Alan Baxter's Blog, page 5

The Leaves Forget is here

Hi fiends! PS Publishing (who own Absinthe Books) have announced The Leaves Forget in their newsletter. There will be a hardcover and a signed and numbered limited edition hardcover (only 100 copies!) both with that sweet Ben Baldwin art as a full wraparound cover, and an ebook of course. If you’re keen for one of the physical copies, you can order now. I haven’t actually had the signing sheets yet, so the limited edition books won’t ship any time soon, but you can order them.

The page is live here on the PS Publishing website:

https://www.pspublishing.co.uk/the-leaves-forget-hardcover-by-alan-baxter-6107-p.asp

Here’s the blurb:

Olivia has been missing for months. Her family have tried to accept that perhaps she’ll never be found, and they’ll never know what happened.

So when her brother Craig unexpectedly receives a stack of letters from Liv, all written not long after her disappearance, he’s both excited and frightened. Reading through her correspondence, Craig begins to get a sense of where she was, but he still doesn’t know where she is now, or if she’s even still alive.

Using what clues he can from the old letters, Craig sets off with his partner and his father to find Olivia, hoping for the best, fearing the worst.

Also, the book has a Goodreads page here and I would love it if you could add it to your shelves if you do Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/197859712-the-leaves-forget

Huge thanks to editor Marie O’Regan for picking this one up and the awesome folks at PS/Absinthe. I really hope you’ll give it a go.

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Four Ditmar Award nominations!

The preliminary ballot for the 2023 Ditmar Awards has just been released and I’m blown away to be on it four times. Four! What the actual hell?

I’ve been nominated for Sallow Bend in Best Novel; “Gulpepper Curios” from The Fall in Best Novella or Novelette, The Fall itself in Best Collected Work AND Damnation Games (which I edited and have a story in) also in Best Collected Work.

I mean, holy shit! Holy. Shit. Huge congrats to all the nominees! The full ballot is here:

Best Novel—————————————————————–36 Streets, T.R. Napper, Titan Books.Sallow Bend, Alan Baxter, Cemetery Dance Publications.Scavengers, Robert Hood, Clan Destine Press.The Stone Road, Trent Jamieson, Erewhon Books.X-Dimensional Assassin Zai Through the Unfolded Earth, Jason Franks, IFWG Publishing.Best Novella or Novelette—————————————————————–“Bluebells”, Leanbh Pearson, in Bluebells, Black Hare Press.“The Dark Matter of Natasha”, Matthew R. Davis, in The Dark Matter of Natasha, Grey Matter Press.“Gulpepper Curios”, Alan Baxter, in The Fall, 13th Dragon Books.“Remnants and Bad Water”, Kaaron Warren, in Damnation Games, Clan Destine Press.“The Smell of Waiting”, Kaaron Warren, in Screams from the Dark, Tom Doherty Associates.Best Short Story—————————————————————–“Everything so slow and quiet”, Kaaron Warren, in The Art of Being Human, FableCroft Publishing.“Greatheart”, Juliet Marillier, in The Art of Being Human, FableCroft Publishing.“The Quick Study”, C.H. Pearce, in Etherea Magazine 10.“Songs We Sing at Sea are the Lies We Tell Ourselves”, Kaaron Warren, in Looming Low 2, Dim Shores.Best Collected Work—————————————————————–The Art of Being Human, Tehani Croft and Stephanie Lai, FableCroft Publishing.Cut to Care: A collection of little hurts, Aaron Dries, IFWG Publishing International.Damnation Games, Alan Baxter, Clan Destine Press.The Fall, Alan Baxter, 13th Dragon Books.Midnight Echo 17, Greg Chapman, Australasian Horror Writers Association.Phase Change, Matthew Chrulew, Twelfth Planet Press.Best Fan Publication in Any Medium—————————————————————–Ethel the Aardvark, LynC, Melbourne Science Fiction Club.Pratchat Podcast, Ben McKenzie, Elizabeth Flux.Best Fan Writer—————————————————————–Bruce GillespieDavid GriggKat ClayPerry MiddlemissBest Fan Artist—————————————————————–C.H. PearceDavid L RussellErin-Claire BarrowBest Artwork—————————————————————–INSUFFICIENT NOMINATIONSBest New Talent—————————————————————–Aaron DriesLeanbh PearsonC.H. PearceC.Z. TacksMatt TigheZachary AshfordWilliam Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review—————————————————————–Angharad Lodwick, Tinted Edges (book review blog)Eugen Bacon, for An Earnest Blackness, Anti-Oedipus Press.Gillian Polack, for Story Matrices: Cultural Encoding and Cultural Baggage in Science Fiction and Fantasy, Luna (UK).Ian Mond, for reviews, in Locus.

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Beware the Blood Covenant

My latest newsletter just went out via Substack, but here it is:

Hello fiends

How the fuck are ya? I thought it was time to drop you a line again and let you know what’s up. First of all, that image above shows some stellar news.

I’ve really enjoyed working with Cemetery Dance on Sallow Bend and it’s so cool to be published by an outfit with such a great history of producing amazing horror. So I was excited when they were keen to read my next novel and even more excited when they agreed to publish it. As you can see from the Deal Report above, it’ll be out in May next year.

This book was hard going. You might remember some time ago I was posting about it. (September 2019, in fact!) Here’s the blog post where I admitted the problem: https://www.alanbaxteronline.com/when-you-realise-your-book-is-broken/ .

So it turns out that I wrote (and had published!) Sallow Bend in the time between starting and finishing Blood Covenant. This is a really fucking weird business. I shelved the book and then came back to it twice and in the long run that was the right thing to do. I’m super proud of how this one finally came out and can’t wait for people to read it. It’s loosely pitched as HEAT meets THE SHINING, and I think it also has vibes of Paul Tremblay’s “The Cabin at the End of the World” and Adam Nevil’s “The Ritual”, all set in a remote Australian mountain wilderness. I hope that sounds appealing. Let me know what you think. I’ll post more about it as news comes along.

Meanwhile, there is a new book coming out this year, I think around September. It’s a novella and I can’t say anything more about it right now, but watch this space for more news on that one.

So what else is going on?

The Ditmar Awards are open for nominations and if you’re an Aussie fan you’re eligible to nominate. So please do nominate all the good stuff you enjoyed in 2022. If you think anything of mine is worthy of a nomination, thank you! All the details you need, including an online form for nominations, can be found here: https://conflux.org.au/blog/ and everything of mine that’s eligible is listed in this blog post. I’m especially keen to see Sallow Bend get some more attention, so if you thought that was worthy of a nomination in the Novel category, bless your black and pulsing heart.

I’m sure any of you who follow me on any social media will have seen the latest member of the BaxCave. Maximo came to live with us recently and he’s absolutely wonderful. Like any baby, he’s hard work right now but he’s a sweet, lovable, smart little guy and settling in really well. The old dog, Rufus, is having a harder time adjusting, but he’s getting there. The cats… not so much. That might take a little longer!

My social media is just full of Maximo at the moment, so apologies or you’re welcome, depending on which side of that you fall. Normal service will resume shortly.

I was asked by the Horror Writers Association to help with a new series they’re running, interviewing international (i.e. not American) horror writers, and that’s been great fun. I’ve enjoyed working with Meghan Arcuri, Sumiko Saulson, Shawna Hampton, Rosemary Thorne, John Lawson and Naching Kassa on this and you can read my introduction to the series here: https://horror.org/world-of-horror-introduction-to-international-horror-month-2023-by-alan-baxter/

What I’ve Been Enjoying

I’ve been reading more Charlie Parker thrillers by John Connolly. There’s 20 (I think) and I just read number 10, The Burning Soul. Honestly, it wasn’t nearly as good as the previous one and there was one plot device that really didn’t work for me, but these are great books nonetheless. I also got to read an early copy of Michael David Wilson’s new novel, House of Bad Memories, which was thoroughly wild. He asked if I’d give him a blurb for it (hence the early reading) and this is what I sent over:

“If Ira Levin and Guy Ritchie had a drug-fuelled weekend binge with the Kray twins in a Kidderminster council flat, they wouldn’t come close to House of Bad Memories. Darkly funny, brutally violent and strangely touching, Michael David Wilson has created something truly bonkers and I’m here for it.”

With TV, I mentioned before that I was binging Breaking Bad. I finished all of that and it was genuinely outstanding television. Just so good. And then I went directly on to Better Call Saul (at Brian Keene’s urging). Better Call Saul is a prequel/sequel series surrounding Breaking Bad and it’s equally good. I’m loving it and up to Season 4 of 6 so far. I’m hoping to get to the movies with my 9yo to see Barbie soon too, that looks like so much fun.

Meanwhile, this weekend I’ll be a guest at Oz Comic-Con in Canberra (and in Sydney next month) so if you can get anywhere near the nation’s capital, it would be awesome to see you there. All you need to know is here: https://ozcomiccon.com/

Okay, I think that’s all from me for now. Big love to you all, keep in touch and I’ll see you next time.

Al

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South Coast Writers Festival, August 19th and 20th

I’m excited to be part of the South Coast Writers Festival on August 19th and 20th. I’ll be in conversation with the great John Birmingham on Saturday and chatting speculative fiction on Sunday.

Author John Birmingham’s novels run the gamut from history to science fiction, from military thrillers to time-hop adventures, but they are all peppered with a rollicking humour and an interest in the politic of resistance and survival. In conversation with award-winning horror author, Alan Baxter, John Birmingham discusses the third book in his Cruel Stars space opera trilogy and guides us on how to tackle fascists in space.

From haunted familiar worlds to unrecognisable futures, speculative fiction summons us to enter the uncanny. Mykela Saunders, editor of This All Come Back Now, the Aurealis Award-winning, world-first collection of blackfella speculative fiction, and Alan Baxter, multi-award-winning author of horror, supernatural thrillers, and dark fantasy, talk speculative writing with the University of Wollongong’s Chrissy Howe.

All the details here: https://southcoastwriters.org/festival2023

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Ditmar Awards open for nominations!

The Ditmar Awards are open for nominations and if you’re an Aussie fan you’re eligible to nominate. So please do nominate all the good stuff you enjoyed in 2022. If you think anything of mine is worthy of a nomination, thank you! All the details you need, including an online form for nominations, can be found here: https://conflux.org.au/blog/

Here’s my eligible stuff:

SALLOW BEND – Eligible in Novel

THE FALL: Tales From The Gulp 2 – Eligible in Collected Work

All five stories in The Fall are original too, so they each qualify in Novelette/Novella:
“Gulpepper Curios” (19,340 words)
“Cathedral Stack” (13,160 words)
“That Damn Woman” (18,230 words)
“Excursion Troop” (16,500 words)
“The Fall” (19,850 words)

DAMNATION GAMES – Eligible in Collected Work, edited by me.

Short fiction:

“Counting Tunnels To Berry” – The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors anthology, ed. Doug Murano (Bad Hand Books)

“The Fiends of Turner’s Creek” – SNAFU: Dead or Alive, ed. A J Spedding (Cohesion Press)

“The Question” – Damnation Games, ed. Alan Baxter (Clan Destine Press)

“The Novak Roadhouse Massacre” – Found, ed. Andrew Cull and Gabino Iglesias

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The Strange Dichotomy of SNAFU

It’s no lie to say that the SNAFU anthologies from Cohesion Press have been a significant presence in my career. When editors Geoff Brown, A J Spedding and Matthew Summers first came up with the idea – an anthology of military horror where the remit was simple: blistering military or paramilitary action and monsters – and produced the original volume, Geoff asked me to write the Foreword. I was happy to, as it was a great book.

It did really well, so Geoff decided to publish more and make it a series of anthologies. The second volume was SNAFU: Wolves at the Door, focusing on were-beasts. I was keen, but busy, and didn’t get a chance to submit for it. Then came SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest, and Geoff approached me again, asked if I would write a story for it. Of course, I was super keen. And the story I wrote for that has been a hell of a career highlight. That story is “In Vaulted Halls Entombed”, which did indeed make it into that book, and it won me an Australian Shadows Award, was reprinted in German, and then adapted for Netflix in LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS, which is without a doubt a significant career milestone. That story has worked harder for me than pretty much anything else I’ve written to date.

And the other thing I discovered in the process of writing that story was that I fucking loved writing that story. This is why I’ve titled this article a “strange dichotomy”. Because I don’t actually write action-led, military horror. I write weird, creepy, supernatural horror. I write urban horror and small town horror. I write supernatural thrillers and crime horror. The Eli Carver books are perhaps the closest, packed with intense fight and action scenes, but nothing military. I don’t write military horror in any other capacity, except for the SNAFU books. And I freaking love it when I do. And it turns out I’m pretty good at it. After that first one for Survival of the Fittest, I’ve had stories published in SNAFU anthologies six more times. With the release of the latest one, Punk’d, I have stories in 7 out the 13 SNAFU books. So I’m in more than half of them. That’s amazing.

Here’s a full list of SNAFUs, with my contributions listed beside the volumes I’m in:

SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror – Foreword by me

SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest – “In Vaulted Halls Entombed”

SNAFU: Hunters

SNAFU: Future Warfare – “Under Calliope’s Skin”

SNAFU: Unnatural Selection

SNAFU: Black Ops – “Raven’s First Flight”

SNAFU: Resurrection

SNAFU: Last Stand – “The Throat”

SNAFU: Medevac – “The Demon Locke”

SNAFU: Holy War

SNAFU: Dead or Alive – “The Fiends of Turner’s Creek”

SNAFU: Punk’d – “Clean-up Crew”

I keep thinking that maybe I ought to write something a bit longer form with the military horror angle, but in truth, I think it works best in short story format. None of my SNAFU stories are longer than 10,000 words. And all the time Cohesion Press keep publishing these books, I’ll keep scratching that itch by writing for them. Meanwhile, I’ll keep writing all the other stuff I usually do. I’m no one-trick pony, I contain multitudes.

But I will always be extremely grateful to the SNAFU anthologies and the team behind them, because I’ve had so much back from writing those stories, beyond the joy of the writing itself.

I urge people to check them out, even if you don’t think you like the idea of military horror. Believe me, it’s a broad strokes description and the variety and depth of stories found in these books is remarkable. If you’re on the fence about it, consider this – to make some movie comparisons, Aliens is military horror, as is Starship Troopers, and Predator, and Dog Soldiers, The Lair, Jacob’s Ladder… there are so many more. And surely you’ve enjoyed at least some of those movies, right? So imagine short story versions of those. My Future Warfare story, “Under Calliope’s Skin”, is a shameless homage to Aliens and Predator. I guarantee you’ll find at least a few stories you love in every volume of SNAFU.

If you want a taste of my contributions and haven’t read them yet, you can find my Netflix story, “In Vaulted Halls Entombed” in my second collection, Served Cold, and I’ve collected it along with four other SNAFU stories plus one original, previously unpublished yarn, in a book called And Fire Poured Forth, which is the name of the original story in the set. So you can get a taste of my contributions by picking those up.

And keep an eye out for past and future SNAFU anthologies. They are heaps of fun, jam-packed with amazing stories by fantastic authors. Vive le SNAFU!

 

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Sometimes we have to make hard choices

(My latest newsletter just went out – here it is)

This business, man, I tell you…

I know I’m in a position many would murder their granny for. I’ve worked my arse off at this gig but I recognise I’ve been lucky too. Anyone who denies the role of luck in publishing is ignorant or lying to you. Even then, it’s so hard to make a living doing this that turning anything down seems ridiculous. But I had to do just that recently. I got a query from a big Russian publisher asking after foreign rights for one of my books. Translation is a great passive income usually – the book’s already written and out there, you just get paid for it again. Brilliant! But I need to keep my ethics intact. I had to say to the publisher that while I recognise it’s utterly beyond their control, I can’t in good conscience do business with Russia while the war with Ukraine is still happening. We have to draw lines. We have to stand up for what we believe it, or we’re just paying it lip service. It’s easy to be ethical in word, but often much harder in deed.

This publisher and all its staff may well completely disagree with the war too, and there’s certainly nothing they can do about it. (Or they may agree with it and I’ve blown my chances of ever working with that publisher. Who knows?) I tried to be as polite as possible and said I really hope we can pick up the conversation again when the war is over, but who knows if that’ll ever happen? Anyway, I’m sore about it because I needed to do the right thing, but turning down money is brutal when I’ve got the bills stacking up.

Ho hum, ever onwards!

You may have noticed that I recently lost a couple of Aurealis Awards. I bet you’re glad you opened this rainbows and fucking unicorns newsletter, right? I think it’s important to make people aware that it’s not all successes in this gig. It’s mostly misses and disappointments with the occasional success. BUT! While I would have loved to win one or both of those awards, and I’m a bit gutted that I didn’t, I was still shortlisted. That’s no small achievement and I’m stoked to have been a finalist. I’ve actually only ever won once at the Aurealis Awards (for The Gulp) but I’ve been a finalist 13 times now. That’s fucking epic!

You know what else is epic? The book you see below! Twisted Retreat are a book box company who make these amazing limited edition hardcovers and they picked Sallow Bend for May. You see, there’s a serious win right there. The photos are stills grabbed from ohitsme doing a YouTube unboxing. There are still a few copies of the book available (no boxes left) and you can grab one right here. I don’t think there’s many, so be quick if you want one. I can’t wait to see it for real, I’m still waiting on my copy.

What else is new? Well, I’m directing the WritingNSW Speculative Fiction Festival which is happening on June 24th, so if you’re anywhere near Sydney that would be an awesome thing to get along to. You can get tickets here. And the next day, a whole bunch of amazing authors will be gathered at Galaxy Bookshop in the Sydney CBD for a big old group chat and signing. Seriously, look at these names! (And apparently I’m charming! *preens*)

I don’t have much else to talk about this time around, so let’s get to

What I’ve Been Enjoying

On the reading front, Cemetery Dance Publications asked me to blurb the forthcoming A Red Winter in the West by C S Humble. This is book two of The Survivors Trilogy. Book one is The Massacre at Yellow Hill. As I hadn’t read that one yet, I asked CD to send me both and I’ve recently read them. I mentioned last time that I’d read and enjoyed the first one. Book two is even better. They’re superb horror westerns mixing up cosmic horror and monster hunters and stuff. Humble is a great writer, so I recommend getting these. Book three, The Light of a Black Star, is out in November, I think.

When it comes to watching stuff, I mentioned before that I’ve been bingeing Breaking Bad. (I know, I’m like a decade behind, they’re all using flip phones and shit.) But holy hell, is this good television. I’m just the first couple of episodes in to season 5 now, so no spoilers, please. I’m still bloody loving it. The end of season 4 was wild.

We’re also watching Wednesday on Netflix. I’ve already watched it and really enjoyed it, but my 9yo was keen to see it as apparently everyone at school is talking about it. I wondered if 9 was maybe a bit too young, but all seems to be going well so far!

On the work front, last time I was talking about stepping back and taking a rest, which I did and felt much better for. I also mentioned that next on my agenda was a short story commission. Well, that’s written now and sent to the editor, so I really hope they enjoy that. And now I’m back to work on the small town horror novel I put aside last year. It’s about one third written at this point and I read over it yesterday and I really like it. I also have a much better idea now about where I’m going with it. It’ll fun to see where that leads. Once I get this newsletter sent off, I’ll grab a bite to eat then get right onto that. So I’d better stop fucking around.

Keep in touch with comments here or elsewhere on social media, I enjoy hearing from folks.

Hot respect, my good fiends.

Al

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Refreshing the well – The importance of rest

There’s a well-known phenomenon in physical training and general health – we heal when we rest. If you’re sick or injured, you’ll recover much more quickly if you get lots of sleep. If you’re at the gym every day, you’ll see greater gains if you have one day every week of active rest. The same applies to the creative arts.

What’s active rest? Ah, there’s the rub. It means not just sitting around eating Cheetos and watching Netflix all day (although there is a case that’s a good way to promote mental health if it’s only a once-a-while activity) but it means moving around without pushing your limits.

Physical training is all about pushing your limits a little more each time. Every time you drive against your previous limitations, you encourage your body to improve. But it’s not a singular upward trajectory. If you look at the graphic above, you can see that you have a baseline and then you train to push beyond that. If you train a good amount – not too easy or too hard – you’ll have a downturn in performance that then leads to a recovery period that will result in a small gain. Imagine that same image repeated ad infinitum and you’ll see it’s an overall continuous upward trajectory of slow but maintained progress.

Write every day? Fuck that bullshit. I hate rules like that and they’re punitive to anyone but the most privileged. Most of us have lives and responsibilities and jobs (I’m a martial arts instructor and spent a decade as a personal trainer, which is why you’re getting this particular analogy). You don’t have to write every day. But you do have to be a writer every day – think like a writer, see the world like one. The writing is the equivalent of the physical training, the not writing but being a writer is the equivalent of the active rest.

To go back to the title of this, the active rest is the refreshing of the well. If you draw water from the same well all the time, eventually the water level gets too low. What water you do draw is muddy and gritty and tastes bad. You have to step back, let the rain fall, let well refill, so you can draw fresh, tasty water again. Any creative pursuit is like that. Writing requires fallow periods of refreshment, where you can recover from your exertions, where you can let the rain refill your well of creativity. Too long away from writing will see your gains diminish, of course, but a sustained process of writing and refreshing will hopefully see overall continued improvements, both in your craft and, with a bit of luck, your career.

Why am I blathering on about all this right now? Well, I just finished a novel, and sent it over to my agent. It’s the first time I’ve written anything of novel length that is entirely without supernatural elements. Plenty of human monsters – well, one in particular – but otherwise it’s the  most “commercial thriller” kind of thing I’ve ever written. Which is interesting. I hope my agent thinks so too. I really like it, and hopefully it’s as good a book as I think it is. Of course, we’re always the worst judge of that stuff, so time will tell.

And now I’m having to remind myself to refresh the well. Part of me is self-berating: “Why aren’t you working? Don’t be a slacker! Write more!” But the more experienced part of me is the voice of reason. “Rest,” it says. “Read, watch movies, walk the dog. Refresh your well!” All the time I’m resting, I’m seeing the world with a writer’s eye and my story brain is filing all sorts of things away. That’s the well refreshing.

Next on my agenda is a short story commission I need to write and just yesterday I came across something that gave me the seed of inspiration I needed for that project. I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t been actively allowing myself to chill out. Then once that’s written I’ll be getting back to the small town horror novel I put aside last year. I’m excited to get back into that and finish it. But not just yet. This week, I’m refreshing.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

So what have I been refreshing the well with? All kinds of good stuff, actually. In TV land, I’ve finally started catching up and watching Breaking Bad. I’m almost at the end of S3 now and I can see why it’s so popular. I’m binging it like mad. It’s a brilliantly written drama and every now and then it has some absolutely masterful strokes of storytelling. I’m loving it. And yes, I’ve got Better Call Saul lined up to watch next, as people keep telling me that’s necessary.

With reading, I finished Daphne by Josh Malerman that I mentioned in the last newsletter. Malerman is always brilliant and this is maybe a new favourite by him. I also just read The Massacre at Yellow Hill by C.S. Humble. It’s the first in a horror western trilogy and book 2 is out in a couple of months. I’ve got an advance copy of book 2 from Cemetery Dance to read, so I thought I’d better read book 1 first. I really enjoyed it – it’s a cool mash-up of cosmic horror, monster hunter and western. Definitely worth checking out. I just started book 2, A Red Winter in the West, last night.

And otherwise I’ve been taking care of jobs around the house, going for long walks with Rufus dog and generally allowing time for self-care. I’m still teaching kung fu and qi gong in the day job, of course, and still doing other work stuff like the mentorships and all that. I can’t afford to literally not work, I’m nowhere near that successful. But my own creativity is laying fallow this week. I’ll soon get back to work on that commissioned short story.

Right, I think that’s all from me for now. Remember, if you’re around the new social platform, Bluesky, you can find me there now at @alanbaxter.bsky.social Otherwise I’m still loitering around all the usual places, for better or worse.

Hot respect, my good fiends. Be kind, be well, keep in touch.

Al

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The evolution of a logo

Hello fiends

Ugh, branding, am I right? It’s a term that makes my teeth itch. It makes my skin crawl. As my mate Dan Moth might say, it makes my back open and close. I really hate that we live in a world that requires things like branding, but it’s unavoidable. It’s necessary for products and, sadly, it’s becoming ever more necessary for creative people.

First and foremost, for me as an author, my brand needs to be my work and my personality. That’s true for all writers, and it remains true whether you want it to be or not. I would hope that my voice is well-established enough by now so the kind of thing I write speaks mostly for itself. As a person, when it comes to online and public appearances, I’m as genuine as I can be. What you get is the real me, no artifice, no gimmicks. You don’t get all of me – there’s stuff I keep private and will always protect – but what you do get of me is genuine. I’m irreverent, passionate, I refuse to stand by and witness injustice if I can ever do anything about it, and I will speak my mind and stand up for things over “protecting my career” every time. That’s just who I am.

Hopefully, my openness and honesty is evident and people can like me for who I am. Or not. I love this meme:

It makes me laugh every time. I’m laughing now. I’m happy with who I am, so fuck anyone who has a problem with that. I don’t need ’em. It’s a liberating realisation to reach. Be kind, be honest, and fuck the haters.

Anyway, I’m getting way off-topic here. The point is, as an author I need a brand, and 99% of that brand is me and my work. It’s largely all I need and hopefully it will continue to grow my readership. But when it comes to having a web presence, and when it comes to public appearances, having a recognisable vibe is also important.

So that brings me back to the logo you saw at the top of this post. I talked before about why I’m called the 13th Dragon and why that dragon head logo appears on my independently published stuff. The logo above is separate to that. It’s an identifier of me the author.

You’ll see the logo on my website, on the banner at the top of Substack, and so on. It’s comprises a few key elements that encapsulate my vibe and I thought I’d break down that design for you.

Firstly, it’s circular as that makes it a useful shape that fits pretty much anywhere. The scruffy circle represents an ink stamp. Within the circle is an octagon. That represents a few things. For me, 8 is a powerful number. There’s the bagua, or eight directions, principle of martial arts training – that’s an entire article in itself, but it includes physical and esoteric directions. There’s the idea of the eight directions of chaos. There are eight primary cardinal directions of travel on the compass, and all writing (and reading) is a journey.

Within the octagon is an eye, because I’m fascinated by what we see, both externally and internally. Perception of all kinds is a thing I find endlessly enthralling. The pupil of the eye is the lighthouse design you might first have seen as the section break image in my books The Gulp and The Fall. Those stories are set in the harbour town of Gulpepper, which has a lighthouse that’s fairly central to its identity. And the idea of a lighthouse, a beacon in the darkness, both a guide and a warning, is powerful iconography to me.

And lastly, the Latin – inventa in tenebris – means ‘found in the dark’ or ‘discovered in darkness’. That’s a reference to my writing and you can take it however it works for you. Do you discover things in the darkness? Are you found in the darkness? I feel that an exploration of the darkness both inside and outside ourselves reveals more about us than perhaps anything else. It’s easy to put on an act in the light – you’re more likely to reveal your true self in the dark.

So there you have it. Those are the things I used to build my logo. I hope you like it.

If you ever buy a signed book directly from me via my website or at a convention or signing, you’ll get a sticker with the logo on it, and it’s also on my book plates if you’re overseas and want to buy a signed book plate to stick in copies you’ve bought locally. I’m also waiting on a rubber stamp with a slightly simplified version of the logo, and then all signed books will have a stamp in them too. You can get the logo on a mug in my merch store. If you want the logo on a t-shirt, that’s available too, but exclusively to my patrons over at Patreon. But of course, you don’t need the logo really – it’s mainly there to identify me.

My books plates and stickers:

All right, enough about that. So what else is new? For the handful of masochists who are still reading, there’s a couple of things you might be interested to know. A brilliant academic by the name of Lucas Mattila recently wrote a whole paper on my gonzo novella, The Roo, called Violent Vibes: ‘Stimmung’ in Alan Baxter’s The Roo. Stimmung is a term often translated as “mood”, but it’s better explained in the article itself.

I have the honour of being the director of this year’s Speculative Fiction Festival at WritingNSW in Sydney, and they’ve just released the full list of guests and programming. I had a great time putting it together and if you’re anywhere near Sydney in June, or can get there, it’ll be well worth your time. All the details about that are here.

I’ve been serialising a new novella called The Leaves Forget on Patreon and you can still read it there (and at Substack if you’re a paid subscriber, but remember, my newsletter and almost everything else at Substack will always be free).

What I’ve Been Enjoying

I haven’t been watching much in the way of TV or movies lately, but I did just watch the first episode of a Japanese thriller series on Netflix called Alice in Borderland. That was a wild ride and I’ll definitely be watching more.

As for reading, I recently loved the new novel from Ashley Kalagian-Blunt called Dark Mode. And I’m currently reading Daphne by Josh Malerman. I’ve long been a big fan of Malerman’s work and this one is shaping up to be my favourite so far. You’ll also probably remember that I’m working my way through John Connolly’s Charlie Parker thrillers and I just read book 9, The Whisperers. That has instantly become my favourite of the series so far.

Right, I think that’s all from me for now, I’ve blathered on long enough. If you’re around the new social platform, Bluesky, you can find me there now at @alanbaxter.bsky.social The place has a wild, chaotic vibe like early Twitter at the moment, so I have high hopes for it. Especially as Twitter is crumbling ever more into a shitpile of bigots and fascists.

Boom shanka, my good fiends. Be kind, be well, keep in touch.

Al

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Speculative Fiction Festival and guests and program announced, plus mass signing at Galaxy!

The end of June is going to be a blast. I’ve had the honour of being made director of the 2023 Speculative Fiction Festival at WritingNSW, in Callan Park, Sydney, being held on Saturday June 24th. And more than that, we’ve got a huge group signing the next day at Galaxy Books in Sydney. Read on for all the details.

The WritingNSW Speculative Fiction Festival has been going for a long time and it’s always a blast. I think I first went in about 2006? It’s been held bi-annually ever since (Covid years not included) so you can imagine how it felt now to be invited to direct the latest one. What a trip! WritingNSW gave me some guidelines and a budget, then we opened to expressions of interest, and I had to build a festival. That involved coming up with panels of discussion (from my own ideas and others peoples’ suggestions) that would cover the full spectrum of science-fiction, fantasy and horror from both a craft, business and reader perspective. It was a hell of a juggling act and I could easily have programmed three days with the amount of cool people who were up for it and making suggestions. But what I have ended up distilling into the one day should be freaking epic.

The general focus is more on writers than fans, as it’s an initiative of WritingNSW, which is the NSW Writers Centre, but there will be heaps of value to non-writers as well. I’ve also tried to make sure I cover not only novelists and short story writers, but screenwriters, game writers, and more. And for the non-writing fans and avid readers, there’s another event the following day, more on that in a moment.

First of all, look at all the amazing people who have generously agreed to speak and be involved in the 2023 Festival. (Click the image to make it bigger.)

And then take a look at the awesome program of events for the day:

Sounds like an amazing day, right? Tickets are on sale now and you can learn all you need from here: https://writingnsw.org.au/whats-on/events/2023-speculative-fic-fest/ If you’re anywhere close to Sydney, or you can travel in, I highly recommend it. It’s well worth the effort, especially as it’s not just the one day. If you can only manage one day, the Festival on Saturday is the one to make. But there’s an event on Sunday too.

There will be more information about this over the next few weeks, but we’re making a weekend of it. At least a dozen of the festival guests will be sticking around in Sydney and on Sunday we’ll be at Galaxy Books, at Level 1, 131 York Street, Sydney, where we’ll be hanging out, talking, and signing books for a couple of hours. Watch this space for more information about that.

So that’s June 24th and 25th, 2023 in Sydney. Be there!

 

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