Alan Baxter's Blog, page 111

Ooh, right in the brand

So yeah, this does nothing for my personal branding. But it's a very kind gesture nonetheless, and I'll take it in the spirit it was intended. Maybe it can be beautiful in the way that arterial spray from a swiftly rent throat is beautiful.

These things are little more than glorified chain letters, morphed into a digital disguise, but I'll put aside the cynicism and try to be all gracious and shit. The lovely Ganymeder awarded me with this, saying:

~Alan is a very talented horror writer with a...

My little yarn at Flashes In The Dark

I completely forgot to mention this one. I got a piece of flash fiction published at Flashes In The Dark recently. It's a reprint of one of my Friday Flash pieces, so I was pleased to see it get an airing again somewhere else.

You can find it here. I've also added the link to my Dark Shorts page.

.

Great review of MageSign

"Being the second book in a set, I expect more from the story and the author…and I got both."

That's a nice start to a very good review of MageSign that's just been posted over Karen Lee Field's website. She reviewed RealmShift a while back and gave it three out of five, now she's reviewed MageSign and given it four out of five. That's what I call moving in the right direction.

EDIT: The reviews are coming thick and fast. This one's just been posted at Amazon, which includes:

"It builds in...

Dark Pages cover art released

My independent press has released the cover art for the Dark Pages anthology of dark speculative fiction. It's awesome and uses one of my wife's paintings. See more at her website halinka.com.au.

See the official announcement and the cover art here.

.

Australian Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Association

The Australian Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Association. Sounds pretty cool, huh? You'd think there would be one. I'm a member of the AHWA – Australian Horror Writers' Association. That group is awesome; they promote and protect the Australian horror genre, have a website with loads of information, including help finding markets for your work, mentorship programs, crit groups, their own publication (Midnight Echo) and so on. The idea is that the Science Fiction & Fantasy version would d...

That's Facebook all wrapped up

I read this on Lamebook today and realised that I technically no longer need to use Facebook at all. Here it is in a nutshell:

.

Procrastilaxing is my new favourite word

Procrastilaxing is my new favourite word. Yes indeed, I love this word so much I want to punch it in the face.

.

Jar Jar's head on a platter

Not just metaphorically. Literally. At last. Jar Jar's head on a platter.

.

Australian Shadows Awards winners announced

From Horrorscope, the Australian Dark Fiction Web Log, we have the winners of the Shadows Awards. There are three categories. The winners are:

Long Fiction:

Slights by Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot)

Edited Publication:

Grants Pass, edited by Jennifer Brozek & Amanda Pillar (Morrigan Books)

Short Fiction:

Six Suicides by Deborah Biancotti (A Book of Endings)

Congratulations to the winners. Interesting to see women taking out all the prizes, so bollocks to all those people that complain that there...

Can you succinctly pitch?

suc·cinct

–adjective

1. expressed in few words; concise; terse.

2. characterized by conciseness or verbal brevity.

3. compressed into a small area, scope, or compass.

As writers we always try to be as brief and succinct in our writing as possible, while maintaining a clear voice and interesting, beautiful prose. It's the eternal difficulty of not writing in too flowery a way, or using "purple prose", yet still making our stories more than just a technical, clinical telling of a yarn. We want t...