Category Archives: Thrillers and Crime

November 12, 2011 · 9:09 pm

Meet Tara Moss …

As the next of my series featuring fantastic female fantasy authors (see disclaimer) I’ve invited the talented Tara Moss  to drop by.

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Q: It’s funny that you should be at the women crime writers conference, then write a post about gender bias in publishing(with a follow up post), because I’ve been running a series of interviews on this topic. Were you surprised by the intensity of the reaction to your post?

I was particularly surprised by the swift reaction of Mr. Woodhead – particularly as he identified himself as a reviewer for the Age and was very quick to dismiss the blog as ‘privileged whining’. Ironically, though I do write opinion pieces, that particular post contained very little opinion. It was a casual blog, reporting statistics relevant to gender bias, the creation of the Stella Prize and info about the SheKilda crime festival I had just returned from. Honestly, I did not imagine it would cause such controversy, though I do think the responses reveal something important about the current climate surrounding gender issues.

Q: The SheKilda conference was run by Sisters in Crime. Even though the Australian chapter has been established 20 years and the original US chapter was established 25 years ago, there still seems to be a need for an organisation specifically to celebrate crime written by women. I have seen comments by male readers to the effect that they simply wouldn’t read a book written by a woman. When you started out writing did you consider using a gender-neutral name like T Moss?

I have never considered presenting my work as gender neutral, either in name or in style, though I don’t begrudge those who have made that choice, or who have had that choice made for them by publishers. Many of the greats, PD James, JK Rowling have made that choice. In Brazil, my novels are published under T.Moss, though that happened without my involvement and I only found out later.

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Q: So many of the authors I interview write across several genres and across age groups. You have your Makedde Vanderwall crime thrillers (five so far) and the first book of your Young Adult Pandora English series has been released. I believe you have a young daughter. Are you tempted to try your hand at children’s books?

I’m writing a sixth novel in my crime series at the moment, and my second paranormal book with Pandora English will be out in a matter of weeks, so my writing schedule has been pretty packed this year, but I have had a children’s book series on the back burner for years now. Now that I am reading to my daughter each night, I may be closer to making that series a reality. Let’s just say that if I do make it happen, it won’t be about kittens with mittens.

Q: You’ve certainly immersed yourself in your research: spent time in squad cars, morgues, prisons, taken a polygraph test, shot weapons, conducted surveillance, acquired your CMAS race driver licences, been set on fire by a Hollywood stunt company and been choked unconscious by a professional fighter, all in the name of authenticity. Is there anything left that you’d still like to gain first-hand experience with? A trip to the moon perhaps?

If you have a spare ticket to the moon, I’d love to go for the ride. Truthfully, I am always looking for new opportunities to experience the world as others do, and to face my fears and push my own personal boundaries.

Q: You are a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and an ambassador for the Royal Institute for the Deaf and Blind Children. What exactly does this entail and how did it come about?

I’ve been an ambassador for the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children for over a decade now, and I am really impressed by what they do for children who are visual or hearing impaired, and their families. They help to close the learning gap and ensure a life enriched by literacy. I host their annual charity flight, which is their biggest fundraiser each year, and I lend my hand to other activities for them where I am able, whether it is visiting the schools at the institute or promoting their work.

My involvement with UNICEF began in 2007 when they appointed me a Goodwill Ambassador, and they recently gave me a larger role, appointing me UNICEF Patron for Breastfeeding for the Baby Friendly Health Initiative (BFHI) in Australia, which involves advocating for breastfeeding women in hospitals, the workforce and general community, promoting breastfeeding as the normal and healthy practice that it is, and hopefully combating some of the misinformation on the topic. BFHI is a program spearheaded by the World Health Organization and UNICEF to support mothers and babies, with the aim to hopefully raise the rate of breastfeeding in Australia to the world standard. (The exclusive breastfeeding rate here is about half the world average at the moment) I encourage expectant mothers to choose a BFHI accredited hospital if they can, or to ask for BFHI protocols in their birth plan.

(For more information see here)

Q: You lost your mother while in your teens (I can’t imagine the gap this would leave), and you now have a baby daughter. It wasn’t until I had children of my own that I began to appreciate the dedication it takes to rear a child. Do you feel closer to your mother, even though she is no longer with us, now that you have a child?

My mother, Janni, passed away 21 years ago, and I still think of her every day. The evening my daughter was born was emotional for me on a number of levels. It was a beautiful time, but also bitter sweet, as I felt the loss of my mother particularly keenly that day. But I felt her presence as well. Our mothers never really leave us.

Q: You host the true crime documentary series Tough Nuts – Australia’s Hardest Criminals for the Crime and Investigation Network, and you do a series of author interviews for 13th Street Universal Channel called: Tara Moss in Conversation. This must take up a lot of your time, what with the research and the actual filming. How do you get time to write? Do you have a routine that you stick to?

I’ve always been quite self-motivated as a person but in the past couple of years I’ve had to become good at time management, particularly since giving birth to my daughter. I abhor routine, however. I love what I do and I just dive in and do it as best I can. I have a personal motto of sorts, which is that life is too short to live the same day twice. Thankfully, life holds a lot of adventure for me – if not very much sleep. I love the contrast of television work, journalism and fiction writing. Each provides a different challenge.

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Q: I believe there is a new Pandora English book due out soon, The Spider Goddess. Why spiders? Are you phobic about spiders?

I am intrigued by ancient mythology and folklore, and the fable of The Spider Goddess caught my eye. As with The Blood Countess, I took truth and legend and wove it into a modern tale, set in an alternate New York. I wasn’t arachnophobic to begin with, but…

Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?

Men and women don’t necessarily write fantasy differently because of gender, although more women tend to write female leads, and more men tend to write male leads. I love stories with great female characters, but I read everyone from HP Lovecraft and Neil Gaiman to Charlaine Harris and Marianne de Pierres.

Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?

If it does, I think that change in perception is largely unconscious.

Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?

My time machine would take me to Mary Wollstonecraft’s bedside in 1797, as she gave birth to Frankenstein creator Mary Shelley. I would keep the doctor away, or teach him about disinfecting his hands, so she would not die of puerperal fever, the ‘doctor’s plague’ that killed women and children for two centuries before germ theory was better understood. I often wonder what more Wollstonecraft, the author of Vindication of the Rights of Woman, would have achieved if she hadn’t been taken from us so young.

Follow Tara on Twitter:  @Tara_Moss

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Filed under Australian Writers, Conferences and Conventions, Covers, Dark Urban Fantasy, Female Fantasy Authors, Gender Issues, Paranormal_Crime, The World in all its Absurdity, The Writing Fraternity, Thrillers and Crime, Thrillers and Mysteries, Young Adult Books

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November 8, 2011 · 10:52 am

Meet Ian Irvine …

Today I’m interviewing Ian Irvine because someone where I work turned around this week and said, I don’t read much fantasy, but I love Ian Irvine’s books. I’m also asking Ian the same questions I’ve asked the female writers about fantasy writing and gender, to get his perspective as a male writer.

Look out for the give-away at the end of the post.

Q: You have a PhD in Marine Science (plus you’ve travelled a lot in your capacity as a marine scientist). The PhD must help when you’re writing your eco-thrillers (Human Rites series), but did the scientific mind get in the way when you are writing your Three Worlds Cycle, fantasies?

I’ve been interested (indeed, fascinated) by science since an early age, and decided I wanted to be a scientist around 13 or 14. And since graduating, I’ve worked in the field for the past 30 years, as an expert on contaminated sediments in the bottom of harbours (a world-wide problem). My background was of particular help in writing the Human Rites trilogy, which is set in a near-future world of catastrophic climate change, not least because I did a research project decades ago researching ice ages over the past 5 million years, and I’ve maintained an interest in climate change ever since. My scientific experience and knowledge proved useful in trying to predict what the world of these books would really be like, and how that would affect the lives of the characters.

Actually, my scientific mind proved particularly helpful in writing my Three Worlds fantasy novels, in world-building, for instance. Because I’d studied all the major scientific disciplines, I was well-equipped to design both plausible and realistic worlds for the series, and a variety of intelligent species to inhabit these worlds.

It was also invaluable because the life experience a writer has determines the kind of books he or she writes, what he writes about and how he sees the world. For instance, Tolkien was a philologist – he studied languages – and he created the languages of Middle Earth before he wrote the stories. A lot of fantasy writers (eg George RR Martin, Sara Douglass) have studied history, and this colours the stories they write. Other fantasy writers draw inspiration from myths, legends, fairy or folk tales, ancient literatures, and so on. But I’ve never wanted to draw on history, mythology or literature for my stories, and neither did I want to write in traditional settings. I wanted to tell my own stories in my own way, in worlds I’d created myself.

Two writers I particularly enjoy who have a strong scientific background are Laura Kinsale (romance – she was a geologist) and Diana Gabaldon (genre-crossing stories – Ph.D. in marine biology). Personally, I find that my scientific background gives me a unique perspective in writing fantasy, and that’s a good thing, because it makes my writing different to other authors. For instance, if I’m describing a common fantasy phenomenon such as a portal, I imagine what it would really be like – differences in temperature, humidity, air pressure etc between the two locations could lead to a gale howling through the gate as soon as it opens, or water vapour condensing in clouds of fog etc. This kinds of realistic details help to make the story more grounded and real.

Q: You’ve written 27 books including fantasy, eco-thrillers and children’s books. Do you find readers follow you from genre to genre? Do you think kids who read your children’s books will grow up to be readers of your fantasies and/or eco-thrillers?

Most readers don’t genre hop, unfortunately, and few of my readers who are fantasy fans will ever read my eco-thrillers. I know this because both fans and booksellers have told me. For this reason, publishers don’t like their authors (especially the big name authors) writing in other genres, because they know most of their readers won’t follow. Raymond Feist once said that it took years before his publishers would agree to let him write Faerie Tale, because it was so different to his other work.

Having said that, children are less fixed in their reading tastes than adults. And all twelve of my kids’ books have been fantasy in one form or another, so I’m hopeful that many of those readers will read my epic fantasy stories when they’re older.

Q: Your office looks absolutely wonderful! Such a peaceful place to write. But you didn’t always have a fancy office. In an interview on Tristan Bancks‘ blog you say: ‘I wrote the whole first draft of one of my big fantasy novels, The Way Between the Worlds, in my spare time on a consulting assignment in Fiji. I’ve also written in a sweltering mine site donga on Horn Island in Torres Strait, at the top of a mountain in Papua-New Guinea, in Mauritius, Indonesia and the Philippines, and on long jobs for the World Bank in Korea.’ Would you say if the story is compelling enough a writer can write anywhere?

I am blessed in my office; it’s where I’ve done almost all my writing for the past 20 years. Though it didn’t start out a writing office and, when it was built I couldn’t have justified the expense (being unpublished then) as a place to write. It was built as my consulting office, and it’s where I went to work every day as a marine scientist until I became a ‘full-time’ writer in 2000 (I still do quite a bit of consulting; I have 1.5 full-time jobs).

I wouldn’t say that if the story is compelling enough a writer can write anywhere. Rather, that if the urge and need to write is desperate enough, a writer can write anywhere. In those days, working as a marine scientist, I had to make use of every free second to do my writing otherwise I would never have got it done.

 

Q: You children’s series Grim and Grimmer sounds like a heap of fun. During an interview on DG Yarns you say:  “After about twenty-four hours of hard labour I came up with a great title, Grim and Grimmer, and every time I mentioned it, people smiled. See, you’re doing it now.

So I sat down, invented the silliest and most extravagant characters I could think of, then sketched out a fiendishly complicated plot where they only got out of one desperate trouble to plunge immediately into a worse one. And every time I thought, no one should ever suffer like this, I went har, har, yes they should, and thought of a hundred and three more ways to torment them, working on the principle that if the characters are having a good time, my readers aren’t.’

After your serious eco-thrillers, do you have to do anything to get into the right frame of mind to write your Grim and Grimmer books?

Not really – pain and torment does it for me every time (author sniggers at the thought). Seriously, I was overcome by the opportunity to write a kind of book I’d never written before – humorous adventure fantasy for children – and when the chance came up, I grabbed it. The only problem was that I was frantic with other deadlines and it was difficult to set aside the uninterrupted time to write and edit each book. But when I got the time, and planned the books in detail, they flowed quickly. They were the most fun I’ve ever had writing and I’m sorry the series is finished.

Q: In your Runcible Jones stories you follow the plot device of having an ordinary boy go through to another world. Were you a big fan of the Narnia books growing up?

Oddly, though I was a voracious reader from an early age, I didn’t read fantasy as a child – neither The Hobbit, the Narnia books nor any other fantasy I can remember. I don’t know why, because I loved fairy tales and mythological tales. I can only assume that those books weren’t in the school library (I went to a couple of one-teacher primary schools as a kid, where the books came in book boxes and the choice was quite limited).

I loved SF when I was at school but only discovered fantasy at uni – Tolkien, Ursula le Guin’s Earthsea series, etc. As for the Narnia books, which I also started at uni, I absolutely loathed them – perhaps one has to read them in childhood. I found them sanctimonious, moralising, sexist and thoroughly disagreeable. I think my view of characters travelling through gates or portals came from SF rather than fantasy – I guess, in particular, CJ Cherryh’s Morgaine trilogy (Gate of Ivrel, Well of Shiuan, Fires of Azeroth) which I read in the late 70s.

 

Q: I like your premise for the Sorcerer’s Tower series. Your main character is ‘the only kid in the world who can’t do magic’. It immediately turns the trope of ‘the chosen one’ on its head. Do you like to play with the genre tropes?

Not deliberately. To be honest, I’m not sure I understand what a trope is. Having Tamly being the only kid who couldn’t do magic just ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’. But I hate writing stereotypical or archetypal characters – princess, magician, warrior etc. I avoid them if I can, or if I can’t, I like to twist or invert them. Hey, maybe I am playing with the genre tropes without knowing it.

Q: You’re working on a new fantasy series, the Tainted Realm, with the first book, Vengeance, due out in November 2011. Do I detect a hint of world under threat by natural disasters? Do you find your world-view as a marine scientist creeping into your writing of fantasy?

To your first question, yes. To the second, no, I don’t think so. My first degree is in geology and I think it has more to do with my fascination with geological disasters.

Earth’s history is peppered with life threatening catastrophes, whether due to earthquakes, super-volcanoes, abrupt climate change, enormous tsunamis, droughts that lasted for hundreds or thousands of years, catastrophic floods the like of which we’ve never seen, comet and meteor impacts like the one at Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908. Human civilisation has grown up in an extraordinary benign period over the last few thousand years and we assume that this is the norm. But it’s not, and disasters that could wipe out civilisation are actually extremely common in Earth’s history.

Such a disaster would make a great story setting, and that’s where the interest lies for me – telling stories in settings no one has used before.

For those who are interested in this topic I can recommend Professor Bill McGuire’s terrific little book, A Guide to the End of the World. The Armageddon Online site is also full of inspirational joy.

 

Q: Ian, you’ve been very generous in sharing your expertise. You did a great post on the ROR blog about your Adventures on Facebook and you have a whole page dedicated to Writing Tips on your blog. Do you get approached by aspiring authors at events?

It’s hard to succeed at writing and I like to help people where I can. Over the next few months I’ll be expanding the Writing section on my site to several hundred pages.

I’m approached by authors at cons and events from time to time, though I’ve invariably found them to be polite and interested rather than pushy. But the problem I have (and many other authors are the same) is that I have to say no to people who ask me to read their work, because if I said yes I wouldn’t get any of my own writing done.

Q: I see you have a competition running to Win an iPad. (Tell you what, I’d love an iPad). Do you find that running competitions like this help you reach out to readers?

I’m not sure that competitions help me to reach out to readers, but I’m convinced that social media do. The main reason I’m running the competition is to attract my existing readers to my Facebook author page. I was rather late in coming to Facebook but I’m totally converted – it’s a fantastic way to communicate with my readers, to hear what they’re interested in and create a genuine community of like-minded souls. It’s much better than email or blogging. And if I have a question, I often get dozens of great answers.

I’m also running the comps to attract new readers, of course.

Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?

I’m not aware of that perception (about a boys’ club), but I haven’t been to the US for decades, and to the UK only once in the past 30  years. And I’m not an active member of the fantasy professional community so I don’t know what people are currently talking about. Having said that, I certainly formed the view, when I was starting out in writing in the 80s, that fantasy was a boys’ club, since a majority of the big name writers were male.  I think that’s changed a lot over the past 15 years, and definitely in Australia where most of the bestselling writers (eg Sara Douglass, Kate Forsyth, Juliet Marillier, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, Fiona McIntosh, Trudi Canavan, Karen Miller, Kylie Chan, Marianne de Pierres) are women. Perhaps less so overseas.

I have five sisters, and my wife has three, and I have two daughters. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why I never wanted to write macho fantasy shackled by historical stereotypes, where the blokes had all the adventures while the women did traditional women’s stuff. It’s fantasy, for God’s sake! The author can create any kind of society he or she wishes.

Back in the 70’s and 80s, when there was a fair bit of feminist fantasy around, I used to think there was a big difference between fantasy written by males and females. But now I’m not so sure. There are plenty of women writers who are writing more violent and less emotional fantasy than I do.

Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?

Not for me. I love Robin Hobb’s writing, and JK Rowling’s, and Lois McMaster Bujold’s (her fantasy eg The Curse of Chalion, not her SF), among many other female writers.

The only thing that changes my expectations is the author’s ‘brand’, ie the associations of what kind of a read I can expect based on the author’s name.

Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?

Probably to the lottery office or the stock market. Definitely NOT to the races – I’m particular about who I hang out with.

Or to the great library at Alexandria to pick up some originals before it was burned.

Failing that, to the core of the galaxy to touch up my pallid complexion in the light of a million suns. Or back to the time of the Cambrian Explosion where there was a fantastic and never since equalled burgeoning of life of all kinds – though I’d probably be eaten by a trilobite. It would also be interesting to be on site a few minutes before the Big Bang – though I expect I’d (briefly) regret it, lol.

 

To win an advance copy of Vengeance, Book 1 of Ian’s new epic fantasy trilogy The Tainted Realm:

Giveaway Question:  Name the most irritating character in a fantasy novel. What cruelly ironic fate would you like him/her/it to suffer?

 

Ian’s website

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Follow Ian on Twitter   @ianirvineauthor

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Filed under Australian Writers, Book Giveaway, Children's Books, creativity, Fantasy books, Gender Issues, Nourish the Writer, Thrillers and Crime, Young Adult Books

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November 2, 2011 · 8:31 am

Meet Alan Baxter …

I have been running a series of  interviews with female fantasy writers to redress a perception I came across – that fantasy was a bit of a boy’s club. It really isn’t like that here in Australia. We have many wonderful fantasy writers who just happen to be female.

Today I’m interviewing dark fantasy author, Alan Baxter. I thought I’d ask him the same questions I’ve asked the female writers about fantasy writing and gender, to get his perspective as a male writer.

Look out for the give-away at the end of the post.

Q: I see you live on the South Coast of NSW. Does that mean south of Sydney? This area there, in fact the whole coast, is very beautiful. Do you find that, as a creative person, you’re influenced by your surroundings?

Yes, south of Sydney by about an hour and a half. It’s dairy country, wide open, rolling hills. We’re in a valley with the escarpment at our backs and a five minute drive to the beach. Best of all worlds and absolutely beautiful.

I am very much influenced by my surroundings, but I still tend to write a lot of urban-based stuff. The city is an incredible muse for me, a living entity with everything that goes along with that. But living in the country gives me the headspace and peace conducive to writing. I lived in the city for years and loved it, but I’m a country boy at heart. Even if the city does still inform a lot of my work.

Q: You write Dark Fantasy books , what used to be called horror. RealmShift and MageSign look like they follow the one character. Is this an ongoing series like Jim Butcher and Simon R Green’s work?

I question the distinction you made there. I write horror too, but dark fantasy and horror are different things. A lot of what’s generally referred to as horror is better classified as dark fantasy in my mind. Other examples would be a lot of Stephen King’s work (Dark Tower, for example), a lot of Clive Barker’s stuff (like Weaveworld). While these people are often thought of as horror writers, and they are, they also work in dark fantasy. There’s a difference between two for me. My publisher actually refers to my novels as dark fantasy thrillers, which is the best description in my opinion.

RealmShift and MageSign follow the main character of Isiah and are a duology. While each can be read alone, MageSign follows directly from the events in RealmShift. But I don’t know if there will ever be more Isiah books. A couple of Isiah short stories have been published here and there, but I’d need a really solid idea to write another Isiah novel. Never say never, but it’s not happening any time soon.

In the meantime, I’m working on a new series, a trilogy in the same world as the Isiah books, with entirely new characters. But Isiah does make a brief cameo in the first one.

Q: There’s a particularly British sensibility about Simon R Green’s Nightside books. You are British-Australian. Would you say your book reflected this hybrid sensibility?

Definitely. I’m pretty well travelled and will get away to walk the Earth at the drop of a hat. It’s only money that prevents me from living a life constantly on the road. With RealmShift I was very deliberate about not identifying the opening city. The book moves on and the characters go to places like Guatemala, but the initial part of the book is in “the city”. It could be Sydney, London, New York – I wanted it to be everyone’s city.

MageSign is different. It’s very much an international book, but Sydney and the NSW outback play a major part and the whole book heads to those places. But it starts in Britain and I draw a lot on my experience of different countries to flesh out my stories as much as possible. I’m very keen on a sense of place being prevalent in my work, whether that place is actually identifiable or not.

Q: As well as books you are also a short story writer. I notice you have a story in Keith Stevenson’s new anthology Anywhere but Earth. I take it this is a science fiction story. Are you an SF fan from way back? Did you grow up in a house filled with books or did you discover Asimov (for instance) in a second-hand book shop?

I’ve been a fan of everything fantasy and science fiction since I was a kid. But I didn’t grow up with it – my parents were keen readers, but definitely not genre fiction. They always encouraged reading, pushed me to improve, and I fell in love with it instantly, but I found genre fiction myself somehow. From a very young age I devoured things like Lord Of The Rings and Earthsea. I graduated to sci fi and horror and never looked back.

Q: You have also written a serialised story about bounty hunter called Ghost, Ghost of the Black: A ‘Verse full of Scum’. What prompted you to follow in the footsteps of the greats like Charles Dickens and write a serial? Was it hard to keep up the pace?

I wanted to generate some more interest in my website and promote my other work, so I used the old marketing ploy: Give some stuff away and hope people come back to buy more. I really liked the idea of writing a serial and posting a new episode every week. Apart from the increased site traffic, it appealed to my love of the old series like Flash Gordon and Rocketman that I loved as a kid.

But I cheated. Ghost Of The Black is a roughly 30,000 word novella, which I serialised, but I wrote it all in advance. So keeping the pace wasn’t an issue. I had the whole thing ready to go and started posting a new ep every week throughout 2008. I would tweak and edit a bit each week, but it was largely a done deal. I’m not sure I’ll do it again though!

I’d like to write more stuff with Ghost and his exploits. Hopefully I’ll get around to that some day, but I won’t serialise it again. Maybe I’ll self-publish his further exploits as ebooks to accompany the existing ebook I released once the serial was finished.

Q: I see you work as a martial arts instructor and personal trainer – you disprove the sedentary writer stereotype. Your martial art is Kung Fu. I’d studied each of these martial arts for five years: Tae Kwon Do, Aikido and Iaido, the art of the Samurai sword. Plus I dabbled in Ju Jitsu. What drew you to Kung Fu?

Monkey and Hong Kong Phooey. If you don’t know those things, you must check them out. I started in Judo as a kid of about 11 or so. Then I tried Karate when my Judo teacher moved away, but I didn’t like it. What I did like was Monkey fighting off demons with his magic staff, and Hong Kong Phooey with his Hong Kong Book Of Kung Fu. So I went out seeking a Kung Fu school and found my physical and spiritual home. I’ve done it ever since.

I’ve studied a variety of Kung Fu styles to one extent or another, but for the last 15 years or so I’ve studied and taught Choy Lee Fut Kung Fu.

Q. You recently presented at the Emerging Writers Festival in Brisbane, a crowdfunded event. How did that come about and what was your part in it?

The EWF is a great initiative putting on events all over the country for writers. It’s obstensibly for emerging writers, but it’s really of great value to all writers. The Brisbane event was all about digital writing – writing for online markets, promoting yourself and your work online and all the opportunities and pitfalls around those activities. I was invited up to present as part of the panel on using the online environment to promote your work, to get work and to work for you. I blogged about it quite extensively here.

Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?

Yes and no. Some people write in a very gender specific style, and I know I’ll cop some shit for saying that, but it’s true. Some female writers, for example, have a style that’s extremely feminine and targeted mainly at female writers. Some males have the same things going on for the men. Of course, that doesn’t mean the other gender can’t read and enjoy those things, but there is a definite difference.

But other writers are completely gender-neutral in their style, to my mind. Whether they’re male or female is irrelevant to their writing and their readers and they’re just telling good stories. The vast majority of writers fall into this category, I think.

Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?

Not in the least. If the book appeals – the blurb grabbed me, the cover interests me, friends have recommended it or whatever – then gender is irrelevant. And if it’s a style of book I don’t enjoy it’s rarely, if ever, a gender-based decision. Some things work for people and some don’t – no writer can appeal to everyone all the time.

Some of my favourite writers working in genre fiction at the moment are female, in fact, and I agree with you that whatever the perception globally about SF being a boys’ club, that’s definitely not the case here in Australia. We have a plethora of talented female writers. A look at recent publications in SF in Australia would probably lean heavily to a female predominance, in fact.

Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?

This is a tough one. So many possibilities. The answer that sprang immediately to mind is that I would go far into the future where time machines are ubiquitous, buy one and carry on exploring. But that’s like wishing for more wishes.

If I had just one time jump, much as it would be fantastic to go back and see ancient civilizations and all that, I would have to go forward. Jump a thousand years into the future, maybe, just to see what humanity has done with itself.

The dark fiction writer in me sees my arrival in a barren, wasted landscape, destroyed by the folly of man, where I would instantly die, poisoned by the toxic atmosphere of a world we’ve destroyed. But the optimist in me sees vast cities, interstellar craft exploring the galaxy and wonders of science that would seem like magic to us now. That’s something I would love to see. Still, I suppose I can just wait instead.

Giveaway Question: 

A copy of RealmShift to whoever can best capture the difference between horror and dark fantasy in a single sentence!

Catch up with Alan on Facebook

Catch up with Alan on Goodreads – http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/917335.Alan_Baxter

Catch up with Alan on Google+.

Follow Alan on Twitter. @AlanBaxter

Alan’s Blog.

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Filed under Australian Writers, Book Giveaway, creativity, Dark Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books, Gender Issues, The Writing Fraternity, Thrillers and Crime

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October 31, 2011 · 8:02 pm

Supanova – Be there or be Square!

Okay, maybe not, but it will be heaps of fun. There’s a great line up of writers coming this weekend to Brisbane Supanova!

Isobelle Carmody( is going to launch The Sending), Marianne de Pierres, Tracey O’Hara, Keri Arthur, Ian Irvine, Kylie Chan and myself will be at the Dymocks bookstore if you’d like to stop by and get a book signed or just chat.

Plus there will be panels and a workshop.

Friday –

Isobelle Carmody Writing Masterclass in the Cosplay Theatre at 6.45pm

Saturday –

1pm – Isobelle Carmody’s booklaunch for The Sending in the Wrestling ring – launched by Min

2.30pm – Marianne and Rowena in the Supanvnova Seminar Room – Steps to Publication

3.30pm – Tracey and Keri in the Supanova Seminar room – Introduction to Paranormal

Sunday –

11.50am – Kylie in the Supanova seminar room – Journeying towards Trilogies

1pm – Official launch of Ian Irvine’s Vengence by Isobelle Carmody in the wrestling ring

2.20pm – Ian Irvine in the Supanova seminar room – Vengence unleased!

Here is a link to the official event guide. And here’s some pics from the other Supanovas I’ve been to.

There's amazing costumes!

There's amazing authors. This was Sydney or Melbourne with Kevin J Andersen, Rebecca Moesta, Jennifer Fallon, Alison Goodman, Kate Forsyth, Marianne de Pierres and me.

This is Jennifer Fallon and me signing books.

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October 22, 2011 · 8:44 pm

Meet Anita Bell …

As the next of my series featuring fantastic female fantasy authors (see disclaimer) I’ve invited the talented powerhouse Anita Bell  to drop by.

Watch out for the give-away question at the end of the interview.

Q: First of all, major congratulations on Diamond Eyes winning the 2011 Hemming Award for Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Themes. Since this is award is not necessarily awarded every year, winning must have come as a wonderful and welcome surprise. Did you consciously set out to explore the themes of race, gender, sexuality, class and disability in the book?

Actually, Diamond Eyes is a story about freedom and independence. But since my main character is a young woman who is blind, sexually inexperienced, and misdiagnosed by nursing staff who all treat her as crazy as well as handicapped, all those other themes grew organically in a way that also resonated strongly and unanimously with the judging panel.

Sad but true; while working for ten years in a mental health facility, I saw young men and women routinely castrated or medicated to suppress their sexual development, often without their knowledge or consent (due to the fact they’d been declared unfit to make such decisions on their own). So this part of Mira’s story is inspired by a young handicapped couple I met, who’d both been disabled through a contagious disease, but eventually regained their independence through modern medications and therapies – and when it came time that they’d recovered enough to have healthy children, it was too late. They’d both been “cared for” in their best interests.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkbKh4hGmSU]

Q: Following on from that, we were part of the QUT Cohort doing a Masters while writing a book. You produced Diamond Eyes. What was the research question you were exploring with this book?

Funny story: It started out as;

How can I crack the big markets overseas and for movies?

But since that was too big a question for a masters and required too many non-existent definitions about degrees of cracking, and how big is big etc, my lecturer dis-engorged the “choke” from my throat and encouraged me to narrow my focus to the more definitive;

How can a novel manuscript be ‘re-visioned’ to create a more satisfying draft.

(Where satisfying is defined by a self-assessed improvement that results in a commercial reward that had previously been unattainable.)

So the dissertation I wrote is called: Revisioning a “Novel Concept”: Beyond vision and revision to advanced editing strategies.

But since a lot of the research is drawn from the film industry, and from mega-best-selling works from overseas, and since a lot of the advanced editing strategies are topics that are never normally discussed in most writing workshops, it might as well be called;

Tips on how to crack the big markets overseas and for movies.

Sound familiar? Hehe.

David Meshow the theme for Diamond Eyes.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qERvjhq7tCg&feature=player_embedded]

Q: You have a wonderful book trailer (LOL, my husband did it). The music is by David Meshow. Recently, we were on a panel together where you walked us through the process of finding the musician, approaching him and what has happened since. I’m sure people would find this fascinating, as it’s an example of cross-pollination between creative people.

Wow, yes! We’ve chalked up more views than a lot of big budget Hollywood movies and over 300 Youtube Awards in 17 countries, including;

#1 Most Discussed, worldwide in Feb & March

#2 Top Favourited, worldwide in Feb & March

#2 Top Rated, worldwide in Feb and March

Normally, I thrive in silence while I’m writing and editing, but at all moments in between I refill my creative energies by filling my home, my car – even my saddlebags with music.

Three of my characters love music, and play instruments, so I spent a lot of time on youtube looking for talented amateurs with the same kind of interests. People who could not only play, but play so well, they make it look easy by playing with a relaxed sense of humour. I also looked for people who could play with their eyes closed and invent their own tunes on a wide range of instruments, and that’s how I came across David Meshow – who can do all of that, and resembles Mira’s bodyguard in looks and personality. Best of all, he taught me out how to play electrical instruments outside, around a campfire – so I could make a scene work properly in the sequel Hindsight.

Then after being inspired for so long by David’s music, and his advice during my research stages, I wrote to ask permission to use one of his original instrumental pieces for the book trailer during the launch, because that piece has brilliant moments of violin and xylophone along with all the other instruments that gave it a unique offbeat quality which also dramatically suits the chase scenes at the end of Diamond Eyes, the novel.

But when I mentioned the novel and what it was about, he was so inspired by the unique concept behind Mira’s eyes that he offered to write a piece to suit her specifically.

And that’s what the Original Theme to Diamond Eyes is. Close your eyes, and you can image yourself blind. Open them again and imagine the world around you isn’t today. It looks how things did a century ago, even though you can still feel all the invisible *real* things around you – so if the three story building you’re in wasn’t there back then, well, now you’re standing in mid-air, looking down on the world. Living in two worlds at once. That’s the core idea, and David’s really nailed it with the official theme song. He’s got millions of fans now, but they all seem to agree. Diamond Eyes is the best yet, and I have to agree. But then, I’m biased! Hehe.

Q: I understand there are two more books in the Diamond Eyes series, Leopard Dreaming and Hindsight.  When is the last book of the trilogy due out? And what will you do after this?

Interesting question, because it’s not a traditional trilogy. Diamond Eyes is a stand-alone story set in an asylum, Serenity, which is on a sub-tropical island in Queensland.

Then the duet of sequels; Hindsight (just launched) and Leopard Dreaming (June 2012), are both set on the mainland, during a brand new stage of her life. They’re also much faster paced than Diamond Eyes.

If you liken them to movies in the film industry, then Diamond Eyes would be the pilot, and the next two would be the mini series. So you don’t necessarily need to read Diamond Eyes to enjoy Hindsight, but you’ll definitely need to read Hindsight before taking on Leopard Dreaming in the new year.

 

Q: In a post on the ROR site you say … ‘SF is not dead – from my perspective it’s morphing/maturing beyond the “pure” genre of science fiction into speculative fiction (the new meaning for SF[1][1]), in a way which offers room for a natural blend of genres which must also complement each other uniquely for each story. Effectively, this permits a wider scope for wider technologies and invites more possibilities and opportunities to cross-dress our genres.’ You go on to say …’ In our own fast-changing world, which is already rife with “fantastic” opportunities and “tomorrow technologies” is it any wonder that such elements are so readily accepted in the environment of a wider story – often even expected – by a market that can still shy away from health food if we label it health food? To many people, it seems that science fiction sounds more like “homework” while fantasy sounds like a “holiday”, and yet how many wouldn’t go anywhere on holiday without their mobile phone, ipod or laptop?’  I love this quote. How near future is the Diamond Eyes series? Would people feel at home in this world?

It’s tomorrow fiction, akin to James Bond, but nowadays, most genres need to be tomorrow fiction to some degree during the writing stages anyway, or else the technology can date the story too quickly and make it seem old fashioned too soon.

e.g.

So I’m constantly inventing new technologies based on my best guesses from existing products and research, and very often those “fantastic” new gizmos are hitting the market by the time the book is.

Off the top of my head, technologies that I invented for my stories in the last ten years, only to have them invented for real by the time the books launched, include;

  • Electronic pens, which convert any sketches into a text file or digital image.
  • Night Owls, a form of high tech night vision goggles which can also see through buildings using sound waves akin to mobile phone transmissions. Now also used in airports for full body scans.
  • NOR:STAN, the National Orbital Reconnaissance: See Through Anything Network. Same principle as nights owls, but also incorporating technology from the mining industry as a larger scale satellite system to help find lost bushwalkers, people trapped in burning buildings, and even terrorists in underground bunkers.

Even Mira’s Hue-dunnits – her electronic sunglasses which can change colour – are now in development as a fashion accessory to suit any wardrobe.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAXBTXnVHns]

Q: You write in many genres under a number of pen-names, including a set of best-selling non-fiction titles, award winning adventures for children and even wickedly funny romance for women. You’ve always been a writer of exciting stories. What was the first thing you wrote seriously to submit?

A cosy crime story, called Budgie Soup, which was published in 5 countries, including the USA’s prestigious Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine, and won the Penguin Award, as part of the Scarlet Stiletto Awards, way back last millennium, in 1999.

Q: You say if you hadn’t been a writer you’d be …’ A cartoonist, vet or research scientist. And as it turns out, writing allows me to do bits of each!’ I can relate to research scientist. I think writers have to have enquiring minds. But cartoonist and vet? Why these two? Are you good at drawing and can you ‘talk to animals’?

Hehe… something like that.

To be a vet, we need to be astute at understanding body language – which works for characters as much as for animals. Pets can’t tell us where they’re hurting, and often characters can’t either. How we treat animals also helps to define us, not only as individuals, but also as a society.

Same goes with cartooning. It’s a social science that’s heavily dependent on observation of the human condition, as individuals, and in society, and how we perceive ourselves through the lens of humour also helps to define us.

To be a vet, we need great compassion, but humour is more often a dark art that can throw masks over fury, injustice and tragedy.

Q: You seem very comfortable writing a fast paced action thriller and moving across genres. A good book is a good book, no matter what the genre. Do you have any advice for writers to help them improve the pacing of their books?

Short sentences. Listen to men speaking, and compare to women on the same subject. Guys rarely use more than 8 words in a sentence at a time unless they’re explaining something, while women rarely use more than 12.

In action scenes, guys tend to get serious with only 2 to 6 words at a time, while women often clip down to 8 or less.

If you think that’s an exaggeration, watch all your favourite movies with the sound muted and subtitles on – and take notice how clipped conversations can get as the images speed up. Or take a ride on a train or bus with your ipod switched off so you’re listening to other people around you.

Q: You had a friend who attempted suicide when you were younger. You said …  ‘From the time we were both 10, we both had to ‘be mum,’ looking after our other brothers and sisters before and after school, and I had to manage my parents’ farm as well when they went away on business. On top of this we went to a high school where extreme pressure existed to be the best we could be. Students came from all over the world because of their high standards and we had to compete against them, too. My friend passed the breaking point.’ Are you tempted to write something that would reach out to teens who feel overwhelmed?

Yes, but not for a while. I can’t write really dark material unless I’m detached from tragedy myself and that’s definitely not this year. Otherwise, writing dark material only tends to take me down further, and once those chemicals in the brain start triggering the downward spiral, it’s a hard cycle to break free from again. And I’d never write that sort of thing without an uplifting ending, because it was soul-destroying misery-lit with downers for endings that drove my friend over the edge all those years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good book that leaves me weepy, but if they’re not tears of hope, love or joy – if they leave me feeling empty and emotionally wretched – I’d never go anywhere near it. If I want to be depressed, I’ll read a newspaper.

Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?

Historically yes. Absolutely. But I’d like to think the last 10 years has become a bit more like this:

 

There’s been plenty of times when I’ve been told by readers that I must have had some of my stories written by my husband. Apparently, I’m not supposed to know how to field strip a Styr or Glock and put it back together again without it blowing up in my face. Or how to turn a gum tree into a signal tower, use scorpions and black light to navigate an underground tunnel, or the horns of the moon to tell north from south in either hemisphere.

At the other end of the scale, I know a subset of male writers who can really get inside a woman’s head well enough to write convincing female characters – but a lot more who can’t.

Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?

Depends on the name they choose to put on the front cover, especially if it’s very feminine or hyper-masculine.

e.g.  Stephan King was always going to rule the page once he nailed his genre, and Karen Slaughter was never going to write little kiddies faerie tales.

Then there’s androgynous names, like AA Bell, Sonny Whitelaw, JR Ward etc, where the writing style is far more likely to appeal to both genres. Or at least try to, more often than not.

Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?

Ah, but if I told you, I’d create a paradox and a full set of alternative futures in another dimension. Just thinking about it is enough to split the future in two; one in which I do, and one in which I don’t.

Cool timing; there’s a new scientific theory (evolved from string theory, which in turn evolved from studies of nuclear explosions) that our present and past have already been shaped by our future in all its permutations in all dimensions. And that many things about Fate seem inevitable, because they’ve already been tampered with by those who’ve already travelled.

So assuming I’m one of them, and have already made the trip – or “will have going to have made it” at some time in the future (or alternate time line) – you can rest assured that all my friends will have nice things happen to them, while all those who’ve been nasty should be grateful I don’t hold grudges… much.

<insert evil laughter>

Give-away Question:

It’s said that everyone has something they’re naturally or uncannily good at – so good, you might call it a super power. Mira’s gift is seeing the past, her stalker can hear the future, while my own superpowers are merely green lights in heavy traffic and finding the perfect parking space when I most need it. (touch wood!)

So what’s your super power?

 

Catch up with Anita on Facebook

on GoodReads: www.goodreads.com/aabell

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September 28, 2011 · 10:01 am

Meet Simon Higgins …

Today I’m interviewing Simon Higgins because he’s a fellow Iaido practitioner as well as a great writer, also I thought I’d ask him about fantasy writing and gender, to get his perspective as a male writer.

Look out for the give-away at the end of the post.

 

Q: You have a series of Young Adult novels set in Japan called the Moonshadow series. I like the covers, very manga.  Are you a big fan of Manga? Do you get much say in what appears on your covers?

I do like Manga very much, and find it fascinating that most people don’t realize how old it actually is. Apparently, Manga first evolved from experimental perspective sketches that woodblock artists in Japan tinkered with during the Edo period, which in turn slowly evolved into a unique ‘pop-culture’ form of stylized drawing. Now of course, Manga has several main schools (multiple ‘dojos’ have evolved, which seems to happen with all things Japanese) and numerous sub and fusion styles. Working in conjunction with Random House Australia, I chose Ari Gibson of The People’s Republic of Animation as the cover artist for the Moonshadow books…Ari’s Manga is unique: strong, with classic lines, but still quite individual – I love it, and it’s pretty much the way I picture the characters in the series when I’m writing. The various foreign editions including the US version published by Little, Brown (the Twilight people) conjure up very different visions of the heroes. I should probably mention also that the Moonshadow series is actually pitched at the ‘middle school’ market, just a shade younger than the traditional ‘young adult’  category (not that everybody agrees on the age range those pigeon-holes actually encompass, of course)…

 

Q: The American Library Association described your Moonshadow books as  ‘good old-fashioned adventure set in medieval Japan…exhilarating opening sequence…nonstop action…the pacing is so intense…the language is modern, but the setting, clothing, tactics and tools are well placed in their time period’. In Tomodachi, you had an English boy stranded in sixteenth century Japan.  With the Moonshadow series do you use a European character to ground the audience in medieval Japan or do you plunge straight in?

The Moonshadow books feature pretty much an all Asian cast, as in this series I am dealing with a unique historical phenomenon, rather than an outsider’s eye on a specialized, complex warrior culture, as in Tomodachi. The Moonshadow series actually arose from an inspiring historical fact that I stumbled on while researching in Japan: that at one stage, Tokugawa Ieyasu, in order to keep his grip on the Shogunate, employed the spies of Clan Iga, many of whom (and this is the cool part) started their dangerous careers while they were still children.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8nFiWmQDh4&feature=player_embedded]

Q: I see you competed in the Iaido World Titles in Kyoto Japan and came in fifth in 2008. Not bad for a ‘gaijin’. (For more info on the samurai sword see Simon’s page on his Kyoto Adventures). I remember the pair of us sitting in the bar at a national SF convention talking martial arts all evening. I think it takes a particular type of mind to appreciate Bushido. I know you do a lot of school talks. Do you find the kids respond well? Do you think they go away with some insight into the philosophy behind the martial arts?

It certainly seems that way to me; I often see evidence of students really getting where I am coming from in terms of my own martial arts paradigm: that we train to perfect technique and therefore ultimately ourselves, not to grow skilled at actually killing; that the more one trains, the gentler one tends to become; that violence does not equal strength any more than mercy equals weakness; and that as the Japanese have always maintained, the sharpest swords rarely leave their scabbards (for they rarely need to). If there is any one message I am constantly hoping to transmit to young readers it’s this: adopting a challenging code and choosing to follow an exacting path doesn’t make you old-fashioned, quaint or weak. It does the opposite; it’s empowering. It’s a secret for enjoying and making strong progress through the landscape of life.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKaLRklCzxA&feature=player_embedded]

Q: You worked as police officer, prosecutor and a licensed private investigator  on murder cases. You have written thrillers such as The Stalking Zone as well as near future thrillers like Under no Flag, Thunderfish, Beyond the Shaking Time.  Was this a bit like bringing your work home with you?

Not really, because the three crime thrillers I wrote, Doctor Id, Cybercage and The Stalking Zone, sat more at the fantastic end of the law enforcement story genre, though much of the gritty psychology of those tales was true to the environment that inspired them. My (young vigilante) heroes were allowed to have wins, to get results, though they had to really suffer along the way, so I suppose that in the end, the stories were in fact very positive though harrowing. Thunderfish, Under No Flag, and In the Jaws of the Sea, explored the idea that people labelled criminals under one perspective might actually be not only good guys from another viewpoint, but in fact the most useful humans in that particular equation. I found it ironic that numerous imaginary elements of the Thunderfish trilogy kept coming true in one form or another, such as the battles in Antarctic waters between whalers and the Sea Shepherd activists, or the discovery of a fissure in the earth’s crust, deep in the Atlantic.

 

Q: I see way back in 1975 you were part of a heavy metal band. It’s amazing how many writers have a musical background. Do you still practice music?

I still play guitar and sing, and have consistently written songs for most of my life. Music is very much a part of my family’s culture, as my wife and daughter are both songwriters and my son is a professional musician. If you love soul, funk or acid jazz, you can check out his sounds here. 

Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?

Perhaps (as a generalization) but I also think that most of us could cite ripping action-rich fantasy novels penned by women and satisfyingly emotional and cerebral fantasy tales written by men; and I do find it a little funny that there is a perception of fantasy in some quarters as being male-oriented, after personally having heard publishers joke about pink, hazy covers (replete with flying horses) stretched around a solid high-quest fantasy book ‘that we can count on girls to buy’.

I reckon that one of the peculiarities of writing culture has always been that while most story tellers obsess over how to tell a timeless, boundary-breaking, universal tale, publishers are meanwhile apparently obliged to obsess over how to categorize, brand and anchor the field of interest in that story, in other words, to narrow and define its scope, so as to better sell it. The clash of these two unrelenting focuses can produce some interesting cross-perceptions about who writes or reads what exactly (and for who) while I guess the truth is that out here in the real world, we simply end up with a great deal of diversity.

 

Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?

Not in my case, as a lifetime of reading has convinced me that a skilful, gifted storyteller can channel a thousand people whose skin they will never occupy; I’ve read the work of female writers whose male voice, drives and perceptions felt utterly real, and vice versa. So a good writer can always pleasantly surprise us, not only with their imaginings, but with all kinds of truths they can own and convey which transcend their culture, gender or generation. Of course I realize that many people are swayed, unduly perhaps, by unspoken notions of ‘gender suitability’. That old ‘men can’t write good romance, women don’t do bloodshed well’ viewpoint. I think it’s so often wrong, it’s worth dismissing entirely.

Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?

Like the traveler in HG Wells’ groundbreaking novel, though the past fascinates me, if only one trip was possible, I would opt to see the distant future (or yes, that current, possible future the machine could take me to, based on things as they now stand).  So I’d visit my own locale, here in Australia, say, two hundred years from now. Why? Part of me just has to know: do we finally grow up as a species? Or does it turn out that our damned gadgets wound up destroying us because they kept evolving while their creators remained inherently paranoid and primitive? Hey! That’s a question that spec fic seems to keep asking!

Giveaway Question: 

When you are forced to suffer through some ‘oh no, not this again!’ cliché in a book or movie, what sassy, mocking or witty twist-outcome might you assign to it? Example: Vader wheezes ‘I-am-your-father!’ and Luke (at least in your rewrite) retorts, ‘The hell you are. I had DNA done. So I know it was a wookie.’ So yeah…pick your most nauseating cliché and…strike back!

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