Tag Archives: Dark Urban Fantasy

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 29, 2011 · 9:39 am

Meet Kim Wilkins …

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

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

Q: I once heard you describe yourself as a girl from an average family in Redcliffe (a bayside suburb of Brisbane). For someone who won the University of Queensland Medal for Academic Achievement and went on to do a PHD, this is a long way from the long hot summers of your childhood. If you could go back to that little girl and give her one piece of advice, what would it be?

Chillax, little girl. I grew up with an alcoholic dad, we never had money, I was unpopular at school, so all I ever did was fantasise about escape. I was drawn to books because I could disappear into them, and found the disappearing act was a billion times more brilliant if I was writing the story instead of reading it. I was so desperate to get away from that horrid life, and I worked so hard to be free of it. I still have a tiger on my tail, and still wish I could chillax even as a grown-up.

Q: Your first book The Infernal won the 1997 horror and fantasy awards. In an interview on Tablua Rassa you said: ‘I’m still waiting for someone to describe my work as Stephen King collaborating with the Brontë sisters. There’s such a strong feminine element, and often a strong historical element, and horror as a term isn’t elastic enough to cope with those extra elements.’ I love the description f Stephen King collaborating with the Bronte sisters. With your love of history and literature were you ever tempted to take the Bronte sisters and give them a more exciting life? (I’m thinking what you did in Angel of Ruin with the Great Fire of London and Milton’s daughters).

I was tempted, yes, but then somebody did a similar story (something about Charlotte being a murderer?) and I’ve never been all that interested in writing about the 19th century. I’d already written Grimoire, which was partly set in that period, and that had scratched the itch sufficiently. I tend not to go back to a historical period twice without a compelling reason. That would be like going to the same place over and over on holidays.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GubOhvDxvE]

 

Q: You wrote 7 dark fantasy books in 8 years. Since Rosa and The Veil of Gold came out you haven’t written another adult dark fantasy. Have you been letting the ground like fallow so that when you come back to the genre you’ll feel refreshed?

I started writing another, but every time I sat down to work out how it might end, or what kinds of events might structure it, I kept repeating myself. I found this utterly dismaying and lost my confidence and hid in my bed for a while. Then I came out and said to my agent that I wanted to do something else for a while. That’s when I started writing the Kimberley Freeman books, which are epic romances, I guess, or adventure books for women. The problem (if it can be called that) was that Kimberley Freeman has done very well, so I was signed up for more of those. But I have recently finished a novel, a straight-up historical fantasy (nothing dark or urban). I published a novella that is kind of a prequel in 2010’s “Legends of Australian Fantasy”. I would like to write at least one more book set in that world. I still think I might come back to my original dark fantasy idea, but we’ll see where life takes me.

One thing that does annoy me is when people say, “you ought to write a book with angels in it” or the like. I have to say, “I already did.”

Q: You write for both Children and Young Adults. Your stand alone YA book The Pearl Hunters is set in 1799. I know have a deep love of history. In your YA series The Sunken Kingdom there are castles and ships and children in peril. Does having a good grounding in history help you produce well rounded fantasy worlds?

I’m just too lazy to create fantasy worlds from nothing. Seriously. The thought makes me feel completely drained. So I find a historical period and add magic. I find historical research easy and stimulating, and it makes me great at Trivial Pursuit.

Q: The Gina Champion Mysteries were contemporary YA with a supernatural twist. ‘From witchcraft to ghosts, from curses to spirit possession, the Gina Champion books are smart, sassy, and very scary.’ There were five books in the series and the last one came out in 2006. Are you tempted to dip into Gina’s world again?

No. I’m too busy. Too busy. I work at UQ, I teach at QWC, I am two authors. I can’t write for children as well. I feel as though I have the brakes on when writing for children or young adults. I find it very stifling.

Q: You also write women’s fiction as Kimberley Freeman. That’s a big leap from horror and YA paranormal-crime. Do you feel like you have to think yourself into a different head-space to write the Kimberley Freeman books?

Yes and no. Wildflower Hill is just The Resurrectionists without ghosts. The stories are very similar, just some of the conventions are different. I love being Kimberley Freeman some days, and other days I want to kill her. But it’s still writing; it’s still that immense pleasure of making up stories that I have adored for as long as I can remember. There doesn’t always have to be dragons.

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 couldn’t say with any confidence. I don’t think fantasy is a boys’ club by any stretch of the imagination. When I think of contemporary fantasy writers, the first 10 names that pop into my head are women.

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

It’s nothing to do with the writer. It’s to do with whether the book has a female lead. I have to have a female lead. Women generally write better about women. So in a roundabout way, maybe the answer is yes.

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?

England, 8th century. But just for a few days.

Kim has a copy of Rosa and The Veil of Gold to give-away. The Give-away Question is: If you could meet one of the Bronte sisters,  Jane Austen or Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who would it be and why?

 

See Kim’s Blog

Catch up with Kim on Facebook.

 

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Filed under Australian Writers, Book Giveaway, Characterisation, Children's Books, creativity, Dark Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books, Female Fantasy Authors, Gender Issues, Genre, Historical Books, Publishing Industry, Readers

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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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· 3:19 am

Winner Rebecca Moesta Give-away!

Rebecca has generously offered a Give-away book bundle of:

  • Crystal Doors trilogy in trade paperback
  • Jedi Shadow paperback (an omnibus of Young Jedi Knights books 1–3)
  •  BtVS: Little Things

Which she is willing to send anywhere in the world!

Rebecca says:

I read all the “entries” several times. I loved the enthusiasm and thought that everyone put into their answers. (Sean, in particular, won my admiration for staking out a specific area of the Star Wars universe.) I was most impressed by Cecilia, for her speed, engagement, positive replies, and wide-ranging love of the genre. (She was right, by the way: you did a great job on the interview!) Cecilia is the winner. Thank you so much for the chance to participate. Please let me know where to send the prize.

So Cecilia email Rebecca to organise the posting or yourbook bundle!

reb(at)wordfire(dot)com

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Filed under Book Giveaway, Dark Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books, Female Fantasy Authors, Fun Stuff, Readers

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September 7, 2011 · 12:24 pm

Meet Alisa Krasnostien …

This was cross-posted to the ROR blog. Instead of a writer, this time I’m interviewing Indy Press Powerhouse, Alisa Krasnostein.

Alisa Krasnostein is an environmental engineer by day, and runs indie publishing house Twelfth Planet Press by night. She is also Executive Editor at the review website Aussie Specfic in Focus! and part of the Galactic Suburbia Podcast Team. In her spare time she is a critic, reader, reviewer, runner, environmentalist, knitter, quilter and puppy lover.

 

Q: First let me say mega congratulations on being a finalist in the World Fantasy Awards (courtesy LOCUS) in the Special Award Non-Professional section for your work with Twelfth Planet Press.  I imagine you’ve been popping champagne ever since you found out. Did you have any inkling this was coming?

Thank you! My nomination was totally unexpected and took me completely by surprise.  I’m very excited because I was already planning on attending World Fantasy Con in San Diego.

Q: I was involved in Indy Press in the late 70s early 80s so I know how much work and money goes into this. If you’d had any idea that you’d be ‘working longer hours on the press than my day job and I still don’t have enough time in the week to get to everything that needs to be done.’  – (See full interview on Bibliophile Stalker) – would you have jumped in with as much enthusiasm?

Interesting question. I’m not afraid of hard work. I definitely lean towards the workaholic. I think also, being an engineer has trained me to get absorbed and focused on the task at hand. And the amount of time I work and the amount of work I create for myself is definitely self-inflicted. And I hear I can dial it back at any point in time if I want! I love indie press more now that when I first jumped in and I respect and appreciate the people who contribute to the scene even more so now that I know how much work and dedication and talent goes into everything that gets published. And I also believe that we are limited only by the passion, time, commitment and hard work that we put in. So. No pressure. And no regrets.

Q: And following on from that, if you could go back and give yourself advice about starting Twelfth Planet Press, what would that advice be?

The number one thing I regret is not taking my business more seriously from the start. My advice would be to set up my small press as a small business from the beginning and not rely on a box of receipts or a papertrail for forensic auditing later. I set the financial and business side up several years in and that was most definitely one of the most painful things to sort out. There’s so much more to writing and editing and publishing than the creative side and I would advise myself, and anyone jumping in (both at the publishing and the writing ends), to get a basic handle on accounting, legalese to read and understand contracts and basic business advice (like if you need an ABN and how to structure your business – will you be a sole trader or a company and what does that mean anyway?) .

Q: You did a post for Hoyden About Town on The Invisibility of Women in Science Fiction. It’s obviously a subject you feel strongly about.  Is Twelfth Planet Press seeking to address this issue with affirmative action?

Not in any formal or mandated way. Overall, I don’t have a gender imbalance issue at Twelfth Planet Press – I buy what I like and the best stories that are submitted to me. And funnily enough, that gender breakdown is different to the general norm (though that’s not true of my novella series).

The Twelve Planets – twelve four-story original collections by twelve different Australian female writers – is a project that came from a place of realising, at the time of idea conception, how few female Australian writers had been collected. That’s changed during the time of project development. But the Twelve Planets remains a project that will release over two years close to 50 new short stories written by women. And that’s something that I’m really proud to be doing.

Q: Twelfth Planet Press has had some remarkable wins for a new, small Indy Press. There were six finalistings in the Aurealis Awards this year. Two finalistings on the Australian Shadows Award. And Tansy Rayner Roberts’ novella Siren Beat won the WSFA Small Press Award for 2010. This novella was part of a series of back-to-back novellas that Twelfth Planet Press released.  It’s notoriously hard, from a writer’s point of view, to sell a novella to a publisher. Why did TPP start producing BtB novellas?

Thanks, I was particularly pleased with our Aurealis Awards shortlistings this year coming after seven shortlistings last year. It feels like validation for some of the choices that I’ve made particularly in terms of the direction I’ve taken. And the win from the WSFA was just unbelievably exciting. I’m so proud of the work that Tansy Rayner Roberts is producing at the moment.

I really wanted to have a product to sell at a particular price point, around the $10 to $15 mark. That was really the place that I started at for the novella doubles. I personally love the novella length, especially for science fiction and I loved the idea of paying homage to the Ace Doubles. I especially loved the idea of pairing two totally unrelated works and throwing them into a package like many of the Ace Doubles did. From a gambling sense, if you love one and not so much the other, that’s not a bad deal for $12. And from a publisher’s point of view I like the idea of perhaps enticing readers to find new or unknown to them writers or be exposed to a new genre by buying a double for one of the stories and getting the other one as a bonus. If I make the pairs right!

Q: An editor once said to me, I can’t tell you want I want, but I’ll know when I see it. This is incredibly frustrating to a writer. Can you tell us what you want?

Only that I’ll know when I see it. Sorry! But yeah, we look for what we aren’t expecting, what is outside of what everyone else is writing, that breaks new ground and feels fresh, that stands out from the pack. What I want is the project that stands out cause it’s not like all the other books on the shelf. I specifically look firstly for really solid writing – writing that is unpretentious and doesn’t get in the way of the story. And then I want to be emotionally or intellectually moved or changed by the work. I look for stories that demand my attention and then hold it. I look for stories that tell me something I didn’t know before – about myself, or about society or humanity. I look for a rewarding reading experience. So. Not much.

I’m very busy and I deliberately choose to read submissions when I’m in a bad mood and whilst doing something else. I want what I’m reading to demand attention, to demand I put everything down and just read it to the end.

Q:  A finalist placing in the World Fantasy Awards has to raise the profile of Twelfth Planet Press. Where would you like to see TPP in five years time?

I’d like to see us with wider distribution in brick and mortar bookshops all over the place (long live the bookshop!) and being in a position to pay pro rates for writing, art, design and layout. I’d like to see us pushing genre boundaries and continuing to publish top quality fiction by writers at the top of our field that inspires, engages and entertains.

Q: On a personal note, where would you like to see yourself being career-wise in five years time?

I’d like to be working full time for Twelfth Planet Press.

 

Follow Alisa on Twitter  @Krasnostein

Hear the podcasts on Galactic Suburbia

Hear the TPP Podcasts.

Catch up with Alisa on Linked in

Catch up on FaceBook

Drop by the ASIF Website.

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Filed under Australian Writers, Awards, Dark Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books, Female Fantasy Authors, Genre, Indy Press, Nourish the Writer, Publishing Industry

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August 31, 2011 · 10:26 pm

Meet Anne Bishop …

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

 

 

Q: When I met you at the National SF Convention in Tasmania, it was the first time you had been outside of the States. Have you done much travelling since then?

Going to Tasmania is still my big adventure, but I have done a couple of vacation cruises since then–one to Alaska and one to the Caribbean. I’ve also attended a couple of the World Fantasy conventions that were held in the U.S. For me, this is a significant amount of traveling.

Q: I read your first book, Daughter of the Blood (part of the Black Jewels series) long before I met you and was swept away by your vivid imagery. I see there are nine books in this series now. Do you have more planned?

Nothing more planned at this time. Will there be more? I’m sure there will be. With Black Jewels stories, I seem to need a resting cycle where I write other things before I can go back to them–or before the Blood come back to me.

Q: I love the new covers, particularly Daughter of the Blood. How much say do you get in your covers?

For the U.S. covers, I send in descriptions of the main characters so the artist doesn’t have to hunt for the information. For the Australian covers, I’m sometimes asked to send a few ideas of images that could be used as a starting point. After that, the artist’s vision comes into play, and the end result is fabulous.

Q: What was it about the fae that convinced you to write The Tir Alainn Trilogy? Have you always been fascinated by the Fair Folk?

I’ve read stories about the realms of Faery since I was young, but the Fae weren’t the start of Tir Alainn. I was thinking about what I wanted to write after the Black Jewels Trilogy (I already had a draft of The Invisible Ring), and I had decided that I wanted to play with a world that had a more traditional earth-based magic than the Craft in the Black Jewels world. Then one afternoon I was coming home from a convention and saw a cloud formation that looked like the dark cliff of another world sitting on the horizon–a place you could see but could never reach. I said to the friend who was driving, “That’s the otherland where the Fae live.” After that I began to put the pieces together–the nature of the Fae and how they traveled from Tir Alainn to the human world, the nature of the witches, who else inhabited this world, and what was going to enter their lives and threaten their world. So it was actually the witches who provided the first seeds for that world, and then it was characters like the Hunter and the Gatherer of Souls who changed the texture of the story and Tir Alainn itself into something far richer than I had first envisioned.

Q: With The Landscapes of Ephemera Series it looks like you veered more into the love story side of the plot. Was this intentional or did the characters draw you in this direction?

The stories in Ephemera are about heart, about making a life journey, and about making choices, so I guess it’s the world itself that demands the stories spotlight the connection between two people. On the other hand, I would have said Cassidy and Gray’s relationship in THE SHADOW QUEEN and SHALADOR’S LADY was just as much a love story as Sebastian and Lynnea’s relationship.

Q: You also write short stories. Do you write across other genres as well or are these all fantasy stories? I see Twilight’s Dawn is set in the Black Jewel’s World. For a sneak peek see here.

Almost all of my stories fall into the fantasy/science fiction/horror genres. The one exception is a story chapter I did for SUMMER IN MOSSY CREEK, the third book in the Mossy Creek series. Not only was that mainstream, it was the first time I had written a story in a world that was created by someone else. That was a lot of fun, but the imagery of fantasy feels like home so that’s what I tend to write.

Q: I see you are working on an urban fantasy series. This is a change for you. Can you enlighten us?

I wanted to write a story in a world where the characters could have telephones and television and cars–that is, a contemporary setting even if it wasn’t Earth. And I wanted to try my hand at playing with vampires and werewolves (or shifters in this case since they aren’t really werewolves). And you want some humans in the mix because squeaky toys are fun. I had the framework of the world before the characters grabbed the story and ran off with it, so now the rest of the world building is taking its shape from the story.

It’s dark and it’s fun, and I’m never quite sure what the Others are going to do until I type the words.

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 hope there is a difference. Where would the fun be if we all saw things the same way and wrote the same kinds of stories?

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

Judging by my bookshelves, if I’m looking for a story that is primarily adventure and action and explosions and battles, I lean toward male writers. If I’m looking for a people story that includes adventure and action and explosions and battles, I lean toward female writers. And then there are all the writers on my shelves who don’t fit those choices because the gender of the writer wasn’t part of the decision to pick up the book.

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?

Since I’ve been pondering lately if the TARDIS has a shower and other kinds of plumbing, I’m not sure I’m mentally equipped for time travel.

The official fan site.

Anne Bishop quotes on GoodReads

Anne Bishop on Facebook


 

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Filed under Covers, creativity, Dark Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books, Female Fantasy Authors, Genre, Resonance, Story Arc, The Writing Fraternity, Writing craft

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August 17, 2011 · 9:33 am

Meet Rhonda Roberts …

Q: First congratulations on the success of Gladiatrix. I feel like a proud big sister because I organised the pitching opportunity at the 2006 National SF Con, which led (eventually) to your sale. (Rhonda talks about this experience on the ROR blog). Since your sale what have you learnt about the publishing industry that you wish you could have told yourself back then?

Thanks Rowena, that pitching opportunity changed everything!

One key lesson is that you need to acquire publicity skills asap. In the standard contract you are legally required to help publicise the book. My experience has been that publishers try to work with you on this – so make choices now rather than later. Different publicity methods suit different books and, more importantly, different authors. The key thing is to go with your strong points.

If public speaking is your strength – then find ways to use that. Your publisher can help you make contacts and set up interviews etc. If, like many authors, you’d rather concentrate on the web – then work out which of the available options suit you and how you want to invest your non-writing time.

Whatever venues you choose, make sure you can sum up your book in 7, 30, and 100 words. That will save you a few uncomfortable silences while you try to compress your magnum opus into a bite size chunk and still do it an iota of justice.

Q: I like the look of your web site, Rhonda, very noir, very suitable for a time travelling detective. Do you have a background in graphic design?

That’s great to hear, thanks!

I do have a distant background in art but my husband, Richard Caladine, did all the artwork on the website, as well as the maps that go with the books. We work closely together on these projects, but he does the final images. He’s in the communication technology industry as well as being a talented artist with his own website.

I love all things noir and have spent a lot of time developing that kind of look and feel in the series. The second book, Hoodwink, is set in Hollywood in 1939 specifically because this is my hero’s first real case as a private investigator. So, of course, she had to go back to the era of The Maltese Falcon and the hard-boiled private eye.

If  you like the website now, check again towards the end of this year, Hoodwink comes out in January 2012 and there’ll be some changes and additions to celebrate the launch. J

Q: I see Gladiatrix was nominated for the Norma K Hemming Award. This award celebrates excellence in the exploration of race, gender, class and sexuality. This must have been a thrill. Did you set out to explore this themes, or did it just arise naturally?

Oh yeah, I certainly was thrilled to be nominated! Gladiatrix was my first book and I had no idea whether anyone would even read it. 🙂

Gladiatrix isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, a sermon – it’s high adventure – but my politics tend to be inclusive rather than exclusive, so I guess they seep into everything.

Q: Gladiatrix was also nominated for the Davitt Award. This award is sponsored by the Sisters in Crime Australia for the best crime novel by an Australian woman. It looks like you are spanning at least two genres. Have you always been a fan of crime and mystery?

Sisters in Crime is such a wonderful organisation – I was absolutely thrilled they liked it.

Why did I venture across genres? Human history is full of deep dark mysteries and many of them involve unsolved crimes, so following a time travelling detective opens up adventures in any conceivable time or place. When you throw a slightly alternate past and present into the mix, then the adventure gets really exciting because anything can happen – and frequently does. J

Have I always been a fan of crime and mystery? On and off. Then one hot, sweaty summer – when I was bored and desperate for something new – I ended up in the crime section, where I discovered the V.I. Warshawski series by Sara Paretsky. V.I. is not only a smart, tough detective in the old school, noir tradition, but is also a compassionate modern woman. What a combination! I was hooked.

Since then I’ve discovered that noir female characters are very exciting people. You never quite know what they’re going to do next – but you can be damned sure you want to stick around and watch.

Q: Your main character, Kannon Dupree is described as feisty and bit impetuous but smart enough to get herself out of dangerous situations. Did you find that your background in martial arts helped you write realistic fight scenes?

Oh definitely. Especially the injuries incurred side of it. J (I’m rubbing my knee with one hand as I type with the other.)

Q: You PHD and work as an academic specialising in knowledge systems in different cultures and historical periods must help you create realistic settings when your main character travels through time. What advice could you give aspiring writers on research?

It depends on what kind of book you’re researching but if you’re writing about ‘a stranger in a strange land’, I’d suggest you start with what’s the same and what’s different? Then ask yourself why is it so?

Find out what your characters need to operate on a daily basis. Then go on to what belief system is dominant. Is it religious, scientific etc…? How does the power structure operate? Gender/class/ethnic relations? What does their technology look like and how does it fit into the socio-economy? Then the more psychological components come in. What is the family unit like? What are their greatest fears? How do they relax? And so forth…

Q: You grew up in Western Australia and spent your holidays rambling around the old gold rush ghost towns. Will there be a Kannon Dupree time travel mystery set against this background?

The series will regularly return to an Australian setting – that will definitely happen.

Choosing what era to visit next takes a bit of planning. There’s a particular arc going on with the main character that is suited to certain eras, so that has to be catered for. Plus some stories come roaring out of my filing cabinet and gleefully hijack the process…

Both of which happened with my second and third books. Hoodwink, (due out in January 2012) is set in Hollywood in 1939. So Kannon can put on her black trench coat and sunglasses, and slink around noir paradise.

The third book, which I’m now in the process of finishing, comes out later in 2012. I can’t tell you what it’s about yet, as my editor has a sniper ready to fire a warning shot if I mention it too soon. J

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?

Really? But what about J.K. Rowling, Ursula Le Guin, Anne Rice and the million other stunningly wonderful female writers over there? What’s going on?

Sure gender can influence writing choices, just as ethnicity, religion, class, age, breadth of life experience, political beliefs etc, etc, can too. But what’s wrong with that? Does anyone still seriously believe diversity isn’t a good thing? The point is on what basis worth is judged…what is valued, which voices are listened to and which ones are denigrated or dismissed.

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

Like many fantasy authors, there’s always been a special place in my heart for books – whatever the genre, whoever the author – that show off the might of the human spirit and it’s awesome potential. We need more of those books not less…

At the moment I’m besotted by John Carlin’s book on Nelson Mandela. How Mandela overcame the shackles placed on him because of his colour and basically saved South Africa from genocide. Talk about a true-life fantasy story!

So, I will happily pick-up books with any gender combination of author and subject. But…I won’t buy misogynistic books or ones that treat their female characters like convenient wallpaper – whatever the author’s gender.

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 two dogs are wondering why I’m laughing… There are so many possibilities! What was Joan of Arc really like? What secrets are encoded in the Voynich manuscript? What were Buddha’s last words? What was written on the Mayan codices destroyed by the Conquistadors?

But this month the answer is: to the VIP seats at the Rugby World Cup Final, Johannesburg, 1995, and in the limo that took President Mandela back home from the game.

This is the day (a fraction of which is portrayed in the film Invictus) that it became clear that Nelson Mandela had managed to divert the South African nation away from a bloody civil war – when blacks and whites alike celebrated the Springboks’ World Cup victory. I’d dearly love to watch Nelson Mandela’s face as he saw HIS people, the South African nation, share the same emotion at the same time – joy.

Give-away Question:  In the last Census there were 58,053 Jedi Knights listed in Australia. What new religion would you propose for the next one? Why? What would they do and wear? How would you spread it? (Get on to merchandising if you feel that is appropriate.)

 

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Filed under Australian Writers, Awards, Book Giveaway, Characterisation, creativity, Dark Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books, Female Fantasy Authors, Fun Stuff, Genre, Inspiring Art, Nourish the Writer, Paranormal_Crime, Pitching your book, Promoting Friend's Books, Promoting your Book, Publishing Industry

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August 14, 2011 · 8:47 am

Meet Trent Jamieson …

I have been running a series of  interview 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 Trent Jamieson because, for one thing he has a wonderful new book coming out. (Yay Trent!), and also 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 fantasy writer.

I’ve known Trent Jamieson since he was a fresh-faced aspiring writer coming to the VISION meetings (almost 15 years) and Trent has been a part of the ROR writing group for 8 years. He’s sold heaps of short stories, won or been a finalist in awards and now has a second series coming out.

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

Q: I can remember dropping you at the ferry after one of our critique sessions, saying – One day The Roil will be published, Trent. It’s so creative and interesting. It just has to hit the right publisher at the right time. Now it is coming out through Angry Robot. I was thrilled when you asked me for a cover quote. The Roil can be described as Steampunk, but it is so much more, dystopian SF, Lovecraftian horror. How long has The Roil (The Nightbound Land duology) been in the making?

Ooh, I remember that, too! I’m not sure if I believed you at the time, but I’m so glad you were right. In fact, I never quite believe it until I know the book is in print – just got an email from my publisher to say that copies arrived at Angry Robot today – Yay!

The Nightbound Land’s been around in my head a very long time, at least ten years though there are elements going back to my early twenties, just after I graduated Uni. I’ve notes sketches, and bits and pieces in my earliest notebooks. I think this is the world that I’ve kept circling all my adult life, and I might come back to it once I’ve finished the next book (which is due in a couple of weeks, Arrrgh!). I’ve short stories planned, there’s a novella I want to do concerning a person that really only shows up for an instant in book one (and as a corpse, no less, but up until that point they had led a very exciting, if rather tragic, life), there’s poems too. This is the world I always come back to in my mind.

It’s dark and grim (and I’ve glad you’ve noticed the Lovecraftian elements – there’s a reason my blog is called Trentonomicon) – and nonsensical. But it’s also very much grounded in my experience of city spaces. My wife Diana says she can’t read the scenes in Mirrlees or Tate without thinking of Brisbane.

This is Trent’s cool new book trailer for The Roil .

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd-GIecM1jQ]

Q: You’ve written a lot of short stories with an anthology Reserved for Travelling Shows and over 23 stories published individually. Your stories have been finalists in the Aurealis Awards four times and won twice (SF and YA, but also nominated in horror). Just as it is hard to pin down The Roil, it is hard to pin down your short stories. If you had to describe your genre as a writer, how would you do it? And, if that’s too hard, what are your favourite genres to write in?

I like to mess around in various genres. Believe it or not, my first published works were nonsense poems. But I don’t set out to write in a specific genre. Stories start as either a particular image, or a weird sentence or even a beat, I just follow the pulse to end.

I don’t know if I have a favourite genre, I like the grand epic gestures of Urban Fantasy, and the way it’s also curiously intimate.

Steampunk is just glorious, the machines, the clothes, the foggy streets (or in my case rain-drenched). I’m really itching to work on a sword and sorcery novel that has been sitting in my hard drive for years (I sold Death Most Definite, before I could get back to it).

I love genre fiction, but ultimately what makes a tale work is the author writing it not the appurtenances of genre, I love authors that are their own genre, I want to read a Tansy Rayner Roberts story or a Rowena Cory Daniels story or a Marianne de Pierres story or China Mieville or Michael Swanwick or Kim Westwood.

What I would love to be is an author that drags people with them whatever genre they write in (maybe one day, eh) though my sensibilities are deeply fantastical, so they know it’s always going to be a bit weird.

Q: You’ve tutored at Clarion South and the Queensland University of Technology. I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated your critiques at our ROR weekends. Do you have any tips for aspiring writers?

Honestly the most important thing is to read, and read lots. Everything you can get your hands on, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, swim in the words. You don’t learn to riff off words until you’ve heard a lot of tunes. Unless you’re some sort of genius, then you don’t need my advice anyway.

The other thing is to take a delight in it. Writing is play, writing fiction is play, if you’re not enjoying it there are far more lucrative careers than writing (pretty much anything). It’s hard work, hard, hard work, but it should sing for you, too.

Q: Your Death Works trilogy was published by Orbit. The first book, Definite Most Definite was nominated for both the horror and the fantasy section of the Aurealis Awards (again you defy genre). This trilogy combines horror with humour, zombies and death as a corporate business (not to mention a love story).

The trilogy is set in Brisbane, our home town. In an interview on Fangbooks you say: ‘Brisbane is very important to me. From the brown, and slightly ominous coils of the Brisbane River to the flashing transmitters atop Mt Coot-tha, and the knitting needle bunches of the Kurilpa Bridge Brisbane is full of stories (and the possibility of adventure, explosions and love).’ Did you come across any resistance to setting the trilogy in a little-known Australian capital city?

None whatsoever. No-one ever told me not to set it in Brisbane, it never came up. Orbit grabbed it and ran with it, and they’ve never been anything but supportive – maybe it helps that Bernadette Foley, my publisher is from Brisbane!

See Trent’s cool Death Most Definite book trailer.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQtI__Zc5bY]

Q: You’ve been doing a series of quirky and amusing videos. (See See Trent’s Book corners 1- 5 and Trent’s Book Corners 6- 10). What inspired you to start these?

Honestly … I discovered that I had a video camera in my computer and thought, why not? They’re really something I do as a bit of a hobby. I have a rule that they have be pretty rough, and daggy, so far I am in no danger of breaking that rule.

And, I thought, I can do this, whereas I could never see myself podcasting. Galactic Suburbia, the Writer and the Critic, Coode St Review, all of these are brilliant podcasts – that I love, and could never hope to replicate – I figured there was some room for silliness.

Q: By the end of August, you’ll hand in the second Nightbound Land book, Night’s Engines. What do you plan to write next?

Gah! I’ve a kid’s series called The Players that I wrote with an Arts Council Grant a few years back, I’d like to see if I can sell that. I’ve a Sword and Sorcery novel called Empire December that I would like to finally polish up and send out. I’ve a story about a girl that is carried by a storm to a carnival in a cherry orchard run by the devil – and he’s a slick old devil this one. And there’s a Space Opera novel I’ve been meaning to write, not to mention an Urban Fantasy series about a family in Logan City – the city on the southern edge of Brisbane. And there’s a vampire novel that I want to write based on my short story “Day Boy”.

You know how it is, the ideas never stop coming. It’s deciding which one grabs you the most at the time and running with it.

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?

If I pick up a book without knowing the author’s gender I rarely guess correctly, and that’s usually only because the odds suggest I have to get it right some of the time! So, to me, no. Writing is about inhabiting other people’s heads. Good writers of either sex do this. I think there is a difference in the way that different people write fantasy in the politics, the concerns, the lyricism etc that they bring to their work, but gender isn’t as big a determinant of that. Though this is me coming at it as a reader, and I want to read (or at least try) EVERYTHING!

But what happens if you cut out one sex is that you miss out on fifty percent of the voices, fifty percent of the richness of the world. I don’t want to reduce my chance of being surprised and delighted by half.

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

I expect to be entertained, challenged, shocked, and taken somewhere different when I pick up any book.

Margo Lanagan, Kate Griffin, Grace Dugan, Hope Mirrlees, Lucy Sussex, Kirsten Bishop, P.M. Newton, Steph Swainston, Krissy Kneen, Gail Carriger, Kate Elliott, and I could go on and on, all of these writers do that because, like any other writer I admire, they’re not me, I don’t know what they’re thinking or what game they’re playing with their stories, until I read them.

That’s the chief pleasure of reading any work of fiction, you’re reading someone else’s imagination, and mixing it with your own to form a cool sort of imaginative story stew. What an amazing thing that is.

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?

I think it would be to the beginning of the universe. If you could somehow exist and watch the laws of physics coming into play, watch something become, well, something when before there wasn’t anything, how wonderful that would be!

Either that or I’d love to hang out with a T-rex or two.

Give-away Question:

What steampunk technology would you used to travel around the world?

Follow Trent on Twitter:  @trentonomicon

See Trent’s Blog.

Find Trent on GoodReads.

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August 10, 2011 · 9:12 pm

Winner of Erica Hayes Give-away!

Erica says:

It’s such a hard question to answer! I like Cecilia’s idea of spying on those pyramid-building aliens, and Janni’s quest for a cure for MS would be a great one. But I can’t go past curing the evils of smoking for all time, so the winner is Barbara!

I can do whichever book the winner chooses. Hopefully by next week when I get home, I’ll have author copies of Blood Cursed — they’re still on their way from the US, so the winner might have to wait a couple days for that one.

Barbara please email Erica on ez(at)ericahayes(dot)net  to organise the posting of the book.

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August 4, 2011 · 6:54 am

Meet Erica Hayes …

Announcement: Erica has just signed a 2 book contract for an urban fantasy duology with Berkley US. Congratulations!

 

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

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

Q: Book one of The Shadowfae Chronicles came out in 2009. This series is set in Melbourne. Did you ever consider it might be too risky? Were you tempted to set it in a generic US or British city? (Read the first chapter here).

No, not for this one. I really wanted to set the series in a city I knew. And the idea for the warring demon factions in the Shadowfae underworld came from the real-life gang shenanigans in Melbourne, so it seemed only right to leave it there. Neither my agent nor my editor ever asked me to change it, and to my knowledge no one who passed on it did so because of the non-American setting (plenty of other reasons, but setting wasn’t it!)

I wouldn’t say it’s a complete myth that American contemporary fantasy publishers don’t want exotic settings – it’s clear from the evidence of what’s on the shelves that they’re more comfortable with places they believe their readership will find familiar. And hey, most of their writers are American, and they’re writing what they know, same as I am, so American settings are to be expected. But I think if you can make the setting fresh and exciting, and so integral to the story that changing it would lose the flavour, it really doesn’t matter where the action takes place.

In my books, the scene-setting is extra important, because there’s so much sensory detail. I want readers to feel like they’re there, immersed in the sounds and smells and tastes. And I think that’s what you’ve got to do, no matter if it’s America or Australia or darkest Africa.

Q: The second book of the series, Shadowglass came out in March 2010.  (Read the first chapter here). You describe your main character, Ice, as ‘a geeky little fairy girl who wants to be someone else. Anyone else. She doesn’t really care who, so long as it isn’t her own clumsy, tongue-tied self. Sure, she’s got a career, sort of, if you count ‘diamond thief’ as a job. She’s got a pair of crazy fairy friends who’d do anything for her. Life’s not so bad, even if it’s a nasty fairy-hating world out there.’ Do you find your characters spring into your mind fully formed or do you consciously build them?

Usually they spring to mind in cartoon form, if you like – kind of a line-drawing caricature of themselves, with a few defining characteristics. But I do a lot of work after that, to build their backstory and make sure they’re believable.

Ice, for instance, I immediately knew was a geeky fairy girl who steals for a living. But the wanting to be someone else came later. Thing was, I’d never anticipated writing about a main character who was a fairy, and I’d spent the first book in the series showing fairies as these wild party creatures who live fast, die young and never have a plan beyond whatever feels good at the time. Not a good motivation for a main character!

But I couldn’t contradict myself by making her a driven career girl or something. So petty thief Ice is wild and fun-loving and careless, yes, but she has this secret longing for something more, and she’s desperately in love-at-a-distance with her idol, Indigo, who’s a big-time thief and everything she both wants and wants to be. Of course, it’s that yearning that gets her into trouble. With demons, and possessed magic mirrors, and lovesick serial killers. Oyy.

Q: And six months later book three, Poison Kissed, came out. (Read the first chapter here). Were you madly scrambling to write these books to deadlines or had you written several before the first one was accepted?

I’d written two when I sold SHADOWFAE in a two-book contract. But that second manuscript still hasn’t been published – I wrote them a whole new book 2, SHADOWGLASS. That was an interesting experience. I’d never written to a deadline before, and when I told them, ‘sure, six months is no problem!’ I had no idea who or what SHADOWGLASS would be about. I had to ignore my already-written book 2 and reconsider how the series would proceed. But the editor said ‘fairies, please!’ so I said, ‘sure’, and thrashed it about until I came up with something.

Luckily, I discovered that six months is a comfortable timeline for me. The books are around 100K (except book 1, which is very short, though no one seems to have noticed!) so I spend around six weeks outlining and getting the story right, three months or so writing, and the rest of the time doing a few quick revisions before I submit.

My agent isn’t the kind who asks for revisions from the get-go, so we typically send the MS straight to the editor when I’m done. My own revisions are mostly tweaking the character arcs so the romantic development is just right. And trimming: the manuscripts are invariably too long, and because I’ve outlined them until my eyes bleed, I can’t usually cut anything substantial. So I have to lose words by trimming the writing. That gets harder as I get more experienced and my first drafts get tighter, and because these books are intended to be written in a lush and textured style. But I find I can still lose 5% to 10% pretty comfortably. It’s just a matter of ruthlessness!

Oh, and that not-published ex-book 2? Genie meets zombie cat-burglar. That’s all I’m saying…

Q: And book four, Blood Cursed, is being released in August 2011. (Read first chapter here). Have you found that releasing the books 6 months apart has created momentum for the series?

I don’t know. I hope so! But six months is pretty standard for paranormal romance. These days some series are doing back-to-back releases, with books released every month – now that’s momentum!

Still, if books aren’t working for readers, I don’t think a quick release schedule can save them – and if readers love a series, history shows they’re willing to wait. The danger used to be that if you waited too long to publish again, readers would have forgotten about the earlier books, with no chance of a recap because the paperbacks had already disappeared from bookstore shelves. But now, with e-books, the earlier books are ‘in print’ – and visible to readers – for a lot longer, maybe forever. So I’m not sure that release schedules are going to be such a factor in the future.

Q: Each of these books revolves around a mystery. Are you a closet mystery fan?

I never really looked at it that way 🙂 I suppose they are mysteries of a sort! Jade in SHADOWFAE has to hunt down four damned souls, and Mina in POISON KISSED is searching for her mother’s murderer. But it’s basically just to give the characters something to panic about while the romance happens! And the solution to the mystery is always a kick in the face for the heroine as far as the romance is concerned. The plot serves the romance, not the other way around.

I do like mysteries on TV – the gritty British police procedural kind, usually, like Wire in the Blood or Cracker or the new reboot of Sherlock. I love Doctor Who, and he solves mysteries. But I’m not sure I could ever write a procedural – they’re too clever!

Q: Is your next book going to be number five of The Shadowfae Chronicles or are you branching out? Tell us what’s in store.

I’ve got a Shadowfae short story, CHERRY KISSES, coming out in an anthology called HEX SYMBOLS from St Martin’s Press at some stage soon. It’s about a new character, a witchy con artist called Lena. But at the moment, I’m working on other things. I’ve written a space opera, and a dark paranormal romance set in a world that’s not the Shadowfae world, so I’m looking at publishing options for those. And I’m toying with some urban fantasy ideas. A surfeit of new ideas, in fact!

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?

Yeah. That’s the short answer.

What, you want the long answer? So glad you asked 🙂 The ‘big thing’ in fantasy books in America at the moment is obviously urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Not too hard to guess which side of that fence most male authors fall. Female authors – at least the published ones – seem to be willing to include a lot more romance in their books, and to focus on relationships over action. Is it because they have to in order to get published and gain a large readership, seeing as the romance genre is so dominant and it’s what publishers want – or because female writers naturally lean that way and male writers don’t?

I don’t know for sure, but it sure is interesting to note that the biggest thing in fantasy television right now is the old-fashioned antithesis of lone-wolf, kick-ass-chick urban fantasy: Game of Thrones, based on books written by a man, with male screenwriters and a heavily male-dominated cast – except for the most powerful villain, who’s a woman.

I don’t mean these are bad things – I adore Game of Thrones, both the show and the books! And the show does have other strong and important female characters, which is impressive, considering it’s set in a fantasy society that’s dominated by men. But it’s interesting to see what’s required – or what the networks think is required, and in the case of Game of Thrones at least, it worked big-time – for a fantasy show to gain large mainstream popularity. Part of which, apparently, is that the male cast I mentioned is populated with some of the sexiest actors on the planet 🙂

I mean, it’s TV Land, so everyone’s hot, right? And sex always sells, no matter the genre. But part of me suspects that someone at HBO thinks female viewers only watch fantasy for the hot guys – and that’s kind of borne out by the popularity of paranormal romance, right?

Exhibit B: True Blood, another HBO show that I also love, in a surreptitious, guilty-pleasure fashion… A female-written fantasy (Charlaine Harris) seen through the thoroughly male lenses of the show’s creator, Alan Ball. The result: soft porn, or as I saw it described on a comic book website, ‘a show that’s almost entirely about Rogue’s tits’ 🙂 HBO thought they’d get more viewers if the show was more about sex and violence than about fantasy. Which supports the theory that writers put romance in their fantasy books because it’s what the publishers want. What it doesn’t explain is why more male authors don’t do it. So perhaps some innate difference in the way the genders write fantasy is a real factor – it makes sense that we’d all write what we want to read, after all.

Another example is Supernatural, which began as a monster-of-the-week action series (remember season 1?) until, IMO, the network figured out pretty quickly who the majority of their viewers were (women and teenage girls) and turned it into a bromance, because “hell, women want stories about relationships, right? Look at all those romances they read!” As a result, Sam and Dean Winchester are maybe the hottest on-again, off-again couple on TV. Whether this is ‘what women really want’ or not, would Supernatural would be the hit it is today if Sam and Dean weren’t such handsome young things, and if they weren’t so desperately ‘in love’?

Anyway. I’m speculating. I don’t have any facts here. And anything that gets fantasy and/or romance onto the screen is golden with me! But I’d love to know the gender breakdown of viewers for Game of Thrones and True Blood, compared to that of the books’ readership. And how many straight boys watch Supernatural 🙂

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

Umm. Maybe. I know I’m always interested when I see a new urban fantasy book written by a man, just because they’re so rare. I suppose I’d be surprised if I discovered that such a book had a strong romance plot, as opposed to little love-interest subplots. And I think for some reason, I expect more humour and less angst from a male UF writer. This is probably Harry Dresden’s fault.

So is that a yes? I guess it is! Remembering that I’m coming at it from the paranormal romance/urban fantasy corner. If you’re talking about the more epic-style fantasy, probably not so much.

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?

Ooh, that’s a toughie. Backwards or forwards? If backwards, I’ll cling to my desperately romantic view of history and ignore the fact that my feeble 21st century immune system would probably swiftly succumb to smallpox or some horrible rotting fever and I’d die screaming… maybe Imperial Rome? I’d love to see if it’s the way we imagine it.

Or forwards? Yeah, that’d be cool. I want to ride on an interstellar spaceship at faster than the speed of light 🙂 And see the future Galactic Empire, complete with fake gravity and Death Stars.

 

Give-away Question: Erica likes the idea of a time machine, so where-when would you go and why?

 

Follow Erica on Twitter:  @ericahayes

Erica Hayes on Facebook.

Catch up with Erica on GoodReads.

See Erica’s blog.

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