Andrew Hook's Blog, page 19

Autumn Horror In The East 2

Following the recent World Fantasy Convention where 1500 attendees descended on Brighton for their annual literary and social fix we attended a scaled down version of the same thing at Lowestoft this weekend, the second year of Autumn Horror In The East. Not dissimilar to WFC in many ways, this also saw the general public outnumbered by the writers and whilst it would be unfair to extend the comparison too far it was interesting to have sold more items at the quieter event...

World Fantasy Convention 2013

Last weekend saw the annual World Fantasy Convention arrive in Brighton, only the third time in its history that it's been held outside of North America. I usually spend this time of year at FantasyCon (the British Fantasy Society's convention), but as it was shelved this year due to World Fantasy it was a no brainer to attend. It's always encouraging to spend a weekend with like-minded literary folks - many of whom are great friends and acquaintances - and to re-charge and reaffirm the creat...

Some Novel Advice

I've always found novel writing to be a burden, I'm a short story guy at heart. I've got to the stage of my 'career' when I can write the first draft of a short story in a few hours in one sitting, and usually editing is just a couple of re-reads with a few words changed here and there. Only occasionally does anything have to be extensively re-written or altered. But novels are different beasts - they need time to be written and they devour that time. I've posted before about m...

The Malayan Tapir

As regular followers of this blog are aware I have a certain fondness for animals of the long-snouted variety. Who wouldn't? I've tried to seek out some of the more extreme examples for previous posts, but those are becoming thin on the ground so I'm falling back onto one of my favourites, the Malayan tapir.

I used to have one of these as a toy animal back in my youth and I prefer the black and white markings to those of the other three varieties of tapir. There's something more honest, more o...

Editors Have Feelings Too

My blog today is brought to you by my partner and Fur-Lined Ghettos editor, Sophie:
I've been editing Fur-Lined Ghettos for two years now and have never received a vile email. Until today.

As a writer, I know how hard a rejection can hit. You put your heart into your writing, pluck up the courage to send your work out, wait months to hear back, only to get the standard 'thanks, but it's not for us' email. It hurts.

But, I also know it's subjective. One editor's opinion doesn't make your writing...

punkPunk! update

As many of you might know I am editing an anthology of punk-inspired fiction titled "punkPunk!" to be published by DogHorn Publishing next year. The submission period opened on 1st July and runs through to 31st December 2013 so we are approximately half-way through the process. In that time I've had several submissions of interest, some way off the mark, and whilst I'm making no definite confirmed acceptances until nearer the closing date there are several pieces which I'm strongly...

What's Inside A Ghetto?

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I co-edit the irrealist/surrealist/gritty/feral poetry prose magazine, Fur-Lined Ghettos. Of course, we're constantly reading submissions for the magazine and also attempting to flog it, and one of the questions we constantly get asked is what type of work do we publish.

We came up with this: "We enjoy the surreal, the absurd, the nonsensical, the complicated, the simple, the truth, the lies, the complexity of words, the ecstasy of genius, the de...

Holidays

Haven't been able to blog for a while (did you miss me?) because we were on holiday. Now, holidays are pretty essential for my wellbeing. I work 11 days out of 14 in day jobs, not counting any freelance work or writing that I do in my spare time, and travelling is when I am happiest. In fact, I've said it frequently that I feel more at home travelling than I do when I'm at home. I get travelsick for travelling where others get homesick for home. Coming home for me is a big downer. I need...

The Tamandua

Regular readers of this blog will know that I love animals of the long-snouted variety. To celebrate both mine and my partner's recent birthdays we took a trip to Colchester Zoo yesterday. It was baking hot, and we did a lot of walking, but we managed to see all the long-snouted animals we expected: the giant anteater, the aardvark, and the dik dik spring to mind on recollection. As well as seeing and enjoying the regular animals with their regular-sized snouts, of course; including the lucky...

Cora Vespertine

What's in a name?

It's been 14 months since the birth of our baby and the time has flown by. She's eating proper food, she's walking, she's saying the odd word, she's a continual delight, and she's tiring the hell out of us with all of it. But it doesn't seem that long ago that we were considering baby names. We wanted to go with something unusual, but not traumatic, and after discounting Snowlips Bumblebee, Capability Snuggles, Echo Echo, Bill Murray, and Adlebert Esquire, we settled on Cora...