Aliya Whiteley's Blog, page 4

Lots of us are Writing Lands

October! Not long now before a bunch of us write all day to produce stories for the Green Ink charity anthology ‘Pleasant Lands’. I’ll just put in the official stuff here:

Welcome to Green Ink Sponsored Write 2024!

Reflecting Macmillan’s mission of quality of life, writers are sponsored for their time, not their word-count. A world-exclusive anthology of material created in this Sponsored Write will be emailed to everyone who donates on this page before the writing day ends (19 Oct 2024).

Your anthology will arrive in your inbox 48 hours after it’s written (21 Oct 2024). 

Team 2024 is: Isabella Barbieri, Stephanie Bisby, Dan Coxon, Alex Davis, Kayleigh Dobbs, Sarah Dodd, Kim Fleet, John-Paul Flintoff, Emily Inkpen, Marianne Izen, Penny Jones, Rachel Knightley, Nic Lamont, Laura Mauro, Lisa Morton, Katharine Orton, Kenny Reid, Jennifer Steil, Vanessa Thompsett, Steve Toase, Stacey Michelle Warner and Aliya Whiteley. Anthology design will be by Steve J. Shaw of Black Shuck Books (my cover image is temporary until then!). 

Writing begins at 10.30am and ends at 5.30pm (with a break for lunch!). The writers then have 24 hours to edit their work and email it to Writers’ Gym HQ to be turned into an anthology for our sponsors.

I have half an idea for this already, and I’m really looking forward to getting started – and of creating a small part of an anthology with such a talented group of fellow writers.

Please do sponsor us if you can, and support a cause that is incredibly helpful for so many of us. Here’s the link.

Long-lasting rebellious beauty

Ten years on since it was first published, and The Beauty has a fancy jacket, a companion in the accompanying novella The Arrival of Missives, and a wonderful introduction by MR Carey. It’s publication day today for the Solaris version, and for the first time there’s also an audio version.

Happy tenth birthday, beauties! A lot has happened in ten years. (Longer, for me, since I wrote it twelve or thirteen years ago.) It’s been published and reprinted a few times, and translated a few times too. Here’s a picture of its stunning covers over the years:

Enormous thanks to everyone who has helped to keep it growing.

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Issue 300 of Interzone is now available and my latest Climbing Stories column is all about how to read rebel instruction booklets, find hidden messages within, and then revolt accordingly. And the chat I recently had with IZ editor Gareth Jelley, in which we tried and failed to discuss Three Eight One, is also now on Youtube. I’m still finding it impossible to talk about that book. Hopefully I’ll get better at it before the paperback release, which is scheduled for early 2025.

Inhaling

I was having so much fun that I was sorry to see WorldCon in Glasgow come to an end. Huge thank you to everyone who said hello, listened to me talk about weirdness, or bought one of my books. The Solaris table even had early copies of the tenth anniversary of The Beauty for sale, which was brilliant to see in the yellow flesh.

Issue eleven of ParSec magazine features writers who were at WorldCon, and you can see who on the cover below:

A strong line-up to celebrate WorldCon. My short story, about that uneasy feeling you get that everyone else is in on a shiny secret, is called The Inhalations.

Out of the mouth and into the eye – Three-Lobed Burning Eye, a great magazine that first published me back in 2013, is holding a kickstarter to raise money for publication in 2025, and I’m one of the writers who will contribute a story when it meets its goals. Click on the link to see the other writers involved; it’s going to be an amazing year for 3LBE.

Destination WorldCon

WorldCon, the World Science Fiction Convention, will be taking place in Glasgow from Thursday 8th to Monday 12th August and, looking at the schedule, there are about a thousand things I want to do and see. There are also a few things that I’ll be involved in directly, so if you want to find me to say hi, here are the places to look…

The Luna Press book launch party: Friday 9th August, 1pm, Argyll 2

The PS Publishing book launch of Heartwood: Saturday 10th August, 1pm, Dealers’ Room

Weirding the Future (panel discussion with Dan Coxon, Arkady Martine, E.G. Conde, Lorraine Wilson): Saturday 10th August, 4pm, Argyll 2

Table Talk: Sunday 11th August, 1pm, Hall 4.

I’ll also be at the Solaris table in the Dealers’ Room to sign books, hopefully on the Sunday morning. I’ll update this page with the details.

If you’re going to WorldCon, I hope you have a brilliant time!

Living in the woods with dragons

A bit of short story anthology news. Look at this gorgeous cover (by Vince Haig):

This is Heartwood, an anthology of short stories based on Robert Holdstock’s wonderful novel (and sequels to) Mythago Wood. It’s got an amazing line-up:

Introduction: The Matter of Albion – Michael MoorcockEditor’s Note – Dan CoxonTransient in Green – RJ BarkerPaved with Gold – Adrian TchaikovskyHere there be Monsters – Tim WaggonerRaptor – Maura McHughHorsey Horsey – James BrogdenEt in Acadia – John LanganThe Crossing Place – Paul KaneWhat Happened to the Green Boy? – Gary BuddenThe Dog on the Hookland Road – Justina RobsonVoici les Neiges d’Antan – Chaz BrenchleyOld Coal – Mark MorrisThe Myth of Grief – Steven SavileInto the Heart – Allen StroudLovely, Dark and Deep – Lisa TuttlePrey – Matthew WardMad Pranks and Merry Jests – Jen WilliamsHearts of Ice – Peter HaynesCalling the Tune – Lucy HollandThe Known Song – Aliya WhiteleyKnight of the Air – Gareth HanrahanA Mythago Wood Glossary

I’m thrilled to have written a piece for this anthology, playing with the idea of stories that come to life, breathe, and bring their own danger and romance to the places where worlds meet. You can pre-order a copy on the PS Publishing website, or I think it’ll be available to buy at Glasgow WorldCon this year, which I’ll be attending – more details about that later.

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Here’s a short interview relating to another anthology I’ve been involved with. The Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project won’t be published until next year, but I’ve written a brief outline my piece about the Anwick Drake Stone(s). It’s one of those old stories that is still so meaningful, even though much has changed. It’s been a brilliant few months, getting to write about pieces of folklore that have long inspired, intrigued and entertained people.

I’ve put in a link to an interactive map made by the Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project. On it you can find the tale of a very old standing stone, and what lay beneath it.

A bundle of brilliant stories

What’s this? Three Eight One, packaged under a new tag: The 2024 Best of British SFF Bundle, curated by Lavie Tidhar for StoryBundle. That’s a lovely tag to be able to add to the list of metadata for my quest adventure travelogue SF fantasy horror space cha novel.

It’s available at a bargain price along with nine other amazing reads, and it’s only hanging around for the next twenty-one days, eighteen hours, fifty-five minutes and forty-four seconds at time of typing. Quick! To the Imagination Portal for ten incredible injections!

Huge thanks to Lavie Tidhar and StoryBundle for including Three Eight One.

Pleasant Present

The date has been set for this year’s Green Ink Sponsored Write event. It’s on 19th October, and a number of brilliant writers will be creating a piece of fiction in eight hours. The results will then be collected into an anthology for the eyes of the supporters, mailed directly to their Inboxes.

I’m taking part again this year in order to raise money for an organisation that’s important to me: Macmillan Cancer Support. Last year the writing prompt was ‘within the well’ and I wrote a very weird short story about a palace, three robots, and a talking crocodile. This year I’m aiming to create something different again, although I have no idea what that will be until the clock starts counting down on 19th October, and the writing prompt is announced. I’d hugely appreciate the gift of any donation you can afford.

Here’s a link to the Just Giving page, along with details of all the writers taking part.

IZ Podcast: 381 ways to attempt conversation

A few months ago I spoke to Interzone about my quest travelogue adventure with footnotes, Three Eight One, which is a book that’s very difficult to talk about, but we had fun trying. It was its own adventure.

The chat also took in a bit of the process of writing structurally demanding things, and what I’ve been working on since, including a quick mention for my short story collection Drive or Be Driven, and the latest novel, which is near completion, and is a very different beast to Three Eight One.

At the moment the conversation is open to Patreon subscribers – you can find details here.

The beginning of the latest interview mentions my regular spot in Interzone – I’ve been writing a column for Interzone magazine for a few years now: my Climbing Stories flits between SF, fantasy and horror, film and TV, fiction and non-fiction. It has featured a number of books, a mixture of writers, a bit of video gaming, and a lot of other things such as alien perfume, training montages, and slow worms, and I’m very grateful to both Andy Cox, then Gareth Jelley, for letting me write about such things. I’m just starting work on this month’s column. Another adventure! Here goes.

Interzone 299 is currently available to buy. Here’s to the milestone issue 300 next month.

City of All Seasons, but mainly next Spring

The novel I co-wrote with Oliver Langmead will be published by Titan in April 2025.

This is a brilliant thing to be able to put on the blog because I’m hugely looking forward to seeing this book edging closer to publication. I had a blast working on it, collaborating with such a wonderful writer to come up with a story that I love and a city I only wish I could visit for real.

As it says in the Bookseller announcement:

City of All Seasons tells the story of two inventors who are trapped in mirrored versions of the island city of Fairharbour. In one it is winter and the other constant summer. When they find a way to communicate with each other, the pair try to discover what happened to their city and how to repair the fracture between worlds. 

There’s a bit more on bookselling websites:

A vibrant and emotional science fantasy about cousins trapped in mirrored worlds – the resplendent and verdant summer city and the ice-carved wastes of the winter city. For fans of Every Heart a Doorway and This is How You Lose the Time War.

Welcome to Jamie Pike’s Fairharbour – a city stuck in perpetual winter, its windows and doorways bricked shut to keep out the freezing cold, its residents striving to survive in the arctic conditions.

Welcome to Esther Pike’s Fairharbour – a city stuck in constant summer, its walls crumbling in the heat, its oppressive sunlight a relentless presence.

Winter and Summer alike have fallen under the yoke of oppressive powers that have taken control after the cataclysm. But both Fairharbours were once a single, united city. And in certain places, at certain times, one side can catch a glimpse of the other. As Jamie and Esther find a way to communicate across the divide, they set out to solve the mystery of what split their city in two, and what, if anything, might repair their fractured worlds.

Ollie describes the novel as ‘a celebration of our mutual love of finding new challenges and frontiers in speculative fiction to explore’ and I’m in total agreement with that. Writing can be a lonely business. Getting to create something so wonderful with another writer who totally gets where you’re trying to go was joyous.

We hope

Isn’t this beautiful? It’s my copy of the anthology published today by Luna Press, ‘The Utopia of Us’, celebrating Yevgeny Zamyatin’s ‘We’.

I wrote a bit about the inspiration I took from ‘We’ here. My story is very much set in the world of the novel, and looks at the importance of communal hope in society, and of the desire to make meaningful contributions to projects that harness hope, whatever form that takes.

Happy birthday to ‘The Utopia of Us’. I’m about halfway through so far and all the stories have been wonderful, and very different in the inspiration they took. It’s a great anthology. I hope it finds lots of readers.