories. Will update this if more happens this year—I hope to do more fan art, and I might have one more story out. Notwithstanding awards eligibility, I had a fantastic year, too—more below!

Just noting that none of the below stor...

Mentorship magic - AHWA mentorship with J. Ashley-Smith in 2022

With the Australasian Horror Writers Association (AHWA) mentorship program deadline coming up, I thought I’d write a blog post (!) about my experiences last year and encourage writers to apply.

Mentorship application details here:

https://australasianhorror.com/mentorship-program/

There’s another amazing cohort of mentors this year. I had a fantastic experience in 2022 and had the opportunity to be mentored by one of my favourite horror authors, Ditmar and Shirley Jackson award-winning J. ...

Awards Eligibility and 2022 Round-Up

It's that time of year again! Awards eligibility post time. Apparently it's also time to start a blog, if only for these sorts of annual posts, in case Twitter collapses. I'm still on Twitter, but if there ever was a prompt to start a blog…

I’ve had two short stories published in 2022 so far in Etherea, one of my favourite Aussie SF magazines, and I am also eligible in Fan Artist categories.

Short fiction:

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‘The Quick Study’ in Etherea #10. Science fiction.

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They wish that when they ha...