Something big to shout about

At last year’s NewCon5 in Northampton I met a gifted artist, Andy Bigwood. He was looking for writers to be inspired by his art, and create flash stories to be in his forthcoming book, The Sixty. It has a launch date with Ian Whates’ anthology ‘Further Conflicts’ at 6pm on 22nd April at EasterCON, National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham UK. This won’t be the first time I have written fiction inspired and accompanied by art. One of my favourites where I had time changing with altitude was What Kept You? published in Ultraverse here. The Sixty is something special in that my fiction is not only in a wonderful book of art, but alongside favourite writers such as Bec Zugor, who was with me in M is for Monster, and in Escape Velocity. Also the creative genius, Liz Williams, who has my Exit, Pursued by a Bee on sale in her witchcraft shop in Glastonbury.

Of course all the authors involved cannot grace the cover so I am one of ‘the many more’ , of which I am proud. For in that many more are superb writers I am honoured to be with. Jon Pinnock and Bec included.

Andy Bigwood’s art can be found in his online gallery here.

Escape Velocity: The Anthology

The anthology of best and new stories submitted to Adventure Books of Seattle’s Escape Velocity magazine is nearing fruition. Last night I finished proofreading 35 stories for the anthology. Not all will be used in it because some are now rather dated and we want the publication to excite readers with its brilliance. Names you might know that are in it are in random order:

Rebecca Latyntseva, Ian Whates, Rosie Oliver, Robert Harkess, William C McCall, Clyde Andrews, Gayle Applegate, David Tallerman, Brian Koscienski and Chris Pisano, Mark Lewis, Gareth D Jones, Joshua Blanc, Gavin J Carr, David Wallace Fleming, Karl Bunker, Sheila Crosby, Ben Bamber, Branden Johnson, Barbara Krasnoff, Ian Smith, Tina M Crone, Bec Zugor, Barry Pomeroy, Lawrence Buentello, Richard Jay Goldstein, Paul Freeman, Adam Colston, Kaolin Fire, Derek Rutherford, and a couple of stories from me and Robert Blevins. Hopefully, we can squeeze in a cartoon by Roberta Gregory too.

We have March 17th as a release date. That may be optimistic but best to have goals. The stories range from edgy noir near future, to struggling on a space rock, weird stuff in future in-ear audio devices to how can a child-bride save herself, both from a violent husband and the psychiatrist. I am exuberant over this anthology. It’s taken a lot of time and work – the nearest an editor gets to giving birth – in a literary sense!

New pals at NewCon5

I’ve just returned from NewCon5 in Northampton – a convention for lovers of science fiction. I had a nice long chat at what in many conventions are called Kaffeeklatsche (German – sort of – for a coffee chat about almost anything with Paul Cornell: author of many SF books and graphic comics including Dr Who novels, Captain Britain, and the recent Young Avengers series. I had a good chat with Jaine Fenn, successful author of Principles of Angels. We discussed the possibility of Adventure Books of Seattle (I am the British branch) being a distributor of Sam Stone’s books. Also with Juliet McKenna, who has graciously accepted to read my Xaghra’s Revenge novel with a view to endorsing it. I have an endorsement for it already from Jon Courtenay Grimwood, who was born in the Maltese Islands where the novel is set.

While there it was a pleasure to meet up with old friends such as Ian Whates. who organised the successful NewCon, and with others such as Sam Stone, her publisher, Terry Martin, and with my old friend, Terry Jackman of the BSFA Orbiters. It was my pleasure to read and review a pre-published version of Sam Stone’s Demon Dance. Also from BSFA (British Science Fiction Association) Orbiters but whom I’d not met in person before, was Robert Harkess and his wife. Robert is a skillful writer and has helped me with critiques of many of my short stories. At the con was Northampton’s jester, Kevin Burke, on his modern bendy stilts. Always a friendly chap – remember he was with me at NewCon4 helping me sell Exit, Pursued by a Bee. Which reminds me that it was a pleasure to hear Robert Harkess say he’d just finished reading Exit on his Kindle. Excellent!

On my train homeward journey I’ve been planning the science fiction workshop session I am doing with the Llandudno Writers’ group. I did a session with them earlier in the year on how to win short story competitions. A creative and appreciative bunch they are too. Brian Lux, writer of excellent children’s stories, is my contact with them.

My nephew, Ben Bamber, is in the papers again. His dystopic novella, The Vast and Gruesome Clutch of Our Law is now out as an ebook at the innovative site, Smashwords, and an article about it has appeared in the Gloucestershire Echo.  The text of the piece is on the Echo’s site here.

Another link for you is my review of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale at Compulsive Reader. Is it Science Fiction? I don’t think so: just because a story is set in the future it doesn’t make it SF automatically unless the change in the future features intrinsically. Nevertheless. I enjoyed reading the book. My review.

Fancy that at FantasyCon

FantasyCon is a bit like a writers’ club, one that specialises in fantasy and science fiction. In spite of writing about things that hit the back of readers’ minds, scaring the hell out of them and stirring the ordinary into the extraordinary often with ghouls and black moments, those writers are wonderfully warm and friendly. Take Sam Stone, who writes about nothing but vampires, who want to rip out our necks or create the undead from the innocent: she is an effervescent blonde (this time with intriguing purple edges). Her fiction is edgy and sometimes eye-watering yet her hugs and welcoming eyes are so inviting. I couldn’t help noticing her hand stroking a thigh while she talked to me yesterday – pity that thigh belonged to her husband! Hah. Then she told me that her latest novel, Demon Dance, had my name on the back cover blurb. Yeay! I rarely offer to read pre-published books on the computer: I much prefer a printed version since my eyes spend too much time already scrolling and rolling on the small screen.  I made an exception for Sam and her publisher, Terry Martin – again a friendly soul and publisher of Murky Depths that won an award this year – congrats! So my few words of favour won a place on the back of her book. To order Demon Dance here.

At FantasyCon 2010 – held in Nottingham where fortuitously my granddaughter, Amy, lives with son Rob and daughter-in-law, Tracey and her so cute daughter, Liddie Ann – I met up with good friends Steve Upham of Screaming Dreams; Ian Whates, who is a man of so many writing talents (including having a story in our Escape Velocity issue #4), organiser of NewCon5 in October in Northampton, and publisher of NewCon press - and who owes me £20 !; David Tallerman - extraordinary writer who will go far; Nick Wood – psychologist (yeay I spelt it right first time for the first time) and award-winning short story writer; Pauline Morgan, Andrew Hook and many other good ‘horrific’ people.

At FantasyCon is a table groaning under the weight of second-hand science fiction / fantasy paperbacks. I looked for a particular author, Christopher Priest, because Graham Weaver, the new member of the Chester Library SF book group is a fan of Priest and I felt ignorant. That is I am sure I have read his work in the past but couldn’t remember. So I asked the second-hand book owner for a Chris Priest book. He found one then told me how the author’s first wife, Lisa Tuttle, was standing in the room behind me! Coincidences? I have to believe in them. The SF / F writing world is a small world even with so much varied talent.

Steve Upham organised the art show this year. Andy Bigwood is an artist I have admired in the past and would pay good money to have his blend of photo-realism and creative painting (digital and paintbrush) grace the covers of my books. Chatting to him he wondered if I would be part of a project in which writers would add a 300-word-story to one of his paintings. I readily agreed. I recall doing something similar for Ultraverse. I wrote a story in which time changed velocity with height. Here it is. Ah, that reminds me, I must sketch out a draft for Andy. His website is here.

I only stayed at FantasyCon for a few hours on Saturday – so much packed in. Brilliant.

Escape Velocity #4 is here

After a delay through the latter half of 2008, we at Adventure Books of Seattle are pleased to announce the release of Escape Velocity magazine of science fiction and fact. It’s a lovely glossy covered 100+ pages mag.

There is an interview with Stefan Arngrim from the Irwin Allen TV series Land of the Giants. Sonny Whitelaw of Stargate novels fame submitted a story. Photo features include ‘Flight of the Phoenix – The University of Arizona Goes to Mars’ and many historical photos from the infamous NASA ‘G.R.I.N’ files. Nine other sci-fi short stories, science articles, Jasper Fforde and lots of other great stuff.

To purchase visit http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=1727255

Note to contributors: payments in process. Please be patient, especially for contributors’ copies.