Angela Slatter's Blog, page 33

When you get two PhDs …

… the degree of goofiness just increases exponentially. Best Brains, ready for the Mods and Monsters Banquet. Lisa with her nod to the Mods, me telling people the worst monsters are on the inside (don’t be fooled by the pretty dress).

GenreCon 2017 Plenary Address

That title is a fancy way of saying I ranted at a bunch of nice people at 9.20am this morning. It was fun!

Here’s the transcript of my rant.

Awards Don’t Matter

Good morning to you all, hungover or otherwise.

My name is, as you might have already heard, Angela Slatter.

I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land on which we stand, for they were this country’s first storytellers and we always walk in their footsteps, if not their shadows.

So, I’m here today to address an apparently controversial topic, which causes a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, the occasional beating of breasts, and the rubbing of ashes in the hair.

That topic is awards don’t matter.

So, who the hell am I to be telling you this horrible thing?

I thought I’d tell you about the milestones in my career as relate to awards so you can see my trajectory, not because I’m a narcissist, and I don’t believe in comparing yourself to anyone, but I also believe that in watching the steps others have taken – be they successful or otherwise – you can always learn something. Also, I believe that my purpose in life is to always be a warning to others.

My caveat: you can’t recreate someone else’s career. You can try but it won’t work because the planets will be in a different alignment to what it was ten, twenty, thirty years ago. But you can learn strategies that can be applied to other situations.

I’ve scribbled all my life, but 13 years ago I made the decision to embrace poverty, self-doubt and a diet of 2 minute noodles and become a writer. I knew I needed training, particularly in matters of structure and building convincing characters, so I did a Grad Dip in Creative Writing … then to improve my work yet again I did a Masters (Research) in Creative Writing … then because I apparently am a glutton for punishment I did a PhD in, you guessed it, Creative Writing.

In those thirteen years since I’ve written and published eight short story collections (two co-written with Lisa L. Hannett), three novels (the third one is out next year), two novellas, over one and fifty short stories and articles about writing. I’ve was one of the inaugural Queensland Writer Fellows and the Established Writer in Residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre in Perth. I have been awarded four Arts Queensland career development grants, one Copyright Council career development grant, one Copyright Council CREATE grant, and this year I got an Australia Council New Work grant. So please if you want to ask me about applying for grants over the weekend, please do so.

I have also won some awards.

So, what Happens When You Win an Award? 

Firstly, Kelly Link, writer extraordinaire and international treasure, tries to kill you.*

Helen Marshall, another extraordinary writer, joins in – which is especially awful because she’s Canadian. I think she had her citizenship revoked for that one.**

So, for me, the awardening began with the shortlistening. The first story I had shortlisted for an Aurealis Award was “The Angel Wood” and that was in 2007, three years after I’d started writing for realsies.

I was shortlisted again in 2008 and 2009.

In 2010 I published my first two short story collections, The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, and Sourdough and Other Stories. Both were shortlisted for the Aurealis Award, TGWNH won. Sourdough was a finalist for the World Fantasy Awards. That year I also won Best Fantasy Short Story with Lisa Hannett at the Aurealis Awards for “The February Dragon”.

In the time since I’ve had something shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards every year.  I’ve also won four more Aurealis Awards.

In 2012 I won a British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story for “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter”. I was the first Australian to win this award; and that’s when the award-effect kicked in. There was a lot of print media coverage, the news made it to the radio and even the television. That’s when overseas publishers started looking for my name in earnest. That’s when I started getting emails about my novel – surely I was writing a novel? Wasn’t I? We’d love to see it when it’s done.

The BFA got me new readers both at home and overseas. I began to get requests for reprints from places like Russia and Bulgaria and Japan. So you can see that there was some effect.

It also brought me to the attention of Jo Fletcher of Jo Fletcher Books, part of Hachette International. She was one of those publishers asking where my novel was … ultimately she did end up as my publisher, and will hopefully remain so for some time!

In 2014, I won a World Fantasy Award for The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, which is the prequel to the Sourdough collection, even though I wrote it afterwards … so perhaps Sourdough had prepared the way. I certainly knew I had readers out there who wanted more of that world. And this award also made me, at the time, one of only eight Australians to have won in a forty-three year history.

In 2015 I won a Ditmar for Of Sorrow and Such.

In 2016, my debut novel Vigil was shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards, and also for the Locus Awards in the US – despite not having been released there – for best debut. This week, Vigil was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Prize.

It all seems so easy, doesn’t it?

None of this tells you how many words under the bridge, how many tears, how many times I’ve thrown myself on the eighteenth-century fainting couch and howled that I simply cannot go on any longer. It doesn’t reveal the financial distress, the broken relationship, the number of times I’ve neglected my family and friends because I was on deadlines. Because I was caught up in a story that bodily took me away from the living, breathing fleshy folk around me.

The groaning awards shelf

or: the shelf of groaning awards

The lovely Dr Kim Wilkins launched my second novel in July this year and made a joke about my groaning awards shelf. She asked if I woke up in the morning, looked at it, and thought “Fuck, I’m awesome!”

The answer is no. The answer is that I have to dust the damned things.

But! Awards can do things for your career.

If there’s prize money attached – and we always live in hope – then there’s a chance that we can pay the rent for a while longer, buy a better bottle of whiskey, stock the pantry with more two minute noodles against the lean times, and just maybe buy a new pair of shoes or underpants before our old ones disintegrate.

There’s marketing value. It doesn’t hurt your bio to have the words ‘award-winning author’ in there, but please make sure you *are* actually an award-winner before you put that in your bio. Please remember that everything is googleable nowadays.

It can get you the attention of an agent or a publisher: at conventions or conferences where there are award ceremonies, these folk will appear in the bar with a bottle of Veuve Cliquot in hand if you’ve just won an award.

Maybe a boost in sales – awards garner media attention, especially if it’s a slow news day.

A word of warning: don’t tell a writer who’s won an award that they’re lucky.

There is a point to all of this!  There are three things I want you to take away from today.

Winning awards never makes you a better writer.

In fact, it can give you a complex. It can make you fearful that you will never write anything so good again.

Losing awards does not make you a worse writer.

I have lost awards and it’s never affected how or why I write.

Conversely, it may well drive you on to greater heights … but you should be striving to write better purely for the challenge of being a better writer – not because you’re craving external validation.

Awards can be useful marketing tools but your career will not die without them.

They are not and should not be your end game.

I said before don’t compare yourself to others. You are a different writer. You can’t be Neil Gaiman, because we’ve already got one and he’s rather good at being Neil Gaiman. Don’t be the next Neil Gaiman – be the first YOU.

Write the best thing you can. Write the words that make your heart sing – maybe someone else will like the tune. Maybe not. You are not owed an audience. You’re not owed awards.

You can’t influence the judging panels of awards; you don’t know what the competition is like. Sure you wrote the best book you could, but you know what? So did someone else.

At the end of the day, awards are basically Russian Roulette for the Soul. If you write in expectation of them you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Personally I think writing is such a hard endeavour anyway, why put a new obstacle in your path. The fact is that you might never be published let alone win an award.

So when I say awards don’t matter, what I’m trying to give you is perspective.

If you are writing to win awards, then you need to readjust your ideas or settle in for a lifetime of heartache over something you cannot control. Some of you are simply going to be folk who have that tendency anyway in all aspects of your life – good luck to you, I can offer nothing except the name of a couple of good therapists.

Concentrate on the important thing, the one true thing we have: our words. Write your stories. Write your books. If others want to come along for the ride, then that is wonderful – love that, enjoy that.

When you’re dead and dust, you won’t leave behind awards – because they’ll be buried in the mausoleum with you – and they can’t be studied or interpreted or enjoyed. They me

But Kathleen Jennings will Art for you if you win awards

ant nothing to anyone but you for the brief span you were on the planet.

You’ll leave behind your books and that’s your legacy.

* Please note that Kelly Link did not *really* try to kill me.

** Please note that Helen Marshall is still a Canadian citizen ever though she *did* try to kill me.

GenreCon 2017

Woohoo! So this is my weekend. Last night I did a reading from Vigil at the literary salon, along with the other guests. Big fun!

This morning was the first plenary session, with myself, Nalini Singh, Claire Coleman and Garth Nix doing our best to impart some wisdom.

The Starlit Wood: Kat Howard

Today’s visitor to The Starlit Wood is the delightful Kat Howard, talking about her tale “Reflected”.

1. What was the inspiration for your story in The Starlit Wood?

My story, “Reflected,” is a retelling of “The Snow Queen.” My favorite part of that story has always been the enchanted mirror, and so I wanted my version to focus on that.

2. What appealed to you about a fairy tale anthology?

I’ve always loved fairy tales and their retellings. The Datlow/ Windling anthologies were some of my favorite books when I really got into reading fantasy, and so the opportunity to be part of something like that was a thrill.

3. Can you recall the first fairy tale you ever read or that was read to you?

I can’t recall the first one I read, but the one that left the earliest impression was the Disney Sleeping Beauty movie. Maleficent was legitimately powerful and terrifying and I loved that even as she scared me.

4. What’s your favourite folk/fairy tale and why?

I’ve always loved Beauty and the Beast. My earliest impression of it was a story that showed that someone who truly loved you would see you as you truly are, and that has always felt like magic to me.

5. What’s next for you?

My most recent novel, An Unkindness of Magicians, just came out. Next up is a short fiction collection, A Cathedral of Myth and Bone, which will be out next fall.

Photo by Shane Leonard

Kat Howard is a writer of fantasy, science fiction, and horror who lives and writes in New Hampshire. Her short fiction has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, performed on NPR, and anthologized in year’s best and best of volumes. In the past, she’s been a competitive fencer and a college professor. An Unkindness of Magicians is her second novel. Her debut, Roses and Rot, was released from Saga Press in May of 2016, and was a Locus Award finalist for Best First Novel. Her short fiction collection, A Cathedral of Myth and Bone, will be out in 2018, also from Saga. You can find her on twitter, where she is probably posting about her cat

The Dublin Lit Award

I’m delighted to see that Vigil is on the long list for the Dublin Literary Award!

In excellent company with 12 other novels from Oz and NZ.

Good to see the flags being flown in international competitions!

Details are here.

The Tallow-Wife

Random Alex says lovely things about The Tallow-Wife over here …

“I can always rely on Angela Slatter to shatter my heart.”

My work here is done. *swirls cape*

 

The Starlit Wood: Max Gladstone

In today’s Starlit Wood post, Max Gladstone discusses “Giants in the Sky”.

1. What was the inspiration for your story in The Starlit Wood?

The term “beanstalk” has a second life outside of fairy tales, in fiction about space elevators. I wanted to play on this connection, and tell a posthuman sort of fairy tale, from the perspective of the fairies.

2. What appealed to you about a fairy tale anthology?

Fairy tales are myths that people without power tell: they’re folk stories about life in a world beyond your control, about encounters with beings beyond your ken, tales of normal people trying to survive. They’re the stories for our moment.

They’re stories with roots, too. They’ve been polished and shaped by generations of hands: vicious little memetic predators, sleek and evolved. It’s as dangerous to deal with fairy tales as it is to deal with fairies. They’ve been around longer than you, with their sharp and hidden edges. But sometimes we love challenges.

3. Can you recall the first fairy tale you ever read or that was read to you?

The first fairy tale I can remember was some version of the Billy Goats Gruff.

4. What’s your favourite folk/fairy tale and why?

Jack and the Beanstalk has a soft place in my heart, but mostly because of “Giants in the Sky” from Into the Woods.

5. What’s next for you?

Too many things! My most recent novel, RUIN OF ANGELS, just came out last month, and right now I’m driving on a number of projects I can’t wait to announce.

 

Max Gladstone is a two-time finalist for the John W Campbell Best New Writer Award,  and a one-time finalist for the XYZZY and Lambda Awards. In July 2016 Tor Books published his most recent novel, FOUR ROADS CROSS, a tale of sovereign debt and dead gods.  FOUR ROADS CROSS is the fifth Craft Sequence novel, preceded by THREE PARTS DEAD, TWO SERPENTS RISE, FULL FATHOM FIVE, and LAST FIRST SNOW. His most recent project is the globetrotting urban fantasy serial BOOKBURNERS, available in ebook and audio from Serial Box, and in print from Saga Press.

Max studied Chan poetry and late Ming dynasty fiction at Yale; he lived and taught for two years in rural Anhui province, and has traveled throughout Asia and Europe. He speaks Chinese, can embarrass himself reading Latin, and is a martial artist, fencer, and fiddler. He’s also worked as a researcher for the Berkman Center for Internet and Policy Law, a tour guide for the Swiss Embassy, a go-between for a suspicious Chinese auto magazine, a translator for visiting Chinese schoolteachers, a Chinese philosophy TA, a tech industry analyst, and an editor. He has wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat, sung at Carnegie Hall, and been thrown from a horse in Mongolia

 

Over at Write Through the Roof …

Madeleine D’Este asked me some questions over at Write Through the Roof, and I tried to provide answers that did not suck.

Click!

Heading back into …

… the lands of the Sourdough/Bitterwood world …

“Books were in the blood of the Briars; Sandor, great-great-great-grandfather of the clan, was a collector (less frequently a bookseller for he could hardly bear to part with the things), especially of tomes and fragments that had been salvaged from the Citadel at Cwen’s Reach after the Fall of the Little Sisters of St Florian. It was, reflected Anni, a mania she could hardly avoid.”

WiP, Briar Book of the Dead

The Starlit Wood: Seanan McGuire

Today the prolific and generally amazing Seanan McGuire talks about “In the Desert Like a Bone”, her story in The Starlit Wood.

1. What was the inspiration for your story in The Starlit Wood?



I used to work in coyote rescue, and I love desert creatures.  I wanted to follow them for a little while, into a different kind of forest, and see what was waiting on the other side.

2. What appealed to you about a fairy tale anthology?



Everything?  I was a folklore major.  You never have to work very hard to sell me on fairy tales.

3. Can you recall the first fairy tale you ever read or that was read to you?



The first one I really remember is “The Cruel Sister,” which is more of a ballad, but still exists in the same general story-space as fairy and folktales.

4. What’s your favourite folk/fairy tale and why?



Honestly, right now, “Snow White.”  I’m in the process of retelling it in as many different ways as I can, and I’m sunk so deep into the iconography that I couldn’t find my way out if I tried.  I love the iconography, the simplicity, and the flexibility of it all.  Snow White is one of the very few fairy tale heroines who has a strictly set appearance, and following her cycle of blood on the snow is incredibly refreshing.

5. What’s next for you?



The next book in my Wayward Children series, Beneath the Sugar Sky, comes out in January.  I’m very excited!

 

Seanan McGuire lives, writes, and wanders in Washington State, where she has proven herself remarkably good at falling into swamps and becoming entangled in blackberry briars.  She hopes to one day be the witch in someone else’s wood.  Keep up with her at www.seananmcguire.com, or on Twitter as @seananmcguire.