Eugen Bacon's Blog, page 5
September 9, 2022
Chasing Whispers, now released!
Now launched – Chasing Whispers, an Afro-irrealist collection of short stories! Check out this launch video.
A Deep and Terrible Sadness – reading from Chasing Whispers
July 20, 2022
World Fantasy Award Finalist!
It’s not every day that you wake up as a World Fantasy Award finalist! I am truly honoured to see my short story ‘‘, a collaboration with bilingual author Seb Doubinsky, is a finalist in the 2022 World Fantasy Awards. Thank you to the judges and congratulations to all finalists. Read or listen to the .
July 1, 2022
Languages of Water – a cross-lingual hybrid by Eugen Bacon (ed)…
Photo by Terry Vlisidis on UnsplashLanguages of Water is a rare but intimate fusion of East, West and Africa, a stunning artefact of writerly immersion and cultural exchange. This child of digital collaboration brings together writers and translators of poetry, fiction and nonfiction from Singapore, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan and Australia.
In a playful interrogation of French literary theorist, critic and philosopher Roland Barthes’ le plaisir du texte and death of the author, Languages of Water opens with the homing story ‘When the Water Stops’. Cross-cultural creators interpret the story in different forms of itself, offering subversive fiction, poetry, essays, monochrome graphics and sudden fiction, and translations of the homing story in English, Swahili, French, Cantonese, Malay, Vietnamese and Bengali.
‘When the Water Stops’ (Locus recommended reading) was first published in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and now resurrects collaboratively in an original cross-lingual hybrid anthology interpreting the story in different forms of itself: short story, essay, translation, poetry and art.
Themes transverse climate change, crossing cultures, translation, interpretation, writing the ‘other’, betwixt.
Featuring (in alphabetical order): Aldegunda Matoyo, Alvin Pang, Andrew Hook, Audrey Chin, Cheng Tim Tim, Clara Chow, Clare Rhoden, David Carlin, Dominique Hecq, E. Don Harpe, Erin Latimer, Eugen Bacon, Francesca Rendle-Short, Jill Jones, Kyongmi Park, Nikki Bacon, Nuzo Onoh, Oz Hardwick, Pandora, Quyên Nguyễn-Hoàng, Ramya Jirasinghe, Rina Kikuchi, Seb Doubinsky, Stephen Embleton, Sudeep Chatterjee, Tamantha Smith, Zephyr Li. Meet the Creators…
How it started: The concept of this cross-lingual hybrid is birthed from the Writers Immersion and Cultural Exchange (WrICE). At the heart of WrICE is a simple idea: to give writers of different backgrounds a chance to step outside familiar writing practices and contexts and connect deeply with writers from different cultures and across generations in an immersive residency. The respectful and generative space for reflection, conversation, creative sharing and surprise that WrICE offers affords writers a muse—a precious opportunity to explore possibilities outside comfort zones and borrow something new into own creative practice. It sparks connections and grows a cohesive community of writers that spans boundaries.
In October 2021 WrICE brought together 12 writers and translators of poetry, fiction and nonfiction from Singapore, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan and Australia in a three-week digital residency.
Together with WrICE 2021 fellows, including Singaporean poet, writer, editor and translator Alvin Pang, Southeast Asian writer Audrey Chin, award-winning novelist, memoirist, and essayist Francesca Rendle-Short, Languages of Water offers work by acclaimed authors—award-winning writer of Scottish and English heritage David Carlin; Korean essayist and translator Kyong-mi Park; ‘Queen of African Horror’ Nuzo Onoh; renowned slipstream writer Andrew Hook; widely-published scholar in international journals and anthologies Oz Hardwick; bilingual and award-winning Seb Doubinsky; newly awarded James Currey Fellow for African literature Stephen Embleton; award-winning Belgian poet and translator who writes across genres and tongues Dominique Hecq; and specially invited contributors.
Contents
June 4, 2022
Multiverses Anthology! Titan Books
Pleased my story ‘The Set’ is in the upcoming Multiverses anthology by Titan Books. March 2023. Pre-orders available on Amazon.
Restless invention – Australian Book Reviews on Danged Black Thing
“Eugen Bacon’s Danged Black Thing is a thrilling, genre-defying collection of short stories that draws on elements of urban fantasy, neo-surrealism, speculative fiction, science fiction, mythology, and poetic prose. Her stories unfold across many different continents and temporalities in pithy expressions of the Nietzschean philosophy of eternal recurrence. Bacon uses hybridity to dismantle boundaries and position identity as fractured and fluent.” – Cassandra Atherton, Australian Book Reviews
Danged Black Thing
June 1, 2022
Locus Magazine Looks at Mage of Fools
“Mage of Fools is one of those poetic science fiction narratives that pulls readers into a unique world—one Bacon fills with myths, legends, memories, and African elements. However, it’s also the kind of book that feels prescient, like a warning wrapped in a story, which is what some of the best fables are. It’s impossible to put the book down and then read about books getting banned and not see that while Bacon is clearly writing science fiction that takes place in a dystopian future, some of the problems she tackles have deep roots in both contemporary and historical problems. Because of this, the novel becomes more than a story about a mother figuring out how to use the secrets she learns to get her children back; it becomes a call to action that warns readers we all might end up like Jasmin if we don’t pay attention to the slow creeping of dystopian elements into our everyday lives.
While Mage of Fools is a hybrid that’s as much science fiction and dystopian fiction as it is a tale of survival and a celebration of love, what makes it a truly enjoyable and unique reading experience is Bacon’s stylish prose.” – Gabino Iglesias
May 17, 2022
BSFA Review weighs in on Mage of Fools
“The worldbuilding is so perfectly weighted it seems plucked from existing mythology
rather than imagination…The collective whole is stunning.”
May 10, 2022
Cover reveal! CHASING WHISPERS
“Raw Dog Screaming Press (RDSP) is thrilled to release the cover for award-winning and highly nominated writer and author Eugen Bacon’s Afro-Irrealist Black speculative fiction collection Chasing Whispers, publishing September of this year. The stunning cover art was created by artist and book cover designer Lynne Hansen.”
Read more .
April 28, 2022
Apex Book Company acquires North American rights to DANGED BLACK THING
Apex Book Company – dedicated to publishing exemplary works of science fiction, fantasy and horror, and parent company to thrice Hugo Award-nominated Apex magazine – has acquired the North American rights of my #blackspeculative collection DANGED BLACK THING.
Read the acquisition announcement.
April 24, 2022
Now available! Advance reader copies – An Earnest Blackness
If you’re a reviewer and would like a free paper back or ARC, contact @info@anti-oedipuspress.com
