Angela Slatter's Blog, page 60

Talking About Our Collaboration!

Over at the Tor.com Tube of You channel, Lisa and I talk about collaboration, specifically on Midnight and Moonshine.

And talk and talk and talk!

Welcome to Orphancorp: Marlee Jane Ward

Marlee Jane Ward is a self-described writer, reader and weirdo from Melbourne, Australia. She’s a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and her debut novella, Welcome To Orphancorp, was one of three winners of Seizure’s Viva La Novella 3, and was a finalist for the Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Fiction. It also, ahem, won the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction. Not too shabby.

Her short fiction has appeared in Interfictions, Terraform, Apex, Mad Scientist Journal, Slink Chunk Press and the Hear Me Roar anthology. Today she takes some time out from living in Orphancorp to chat about the writing life.

1. What do new readers need to know about Marlee Jane Ward?

That I’m a total weirdo from Melbourne, and my coffee order is a large soy latte with one sugar, iced if it’s a hot day. That I don’t write to genres or age group, they kinda just happen to me. That I write the kind of stories I want to read, and that I hope you like them too.

2. Did you always want to write and can you remember the first story you ever told?

I’ve wanted to write for a really long time. I always loved the creative writing sections in yearly tests and I’d get top marks. The first decently sized thing I wrote was a short horror novel called ‘Cracked’ as part of a creative program in year seven. It was both awful and derivative.

3. What was the inspiration for your novella Welcome to Orphancorp?

It came about as back story for a character in a different piece and I used it when I was desperate for ideas to take with me to Clarion West. It started life as a short story at CW, and I expanded it over six madcap weeks of conveniently timed unemployment for the Viva La Novella deadline. I referred back to articles I’d read on the Kids For Cash scandal in Pennsylvania and about Ceausescu’s Kids in Romanian orphanages. I’m an avid reader of longform articles and I get most of my inspiration from there. There was one bit in one of the articles about Romanian Orphanages that said kids who got any form of true loving support in their first year or few years of life, even if it was in the harshest conditions or terrible poverty, tended to be more resilient than the ones who didn’t. I thought Mirii might be like that. I needed to give her a stable base and some hope.

4. What appealed to you about the novella format? Is it a stepping stone to a novel length work?

I loved novella length as a way for me to warm up to novel-length work. I was a short story writer before this and I’m trying to learn to expand my ideas outwards into longer pieces. Short stories force you to pare everything way back and it’s been a learning curve to flesh things out. As well, I really like that if you are a fast reader like me, you can get through a whole novella in a sitting and experience it like a movie.

5. How did it feel to win the  2016 Victorian Premiers Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction?

Bizarre. Like, my book? Little Orphancorp? I’ve got a healthy balance of confidence and self-doubt, so while I knew it was a bit of alright when it came out, I just thought there was too much stacked against it for it to win. Like, it’s 26,000 words, for one. It’s genre, for two. It’s got some pretty adult themes as well. But it just goes to show that the right 26,000 words, arranged in the right way and from the heart, can do all sorts of rad things.

6. Who were/are your literary heroes/influences?

Stephen King can tell a hell of a story, Isobelle Carmody can craft a beautiful world, Poppy Z Brite can evoke every sense with her words. They were my early influences. More recently I’ve been really into Kim Stanley Robinson’s hope-filled futures, Neal Stephenson’s complex worlds, and the short stories of writers like Kij Johnson and Karen Joy Fowler. I’m also influenced by my peers, people like Jane Rawson, Patrick Lenton and Maria Lewis who are amazing at doing their own thing, and doing it well.

7. Do you prefer to write fantasy, horror, or science fiction? Or a happy mix of all of them?

I’ll write whatever. I’m not the kind of person who sets out to do specifically this or that. I’m too much of a haphazard disaster for that. I tend to just consume a lot of books and a lot of articles and let the ideas I get from them swirl around until something pops out. Most often it’s a mix – a bit of a sciency dystopia or a bit of a horror-ish spec story.

8. What do you think was the biggest thing you got out of going to Clarion West?

An amazing group of friends. A glimpse of the life I want to lead, and the skills to get me there, if I keep at it. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, if they’d let me. Which they won’t – you can only do it once.

9. You get to invite five fictional characters for dinner: who’s on the guest list?

Hermione, but she’d give me pointed looks when things got to rowdy, no doubt. She’d be one of those people I think are really cool, but she’d think I was a mess, and that’s okay. Eddy Sung from Poppy Z Brite’s Drawing Blood, so we could commiserate over all the queer boys we’d loved and lost. Zinzi December from Zoo City by Lauren Buekes, because we could relate with that whole ‘being ex-addicts’ thing, and she’d have the goss – plus I’d love to pat Sloth. Eliza from Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle, ’cause she’s so sharp and could teach me a thing or two. And maybe Alice from Stephen King’s Cell. She went through a lot in a short time, and could probably use a cuddle. This is my ‘all-lady, all the time’ version of the fictional dinner, you might notice. I dig hanging out with cool ladies.

10. What’s next for Marlee Jane Ward?

I’m almost done with the second Orphancorp book, which is less about Orphancorp, and more the continuing adventures of Mirii Mahoney. I’d like the write the third one concurrently with the first in a new YA series, but we will see how that goes. Then I have a standalone adult novel that needs to get written – I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.

 

Over at Fantasy Scroll Magazine …

… I talk. Constantly. Thanks, Amber Neko Meador!

About non-writing, writing, and tips for new writers. Also fairy tales. And my forthcoming debut novel Vigil.

Amber: Thank you for taking a little time with me today. It’s always appreciated. Let’s start where most of these do. Who are you? Where did you grow up? What would you like inquiring readers to know about Angela Slatter that isn’t necessarily about your writing?

Angela: Oh, wow. Not about writing? That’s kind of a shock since I’m a full-time writer so that’s all I think about really! I grew up in a few different places because we moved around with my Dad’s job (he was a cop for 38 years), so I’ve lived in Brisbane, Ipswich, Cairns, and Longreach—none of which means much to anyone except another Australian! I’ve worked as an administrator in several universities, as an article clerk, as a print project manager, a membership services coordinator, and freelance editor among other things. I occasionally teach creative writing and do mentoring … there you go, back to writing. I have no cat, does that mean I’m not a real writer?? I like cats, my sister has many cats (possibly even my share of them), but at the moment there’s no special cat in my life. I have a husband, though, I’m very fond of him. I love reading, writing, watching movies, walking, and not having to cook my own dinner, so very fond of eating out. I cannot knit, although I can crochet. My mother taught me never to darn socks, to just buy new ones. I love caramel fudge. I drink my coffee black. I have accepted all of my writing awards while wearing evening gowns and no shoes.

The rest is here!

KSP Mentoring

So I’ll be the established writer-in-residence at KSP in Perth from 25 June – 10 July this year, and all the w-i-r folk do mentorships during their term:

KSP’s highly talented and experienced Writers-in-Residence offer one-on-one mentorships to a KSP-member whilst they are staying at the Centre. The goal is to provide you with personalised feedback and advice on your writing.

If you write in the genre of the visiting Writer-in-Residence and are available to attend the Centre, consider applying today. It is free to apply and the Writer will select the person he/she thinks they could help the most. The mentorship fee for successful applicants is just $50.

Upcoming Writers-in-Residence

MAY Lorna Hendry: travel, memoir, children’s non-fiction (APPLICATIONS CLOSING SOON!!)

JULY Angela Slatter: science fiction, fantasy

OCTOBER Chloe Higgins: literary fiction, short fiction

Want more info?

 

Who’s Afraid?: Maria Lewis

Author, journalist, reviewer, pop culture maven, werewolf aficionado, all-round powerhouse, and Idris Elba’s future wife (not to mention OMG-level of impressively inked) Maria Lewis is multi-talented and extraordinarily busy. But she was kind enough to take some time out to talk about her debut novel Who’s Afraid?, writing influences, the superheroes you’d find at her dinner party, and the High Lord Tarantino. Read on …

1. What do new readers need to know about Maria Lewis?

I’ve been a journalist for over a decade, which is how I got my start in writing and my background as a reporter has greatly informed my work when it comes to style and research. Who’s Afraid? is my debut novel and the first in a five book supernatural series from Little Brown Books/Piatkus in London. I’m also probably most certainly Idris Elba’s future wife, but that’s neither here nor there.

2. What was the inspiration for your novel Who’s Afraid?

It was almost anti-inspiration, actually, as I love the supernatural genre and I love urban fantasy, horror and paranormal novels but at the time I was getting annoyed with the kind of fiction I was reading. It felt like collectively we were in this rut where every hero of the story was a white, 15-year-old girl who read William Blake poetry and was ‘really mature for her age’ – which drove me insane. I wrote Who’s Afraid? purely with the motivation to create the kind of book I didn’t think existed in the market at the time which was one with a biracial, complicated heroine who has her own flaws and agency as well as one that dealt with adult themes and challenging inter-personal issues.

3. Is there a special fascination for you with werewolves?

Everyone has that supernatural creature they’re obsessed with and for me, it has always been werewolves. Always – going back to when I was a young kid growing up in rural New Zealand and I would get told werewolf stories while being able to see snow-capped mountains out the window. It’s also that idea of duality Robert Louis Stevenson nailed so well: living with a monster inside of yourself and reconciling with your animalistic and savage instincts.

4. Where did Tommi Grayson come from? Is she your inner wolf?

Haha no, she’s not my inner-wolf at all: I feel like we’d maybe be in the same pack but our wolves would be quite different. Tommi Grayson came from a place of loving werewolves and loving werewolf pop culture – movies, books, TV shows – but getting annoyed at there never being female werewolves who led and controlled the story. There’s a handful of examples like Ginger Snaps and When Animals Dream, but for the most part women never got to inhabit that monstrous physicality in the same way men did. I wanted to embrace that idea of the feminine grotesque and give audiences a back-breaking, flesh-tearing, muscle-ripping she-wolf who was just as gnarly as the men but also completely her own thing with her own strengths and motivators like loyalty, compassion and love.

5. Did you always want to write and when did you first think you’d like to do this for real?

Writing was always something I did: it existed simultaneously with my own life experiences but it wasn’t necessarily something I thought I could do professionally as a job until I got a journalism cadetship/scholarship straight out of high school. It felt pretty bloody real then, as I was a teenager covering the police beat for three years and dealing with some graphic and high-pressure situations. A newsroom environment is also a sharp learning curve, with daily deadlines and being surrounding by a very experienced team of editors, subs and chief of staff who expect the most out of you and demand it.

6. Who’s Afraid make a most excellent splash ? how did it feel to draw the eye of the High Lord Tarantino?

Insane. Like, unfathomably insane. I’m deeply influenced by pop culture and other media that I’ve consumed and it ends up being woven into my work in a similar way Tarantino’s films sometimes feel like a great DJ remix of all the stuff you’ve loved before within that genre. So when he requested a signed copy while he was in Australia on The Hateful Eight tour I was blown away, to be honest, and very grateful for the power of Twitter as the whole reason he heard about the book was Who’s Afraid? was the top trending topic in Australia for three days – above the premieres of The Hateful Eight – and he asked his people ‘What the f*** is this Who’s Afraid? thing?’ The rest is very modern history.

7. How did you get your start as a journalist?

I knew uni was going to be a stretch financially so I applied for a bunch of different scholarships while I was in highschool. I got two, to two very different universities to study two very different things, and the one I went with was a journalism scholarship where I worked full time at a newspaper on the Gold Coast and did my degree alongside that.

8. Who were/are your literary heroes/influences?

Mary Shelley, first and foremost. You’ve got to love a young and hungry teenager who manages to take on the boys club with a masterwork of horror.

9. So you’re a pop culture maven: name five superheros you’d like to invite for drinks and general shenanigans?

Photo by Alex Adsett

Gambit – he’s my favourite comic book character and you just know he’d be loose at a party, Jubilee – she’d bring great energy and be awesome on the dance floor, Huntress – my favourite comic book heroine because she’d be no-bullshit fun, Lying Cat – just to keep everyone in line and Jessica Jones – girlfriend knows how to slam down a drink.

10. What’s next for Maria Lewis?

Sleep? Such sleep. Much wow. Ah no, I’m currently on tour with Supanova Pop Culture Expo at the moment so once that winds down I’m off to the UK for two months to launch Who’s Afraid? internationally in England, Ireland and Scotland. Who’s Afraid? sequel drops January 2017 then it’s a matter of gearing up and preparing to do it all again.

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2016

Cover for the next The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2016 from Paula Guran and Prime!

My novella “Ripper” is getting another outing, so huzzah!

Look at that ToC and pre-order here.

Alphabetical by Author Last Name:

“The Door” by Kelley Armstrong (Led Astray: The Best of Kelley Armstrong, Tachyon)
“Snow” by Dale Bailey (Nightmare, June 2015)
“1Up” by Holly Black (Press Start to Play, ed. Adams, Vintage)
“Seven Minutes in Heaven” by Nadia Bulkin (Aickman’s Heirs, ed. Strantzas, Undertow)
“The Glad Hosts” by Rebecca Campbell (Lackington’s #7)
“Hairwork” by Gemma Files (She Walks in Shadows, eds. Moreno-Garcia & Stiles, Innsmouth Free Press)
“Black Dog” by Neil Gaiman (Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances, William Morrow)
“A Shot of Salt Water” by Lisa L. Hannett (The Dark #8)
“The Scavenger’s Nursery” by Maria Dahvana Headley (Shimmer #24)
“Daniel’s Theory About Dolls” by Stephen Graham Jones (The Doll Collection, ed. Datlow, Tor)
“The Cripple and Starfish” by Caítlin R. Kiernan (Sirenia Digest #108)
“The Absence of Words” by Swapna Kishore (Mythic Delirium #1.3)
“Corpsemouth” by John Langan (The Monstrous, ed. Datlow, Tachyon)
“Cassandra” by Ken Liu (Clarkesworld #102)
“Street of the Dead House” by Robert Lopresti (nEvermore, eds. Kilpatrick & Soles, EDGE)
“Mary, Mary” by Kirstyn McDermott (Cranky Ladies of History, eds. Roberts & Wessely, Fablecroft)
“There is No Place for Sorrow in the Kingdom of the Cold” by Seanan McGuire (The Doll Collection, ed. Datlow, Tor)
“Below the Falls” by Daniel Mills (Nightscript 1, ed. Muller, Chthonic Matter)
“The Deepwater Bride” by Tamsyn Muir (F&SF Jul-Aug)
The Greyness” by Kathryn Ptacek (Expiration Date, ed. Kilpatrick, EDGE)
“The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill” by Kelly Robson (Clarkesworld #101)
“Those” by Sofia Samatar (Uncanny #3)
“Fabulous Beasts” by Priya Sharma (Tor.com)
“Windows Underwater” by John Shirley (Innsmouth Nightmares, ed. Gresh, PS Publishing)
“Ripper” by Angela Slatter (Horrorology, ed. Jones, Quercus)
“The Lily and the Horn” by Catherynne M. Valente (Fantasy #59)
“Sing Me Your Scars” by Damien Angelica Walters (Sing Me Your Scars, Apex)
“The Body Finder” by Kaaron Warren (Blurring the Line, ed. Young, Cohesion)
“The Devil Under the Maison Blue” by Michael Wehunt (The Dark #10)
“Kaiju maximus®: “So various, So Beautiful, So New” by Kai Ashante Wilson (Fantasy #59)

Kind words …

… from the lovely Neil Snowdon are here. 

“Rich and heady as honey mead, potent and earthy as great Scotch, the sublimely dark tales of Angela Slatter are an addictive delight. Take a sip and let the pleasant buzz enhance your world, or guzzle the lot and get drunk. The only hangover you might feel will be the disappointment of returning to the real world… and the hankering for more.“

ARC! ARC in my hands …

… albeit briefly.

I met with the delightful Sean and Kathie from Hachette yesterday to talk about Vigil and bookstores and appearances and stuff.

Sean had an ARC with him and I got to pat it it and cuddle it before I had to hand it back so it could be used to seduce booksellers. It’s so damned purdy.

 

Let’s call this a cover reveal …

… so, Vigil is getting around, ARCs are appearing in people’s mailboxes, photos are appearing of these occurrences, and it’s officially made its way onto the Hachette UK website – voila!

This is my cover. I love, love, love it!

It’s available for pre-order around the traps as well. It will be in Australian bookstores on or around 12 July. We’ll be having a Brisneyland launch party, too, at a date and time to be disclosed (as soon as I get organised). There’ll be goodie bags for the first 50 folk at said launch to buy a copy of Vigil (she says, optimistically assuming we’ll have 50 people there!).

Then I’ll be in the UK for a large chunk of August – appearing at Nine Worlds in London (12-14 August), the inaugural Dublin Ghost Story Festival (19-21 August), and somewhere in there will be some other London appearances, and a thing in Newcastle for the Novocastria Macabre ‘brand’ of events. And wherever JFB/Hachette UK tell me to go, lo, I shall go.

Huzzah!

More details and dates as they come to hand.

Should you be a genuine reviewer of books, please contact the publicity departments of Jo Fletcher Books in the UK or Hachette in Australia and present your bona fides to the lovely peeps there (don’t ask me, I ain’t gots no ARCs).

Contact Made, stuff won

Lisa & I with our Ditmars, mine is backwards because: Angela

Over Easter weekend we attended Contact2016 in Brisneyland and it was one of the cons Ive enjoyed most in my life as a writer. It was great fun to catch up with old friends, and make new ones, opine on panels, find places that made good coffee rather than the sludge from Satan’s bladder served by the hotel, and eat the extraordinarily good food at the same hotel’s restaurant (I just don’t know why the coffee was so bad when the everything else was sooooo good!).

And Lisa and I won our very first Ditmars – hers for Best Novel (Lament for the Afterlife) and mine for Best Novella (Of Sorrow and Such – which get some love here). There were the Aurealis Awards, too, and big congrats to all the winners (of AAs and Ditmars), especially to Sean Williams and Garth Nix. And I got to interview Rivers of London author Ben Aaronovitch, which was fun and highly amusing.

And a huge thanks to the Contact2016 Team who worked so hard, solved so many problems, selected such great GoHs, and generally made the weekend so awesome for all.