Angela Slatter's Blog, page 70
October 11, 2015
Lament for the Afterlife – a reminder
Photo by Lisa!
A gentle reminder, my fellow Brisneylanders: on Oct 29 at 6pm, Lisa L. Hannett will be at Avid Reader launching her new book Lament for the Afterlife. Do you want to be there?
Of course you do, you’re all folk of exquisite taste. You need this book, you really do.
It’s the night before GenreCon, besides, so you’ll all be in town, right? Right!
It will be launched by the most excellent Robert Hoge.
So, go here and register.
A Ghostly Gathering
In the lead-up to Halloween, I feel I should mention this Kindle mini-collection from the Mammoth Books series.
A Ghostly Gathering contains four stories by Thana Niveau, Ramsey Campbell, Mark Morris, and moi. Edited, as always, by the most excellent Stephen Jones.
It can be purchased here.
Focus 2014 Interviews: Thoraiya Dyer
Photo Credit – Cat Sparks
Today, the delightful Thoraiya Dyer talks about her Focus 2014 tale, “Wine, Women and Stars”.
What was the inspiration for this story ?
The inspiration for “Wine, Women and Stars” was reading journal articles about potentially using solid metal fuel in cars and me trying to work out if you could do it in a living organism, you know, replace the whole inefficient digestion thing we’ve got going on!
I was also interested in how being older can help or hinder in a career, and how criteria for a person’s usefulness can change right when you’ve reached the wrong side of the divide. My father was on the brink of being a qualified aeronautical engineer in the early 70s, but couldn’t get the flight hours he needed to graduate. In those days, there were no age discrimination laws, and the airlines didn’t hesitate to tell him, as they turned him away, that they could get someone ten years younger with twice the flight hours. End of dream.
What should new readers know about you?
Readers should know that I love individuals and their ecosystems, layers of history and disastrous futures, made-up pantheons and cramming too many ideas into small numbers of words. I hereby abandon all responsibility for consumer dissatisfaction.
Can you remember the first story you read that made you want to be a writer? 
The first story that I read which made me want to be a writer was The Witches by Roald Dahl.
Name your top five favourite authors.
Oh, cruel question! Top five favourite authors. You really mean I can pick five from Sydney, five from Perth, five from…no? How about my five favourite dead authors. They are Patricia Wrightson, Pat O’Shea, Rudyard Kipling, Frank Herbert and Michael Ende.
The future of Australian spec-fic is …?
I just finished reading this month’s Locus and there’s a helluva lotta brilliant Australian work being reviewed in it these days. The future of Australian spec-fic shines brightly…until we’re all killed by radiation, a la “On The Beach” by Nevil Chute.
You were warned 
Thoraiya Dyer is a four-time Aurealis Award-winning, three-time Ditmar Award-winning, Sydney-based Australian writer. Her work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Nature, Cosmos and Analog and her collection of four original stories, “Asymmetry,” is available from Twelfth Planet Press. Dyer’s debut novel, “Crossroads of Canopy,” first in the Titan’s Forest trilogy, is forthcoming from Tor books in 2017.
Dyer is represented by the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency. She is a member of SFWA. A qualified veterinarian, her other interests include bushwalking, archery and travel. Find her online at Goodreads, Twitter (@ThoraiyaDyer) or www.thoraiyadyer.com .
October 10, 2015
Prize Pack from Tor.com
Tor.com are giving away a Slatter prize pack (to USians and Canadians – except Quebec. Sorry, Quebec). So if you’d like to nab a copy of the novella Of Sorrow and Such, and the collections Sourdough and Other Stories and The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, go here!
October 8, 2015
Focus 2014 Interviews: Angela Slatter
Once again, I’m talking to myself. This time about “St Dymphna’s School for Poison Girls”, which is reprinted in Fablecroft’s Focus 2014.
What was the inspiration for this story?
The title for this story came from a friend’s throwaway line about St Dymphna’s Home for the Wealthy Insane (thanks, Dr Carson). I thought “No, St Dymphna’s Home for Poison Girls” and my mind went off on its own and sat in a corner, conjuring visions of a boarding school like the one in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette except with more murder and fewer French lessons.
I thought about finishing schools for young ladies and the sorts of girls who are sent there, and the kinds of families they come from. I thought about the strife between grand houses caused by matters of pride and honour (not to mention thefts), and wondered what might happen if the female offspring from those grand houses might be taught something useful … which was still misused by said houses. I wondered about the sorts of young women who might not think beyond what their families were sending them to do, who didn’t say to themselves “Sod this for a game of soldiers – I’ve just been taught these great and terrible skills by independent and terrifying women, why should I go off to die in the service of my family? Why shouldn’t I too become an independent and terrifying woman?”
Art by Kathleen Jennings
Which is precisely the sort of thing Mercia does think for she’s not one of the herd, although in the end she follows a different path as well. And she’s also been sent off to do something dangerous by her surrogate family, the Little Sisters of St Florian, so in some ways she’s also a pawn but smart enough to break away. Mercia is the youngest daughter of Wulfwyn from “The Burnt Moon”, and the youngest sister of Delling, who frees the ghosts of Southarp in “The Undone and the Divine”. She appears again in the new collection The Tallow-Wife and Other Tales. This story first appeared in The Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 9, Issue 3 – and won the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story.
What should new readers know about you?
I work with fairy tale themes. Always. Apparently. Even when it seems I’m not, there’s going to be some line that hints back to a fairy or folk tale. I just do.
And I like to put little links between my stories, just tiny things. For example, in the story “By My Voice I Shall Be Known” set in the Sourdough world, one of the locations the main characters visits is Lady’s Mantle Court; in my novella “Ripper”, which is set in Victorian London, I also have a Lady’s Mantle Court. It amuses me.
Can you remember the first story you read that made you want to be a writer?
I think it was “The Tower” by Marghanita Laski. I always read a lot and loved reading, but I read this one as part of Year 11 English and can still remember the buzz it gave me and that striking sense that I wanted to write things like that.
Name your top five favourite authors.
Angela Carter, Margo Lanagan, Tanith Lee, John Connolly, Kelly Link.
The future of Australian spec-fic is …?
Expanding! Gaining world attention – as it should!
October 7, 2015
Focus 2014 Interviews: Sean Williams
Credit – James Braund http://www.jamesbraund.com/
The legendary and delightful Sean Williams talks about his tale “The Legend Trap”, which appears in Fablecroft’s Focus 2014.
What was the inspiration for your story?
“The Legend Trap” is set in the universe of the Twinmaker series, each book of which more or less works as an urban myth. That set me wondering about what other urban myths might exist in this world, so I wrote a few of them, and at last count there were seventeen. When I was approached by the editors of Kaleidoscope for a story, something about their brief combined with the whole urban myth thing in the back of my head and out popped “The Legend Trap”. It wasn’t supposed to be this long. The trickiest thing was to avoid being too meta at the expense of telling a good yarn with good characters and all. In the end, I was happy with it and really pleased it picked up a Ditmar Award.
What should new readers know about you? 
I write lots of different things for lots of different readers. Horror, SF and fantasy, mainly, for adults of all ages (from eight up), and all sorts of word lengths. I’m restless that way, always looking for new things to try. Maybe that’s because I live in Adelaide. I find it easier to take chances creatively when all around me is calm.
Can you remember the first story you read that made you want to be a writer?
I suspect it was a combination of TV and stories, specifically Doctor Who and the novelisation of Doctor Who by Terrance Dicks, both of which I was obsessed with at an early age. The first story I remember writing was full of things I ripped off from both these sources, so I guess it’s fair to credit them/give them the blame.
Name your top five favourite authors.
At the moment, they would be Sarah Waters, Tamora Pearce, Frances Hardinge, Lee Child, and Sage Blackwood. (I feel bad that there are no Australians on this list. Will work to correct that.)
The future of Australian spec-fic is …?
Brilliant, action-packed, and utterly unpredictable!
Sean Williams is the bestselling author of over forty novels and one hundred stories, including some set in the Star Wars and Doctor Who universes. His latest include Twinmaker: Fall and Troubletwisters: Missing, Presumed Evil, the latter co-written with Garth Nix. He lives just up the road from the best chocolate factory in Australia with his family and a pet plastic fish.
October 6, 2015
Avid Event: The Politics of Myth
This one looks interesting:
Join author Stephen Knight in-conversation with Bronwyn Levy discussing his book, The Politics of Myth at Avid Reader.
Monday the 12th of October
Avid Reader Bookshop, 193 Boundary Street West End
6.00pm for a 6.30pm start
Tickets $7.50 – RSVP ONLINE or to events@avidreader.com.au or call us on 3846 3422
What are the Politics of Myth? If Barack Obama and the late Gough Whitlam are two heads of state that fall into the Arthurian mythic hero class, do we have a contemporary Ned Kelly? Perhaps a Joan of Arc among today’s feminists? The mythic status of the great Sherlock Holmes has fallen victim to forensic reality and the William Shakespeares of tomorrow are more likely to be masters of the tweet than scribblers of drama. But is Julian Assange our new Merlin?
In this searching and unusual new work, Stephen Knight, who recently returned to Australia after twenty years in Europe, reviews the patterns to be found among the narratives of the past that have survived to the 21st century. Mythic figures he says are a focus for conflicts, and they continue to draw the attention of the public, though dressed in contemporary modes. Through these mythic figures the complexities and events we experience in our lives are considered from a different viewpoint.
ABOUT STEPHEN KNIGHT
Stephen Knight worked as a Professor of Literature in Australia and Britain, focusing on the inter-relationship of culture and society, publishing many books and essays, with major work on King Arthur, Merlin, Robin Hood and world crime fiction. He is currently an Honorary Research Professor at the University of Melbourne.
For more information on this or any other Avid Reader event, please contact Krissy Kneen or Madeleine Laing at events@avidreader.com.au
Cover for Finnegan’s Field
And Irene Gallo does it again!! This is the cover by Greg Ruth for my novelette, Finnegan’s Field. Purchased by Ellen Datlow for Tor.com, this will appear on 13 January 2016.
Art by Greg Ruth
In Irish lore, when children go under the hill they don’t come out again.
Ever.
When children go under the hill, they stay where they’re put.
Forever.
When children go under the hill, parents, though they pray and search, don’t truly think to see them anymore.
Never.
In Finnegan’s Field, South Australia (POP. 15,000) the inhabitants had more than enough Irish left in their souls that, despite a century and a half since emigration, they bore these losses with sorrow, yes, but also with more than a little acceptance. A sort of shrug that said Well, it was bound to happen, wasn’t it? Eire’s soft green sadness with its inherited expectation of grief ran in their veins so they did little more than acquiesce, and they certainly did not seek explanations.
Until Madrigal Barker came home.
Focus 2014 Interviews: Alan Baxter
Alan Baxter, author of the Alex Caine urban fantasy series, talks about his Focus 2014 story.
What was the inspiration for your story “Shadows Of The Lonely Dead”?
I’ve had a lot of experience with extended terminal illness in my life, in people young and old. Far too much, to be honest, when even one is too many. But I knew that at some point I would address aspects of that experience through stories and this is one of those tales. The focus on the palliative care hospice in this yarn is drawn from bitter personal experience, and the sense of natural justice is something I explore in a lot of my work.
What should new readers know about you?
I like good single malt scotch… Oh wait, you don’t mean in order to send me gifts? They should know that I mostly write dark weird urban fantasy and horror, often delving into the realms of crime, mystery, noir and, occasionally, science fiction. They should also know to never judge me by my browser history.
Can you remember the first story you read that made you want to be a writer? 
No. I think I was born with a desire to spin yarns. At least, I can’t remember ever not having that urge.
Name your top five favourite authors.
That’s impossible! I can name five that come to mind right now as incredibly formative on me as a writer and as a person. By the time I get to the end of this list, I could easily name five more, and five more, etc. However, for now:
Clive Barker
Ursula K Le Guin
Alan Moore
Michael Moorcock
Anne McCaffrey
…aaaaannnddd already I’m uncomfortable with people I’ve missed, but I’ll let that stand for now.
The future of Australian spec-fic is …?
Assured.
Alan Baxter is a British-Australian author who writes dark fantasy, horror and sci-fi, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. He lives among dairy paddocks on the beautiful south coast of NSW, Australia, with his wife, son, dog and cat. He’s the award-winning author of six novels and over sixty short stories and novellas. So far. Read extracts from his novels, a novella and short stories at his website – www.warriorscribe.com – or find him on Twitter @AlanBaxter and Facebook, and feel free to tell him what you think. About anything.
