Alan Baxter's Blog, page 109

Great RealmShift review at Scary Minds

Scary Minds is "horror's last colonial outpost on the internet." It's a very slick website that dedicates itself to all things horror from Australia and New Zealand. It's "unapologetic in dedicating itself to purely local content." Sounds bloody good to me.

They've just posted a review of RealmShift and it's a great review and possibly the most thorough I've ever had. Here's a selection of choice comments from it:

Baxter doesn't waste much time ripping into things as Isiah is immediately...

Obscenity ruling

This is a bit of nonsense, but it's quality nonsense. The Onion is an awesome site and did a great skit today on a free speech ruling. Read the whole thing here, or check the image below for the nutshell version.

Dude, that is some quality swearing.

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A busy few writing days

It's been a busy few days for me on the writing front. Along with yesterday's Society of Editors thing (see previous post) I've had a couple of other things cooking as well.

Yesterday I found out I had a deadline of Friday to write a whole new short story up to 1,500 words. So I did that. I was pretty pleased with the story and the writing equivalent of a military strike that I responded to. It's something that I set in motion ages ago – months and months back. I had a story accepted for...

Society of Editors guest speaker

Last night I travelled up to Sydney as I'd been invited, along with Bill Congreve, to be a guest speaker at the NSW Society Of Editors meeting. The event started badly. As I live an hour and half's drive from Sydney, I always try to combine any errands when I do go up there. So I left two hours early with a several things to do around town before the meeting.

I got twenty minutes up the road and the traffic on the freeway was standing still. After a little while it began to crawl. And it...

Read my novella on real paper pages

Interestingly enough, after mentioning this in my previous post just minutes ago, it's now official. My serial novella, Ghost Of The Black: A 'Verse Full Of Scum, is now available in print from Amazon.

I originally posted this story in weekly episodes right here on my website throughout 2008. It's still available here for nothing on the Serial Fiction page. I then released the ebook version through Smashwords, which made the whole novella downloadable as a single volume in a variety of ebook f...

Interview at Evolve Journal

Evolve is an online journal of short fiction. They recently interviewed me as part of their Reject Writer series. They use the #rejectwriter hashtag on Twitter and the interviews focus on how various writers deal with rejection. Given that rejection is an everyday reality for the vast majority of writers I think it's an interesting idea. I'm keen to read more interviews in the series and see how other writers deal with the dreaded rejection slip. Or rejection email as it almost always is...

New mugshot

You may have noticed that the picture of me in the banner above has changed again. This is one of those random things that just turns out well. A Kung Fu buddy of mine, Louise, took this picture completely on the fly with her iPhone using the Hipstamatic app. It's funny how we now have the kind of technology in the iPhone that makes Star Trek devices look naff, and then we load it up with complicated applications designed to replicate a simpler, analogue era.

Anyway, I just happened to really ...

My books now available from Gryphonwood Press

I'm very happy to announce that the Gryphonwood Press editions of my books are now available. The newly edited RealmShift and MageSign can be bought direct from Gryphonwood or, more easily, get them through Amazon.

At Amazon you can find RealmShift here and MageSign here, both just $9.99 each. There are also Kindle editions of both and Smashwords editions of both for those ebook lovers among you. You can also use any of the links here as I've updated them all now. Click on a book cover for...

NSW Society Of Editors talk with Bill Congreve

I'm very honoured to have been invited by the NSW Society Of Editors to talk at their monthly meeting next week. I'll be sharing the honour with Bill Congreve, writer and owner of MirrorDanse Books, and we'll be talking all about speculative fiction in general, with an emphasis on the nature of the spec fic publishing world.

If you're interested in coming along you don't have to be a society member. Non-members can attend for $20 ($10 concessions). The meeting is described thus:

Speculative...

In honour of the Tenth Doctor

Once again, S F Signal comes up with the good stuff. This is a fan video showcasing David Tennant's run as the tenth Doctor with a variety of backing music. It's a brilliant piece of editing and a fitting tribute to a great Doctor. I'm not entirely sure what the relevance of the Christopher Eccleston (ninth Doctor) is, as he crops up periodically watching along with us, but there you go.

Enjoy.

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