David Nickle's Blog, page 12

A Eutopian cover...

Here it is, in its hideous glory: Erik Mohr's cover art for my novel Eutopia, which blends the early American eugenics movement, industrial utopianism and terrible monsters, and of which you have heard so much in past postings.

Erik is the evil genius responsible for my story collection Monstrous Affections' cover, and it's clear that he's decided to continue the motif of hideous deformity with this one. That continuation may have something to do with my own motif of hideous deformity, but we will leave that discussion for another day.

This cover is exquisite, though. I am anxious beyond words to see how it looks on shelves, in bookstores mid-April 2011..

Now this is a book trailer...

Not my book trailer - but this one's worth sharing. Bruce MacDonald (of Highway 61 and more to the point, Pontypool fame) shot this trailer for Tony Burgess' new book out of CZP, People Still Live in Cashtown Corners.

So turn down the lights, yard-apes. And prepare to be un-eased.

The Care and Feeding of Horror

Apologies for the radio silence here at the Yard. But here we are, just days before I'm to appear at the Toronto SpecFic Colloquium at Hart House, and here I am, posting about it.

The colloquium is taking place in Hart House at the University of Toronto - and the day long event will feature talks by a bunch of authors more famous and well-regarded than I... along with I.
 
I will be on stage twice. Once, at 10 a.m. when I will deliver my talk, The Care and Feeding of Horror: How an Unpleasant Emotion Became an Unstable Genre. The title says it all, but I'll be saying a little bit more than that for a half hour to start things off.

Later, there are readings... for me, much later. I'm listed as the last reader of the evening. I expect I'll be reading from Eutopia, the novel that will appear in April of 2011 from CZP.

SF Contario

In November, I'll be at SFContario, helping inaugurate this new Toronto science fiction/fantasy convention. I've got a schedule - with readings and everything you might hope for. And here it is:


Friday 8:00 PM Gardenview
Small Press Publishing.
How do you get started in small-press publishing? What's the current
market like and what role does the small press play in it? Why should
writers send their stories to the small press? (Gabrielle Harbowy,
Sandra Kasturi(M), David Nickle,  Rene Walling, Brett Savory)

Saturday 10:00 AM Ballroom A
Getting It Done
Writers share their tips on time management and techniques for getting
to work on the days where nothing is working -- whether it's from
writer's block, a hectic schedule, or sheer ennui - to get the job
done. (Alison Baird, Karen Dales, Elizabeth Hirst,  David Nickle,
Caitlin Sweet(M))

Saturday Noon - Autograph session

Saturday 5:00 PM - Gardenview
Learning to write
Is it possible to learn how to write? Why does Clarion enjoy such a
great reputation when the fact is that two-thirds of those who attend
it never publish a single word professionally? Aren't writer's
workshops just the blind leading the blind? What should you look for
in a creative-writing course? Will you learn more about writing by
reading the dozen or so good books out there on how to write SF, or by
reading a dozen true classic novels, such as To Kill a Mockingbird and
The Catcher in the Rye (Ed Greenwood, Ira Nayman, David Nickle, Tony
Pi(M))

Sunday 11:00 AM - Kaffeeklatsch

Sunday 1:00 PM - Ballroom A
Will No-one Free Me From This Troublesome Book?
You're past the halfway point on that novel you're writing and you
feel like you've been working on it forever. Future chapters stand
before you and taunt you in your sleep. How do you keep going to the
end? Writers share their tips on time management and techniques for
getting to work on the days where nothing is working. (Stephanie
Bedwell-Grime, Karin Lowachee, Violette Malan(M), David Nickle)

Sunday 2:00-2:30 PM - Reading.

The Kind of Face You Hate

It's an appropriate title for a blog taking a look at Monstrous Affections, don't you think? Brett at CZP pointed me to this thoughtful review of a couple of stories in Monstrous Affections - and of the cover, which I would say is more The Kind of Face You'd Hate To Love.

Eutopia is an April release...

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Eutopia is my upcoming novel, acquired some time back by ChiZine Publications. It's a novel about the early American eugenics movement, utopianism, and a terrible monster - taking place for the most part in May 1911.
Well it turns out Eutopia will be hitting shelves just one month shy of the story's centennial. ChiZine's announced its spring 2011 lineup, and Eutopia's coming out April 15.
There will be lots of goodies coming in the months leading up to that date: viral videos, provocative blog postings, perhaps a website ... a jar of guts.o keep you going, here is a tiny scene, presented without context or explanation:

Jason brought the candle down the steps. The space in here had been dug out of the ground and lined with fieldstone and timber. the ceiling was a low, whitewashed arch. Air circulation was bad in here, and the few times Andrew had been down before he'd always had the uneasy sense that he was about to suffocate.

"Sure are a lot of jars here," said Jason.

"This is where the hospital keeps its specimens," said Andrew. "Someone's foot gets amputated -- we pull out some kidney stones -- even if we cut out an appendix. It all goes here in a jar."

"Every time?"

"Not every time." Andrew squinted at a line of jars filled with stones of various sizes. Thin sheets of effluvia drifted in the yellowish liquid. "But when there's something remarkable about it. Something worth writing down. Then yes, we keep it."

Jason looked hard at the jars. "Should be a lot of jars like that around here. They're labeled and everything. What're we looking for?"

"Not kidney stones from M. Cunningham," said Andrew.

"Nor a testicle from L. Wharton," said Jason. "A testicle! He can't be too happy with how his life's carrying on."

Andrew chuckled. "I remember that one. I think he's happy enough these days. See how big it is?"

Jason looked closer. "I thought that was just the magnifyin' effect of the glass."

"Oh no. In fact, it looks like it has contracted since the surgery."

Jason whistled. "How'd a fellow walk, dragging something like that between his legs?"

"I wondered that too. And so I removed it."

It goes on like that for pages.

My pal, the author...

This is a post, to prove to those yard-apes that this blog is not just about me, me, me. It is also about my friends: this morning, convicted felon and now Hugo-winning sf author Peter Watts. I got this news from various sources in Australia and beyond, where Peter lost a bet and actually won the Hugo for Best Novelette, for "The Island" last night. It was originally published last year in New Space Opera 2 (ed. Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan). I had the misfortune of critiquing the stor...

Rumors of My Publisher's Demise have been Greatly Exaggerated (in 140 characters)

This is a public service announcement (and also a helping-ChiZine-deal-with-sloppy-tweeting announcement).

ChiZine Publications, the publisher of my story collection Monstrous Affections and my forthcoming novel Eutopia, is doing just fine. So's their parent webzine, ChiZine. You wouldn't know it if you were a-Twitter today, when a fiend bastard sloppy Twitterer posted a note that ChiZine is shutting down. Perhaps it is an honest mistake - earlier this month, Dorchester Publishing let go Don D...

The Revenge of the Hell-Skull

Long-time yard apes may recall some trouble awhile back, when we reported the theft of a prized artifact from the Nickle-Fernandez back deck: the Hell Skull of Goran.
It was a deliciously evil sculpture by a once-local sculptor name of Goran, and it was going to be hellaciously, as it were, difficult to replace. The Yard lamented the loss of the Hell Skull, and brought down Hell Skull Curses on the thief who took it.
And that might have been it. But this past weekend,  on the way through Burks ...

Words in the Wilderness part 2

It's been a week since we drove up to Sudbury to take part in Words in the Wilderness' maiden voyage - and at last, we have downloaded photos. So I thought I'd take the opportunity to sing the praises of the little literary festival that will hopefully become a regular thing in years to come.

It will have finished up now - events were taking place all last week - but the big day for horror fiction was Sunday. That's when local author Sean Costello stepped up at the Creative Spark gallery to ta...