Marilyn Manson vs. Lewis Carroll

Marilyn Manson is making a film about Lewis Carroll and Alice. I'm split down the middle: should I be terribly excited or terribly scared?

Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll

There will be more Alice saturation in the form of Burton and Depp (yay!!) as well as the screen version of American McGee's Alice (oooh) - if only it can get itself out of developement hell.

The Violinist

I just finished the first draft of a short story called "The Violinist". I'm pretty happy with the rough draft, and don't think it will need much more, just some editorial tightening. Then again, I have been wrong about these things before.

I'm not sure what exactly the tale is about. It might be about science vs. faith, and how both cannot be depended upon to be either right or wrong. Perhaps that neither should be absolute moral compasses. It might also be about the identities we create for ourselves in order to come to terms with who we are. I'm not sure.

Either way, a fine way to end off 2008, writing wise. *clink*

When Someone Gets It

It's always a tiny, yet visceral thrill when a reviewer says something about something you wrote indicating that they got it.

Charles Tan, at his blogspot had this to say recently about "Outside The Box" (Spicy Slipstream Stories) --

""Outside the Box" by Lynne Jamneck... I wouldn't call it a O. Henry story but its speculative element enters the last scene and changes how you read the entire narrative. Aside from that fact, Jamneck recaptures noir detective elements, from the investigation protocol to eventually getting beaten up. This is one of those pieces that definitely fits in a slipstream anthology."

And when said story happens to be one of your own personal favourites, the compliment is like sweet-sweet-sticky-candy.

2009 Sneaking Up...

Well, I'm back in Welly and survived Christmas! I spent five days up in Auckland with Jen's family, and though things were pretty hectic, it was a nice distraction from thinking too much about my own family being so far away. Jen's still away until the 2nd of January, so it will be a quiet New Year for me, which suits me. Particularly since everyone seems to want to get as alcoholically pulverized as possible, and drunk people have a special place of absolute annoyance in my black little heart.

STUDIES.

I decided to not do the double major (make up your mind, dammit!), but instead finish my BA in the first trimester of 2009, then start Honors in the second. Hip Hip Hooray! Soon I will be a postgrad :) Now, as part of that, I will be doing a research paper of approx 10 000 words and I'm already thinking about topics and how I can involve H.P. Lovecraft in it. I'm such a geek. :}

And just because I linked Auckland, I shall now link Wellington, too.

Spicy Slipstream Stories Review

If you're a fan of slipstream, I urge you to check out the Spicy Slipstream Anthology edited by Jay Lake and Nick Mamatas. The story I wrote for the anthology, "Outside The Box" is still one of my favourites, and unlike other things I've penned, it just never seems to annoy me.

The Fix reviewd the anthology HERE.

I'm particularly fond of the reviewer's notion about my own story: "Oddly enough, the ending works."

Lambda Awards - Periphery

Periphery - Erotic Lesbian Futures is among the nominees for the 2009 Lambda Awards!

Current Nominee List

Now we bite fingernails untill the shortlist is announced...

Margo Lanagan Interview And More!

For fans of YA novelist and short story writer Margo Lanagan, I recently had the pleasure of interviewing the author for Suite101. The interview is in two parts; part one links HERE, with a link at the end to part two.

Other recent articles up at the site include an interview with Arkham Tales editor Nathan Shumate, and reviews for The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, The Year's Best Science Fiction, and Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft.

All articles areaccessible through my main page, too. Includes interviews with Kat Richardson (the Greywalker series), Lilith Saintcrow (Jill Kismet books) and Marianne de Pierres (author of this year's Aurealis nominated Chaos Space for Best Novel)

Strickland Diaries at WordPress

For those who have a WordPress blog/account, I've re-activated mine as a Strickland Diaries page with info pertaining to the first Alex Strickland book.

Puppet Sold!

I wrote "Puppet" about a year ago. It was one of those stories that just kind of pop into your head and stay there, demanding to be written. It involves Heinrich Himmler, a strange object and a cryptologist who gets the fright of her life. Arkham Tales has just bought the story, and I'm delighted. Plus, if you head on over to the website you can now download their very first issue, edited by Nathan Shumate, for free!

Ugh. I Wish I'd Never Heard Of...

Sarah Palin.

Ick.

If The World Could Vote In The 2008 US Elections

The vote would go to.....

SEE AND VOTE FOR YOURSELF!

I'm In! Oh God.

Instead of taking of the first month I have
free in two years (i.e. no studying)
I'm doing NanoWrimo. Yay! : D

Periphery Excerpt!

For your reading pleasure, Gwyneth Jones' short story
The Voyage Out, included in Periphery has been
excerpted at Gay/Lesbian Fiction Excerpts.

Enjoy!

So Fey Re-Released!

So Fey has just been re-released by Prime Books and is available for pre-order at Amazon.

This 320-page anthology features my story How Laura Left a Rotten Apple and Came Not to Regret the Cold of the Yukon, which was a recent Spectrum Award nominee. In fact, So Fey was a big presence at this year's Gaylaxion/Spectrum Awards, with several of the short stories included in the anthology garnering nominees in the short story category. The collection itself was up for Best Anthology (Editor, Steve Berman), and at the end of the night, altogether 3 stories from So Fey were fellow finalists for Best Short Story with the winner in that category being Josh Lewis's "Ever So Much More than Twenty" from the book. Congratulations Josh, and all the other wonderful authors in So Fey, and Steve for making it all happen.

To Nano or not to Nano

I'm seriously thinking of tackling NaNoWriMo this year, since I have the whole of November off untill my summer paper starts December 1st...

More In October!

Wrote two final tests on the same day for two internally assessed university papers (God and The Poets and Antarctica: Unfreezing The Continent)

One more exam this Saturday: Children's Literature - A Special Topic. I have Philip Pullman, Ursula LeGuin, C.S. Lewis and Maurice Gee coming out of my ears.

Stalking Daylight - It's Official !

Press Release

Enchanter Options Rights to Multi-Award Nominated Author Marianne De Pierres & Lynne Jamneck’s Science Fiction Script Stalking Daylight

Sydney, October 1st, 2008: Enchanter has optioned Marianne De Pierres & Lynne Jamneck’s science fiction script Stalking Daylight, it was announced by Enchanter CEO Matt Carter.

Stalking Daylight tells the story of Dresher, a bright young gaming talent who is faced with some tough choices when her father contracts neuro-transmitter disease. The Earth has changed, and those inhabitants who worship technology are at odds with those who choose to live without it. Dresher must venture into Luddite territory to find the medication that her father needs to survive. But the cure comes at a terrible price.

“Marianne and Lynne have created a visually striking world, where technology is now the opiate of the masses and Dresher’s realizations, as she journeys to a place where technology is not worshipped, has a strong message to our society today and the choices we face,” said Carter.

Marianne de Pierres is the author of the multi award-nominated Parrish Plessis and Sentients of Orion series. The Parrish Plessis series has been translated into eight languages and adapted into a Role Playing Game. More information about Marianne can be found at www.mariannedepierres.com

Lynne Jamneck's writing has been published in numerous markets. Recently she edited the Periphery anthology for Lethe Press. She is currently studying a MA in Literature, and working on her first speculative novel. More information about Lynne can be found at http://lynnejamneckdiaries.blogspot.com/

Matt Carter is an independent film producer and CEO of Enchanter Pty Ltd. He is a graduate from the Australian Film, Television & Radio School in 2005 with a Masters in Producing, and the New York Film Academy. He has produced over twenty short films, including drama, documentary, ads / promotions & DVD’s. His films have screened at over 60 film festivals worldwide, and include the success for Best Experimental Film at the Dendy Awards at the Sydney Film Festival in 2005.

About Enchanter

Enchanter Pty. Ltd. is a dynamic Sydney based film, television and media Production Company that specialises in the development and financing of Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre stories.

Our mission is to develop innovative and commercially successful genre projects for the worldwide market, utilising the depth of talent that is available locally. We aim to foster creative talent, international partnerships, economic growth and technological advancement.

Our target market is to appeal to global teen and young adults - the 18 to 24-year-old audiences, which is the largest demographic of the domestic and international movie-going public.

Contact: Matt Carter

Enchanter Pty Ltd

Phone: (02) 9699 4341

Email: info@enchanter.com.au
113/1 Marian Street

Redfern

NSW 2016

www.enchanter.com.au

It's October, And What Have I Got To show For It?

You know how you get bogged down during the year with all the mundane efforts of life and then wake up one morning when the year is near an end and think "jeez, what have I really done this year?"

That's where I'm at.

So I decided a list was in order.

1. Completely restructured a novel; initially called The First Virtue, now provisionally titled Book One of the Strickland Diaries.
2. Published Periphery on Valentine's day, 2008.
3. Created a concise, full and fleshed world in which said novel takes place. Drew maps. Fun.
4. Wrote 12 essays for six university papers (Trimester one and two).
5. Wrote one exam in trimester one on Contemporary Fiction and a final test on Biology of Religion.
6. Wrote a 5 000 word short story called Magique which is set within the Strickland Universe (Read excerpt HERE). Didn't plan it, just happened. Currently under submission to Strange Horizons.
7. Finalised contracts with Enchanter Productions in Sydney for co-writing a film treatment with Marianne de Pierres.
8. Read 23 books/novels for 3 English Papers.
9. Holding down part time job at Victoria University of Wellington.
10. Entered the Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition (NZ); awaiting results.

Ten outta ten ain't bad.

OMG The Eighties Are Back! (Finally!)

I've been waiting for someone to bring back the 80's in a stylish way and boy, does Ladyhawke do it magnificently. Currently a darling of the Brits, Ladyhawke (aka Pip Brown) is a New Zealand musician currently best known for her single "Paris Is Burning". It's a great song, but personally I feel there are much stronger tracks on her debut album (and really, there's not one weak track among the list), such as Dusk Till Dawn and Back of the Van.

Ladyhawke is the love-child of Pat Benetar, Kim Wilde, Stevie Nicks and Blondie. I rarely get excited about new music these days; everything sounds the same. I might be entering that phase where I believe that I've already heard the best of my generation and tend to listen to artists I'm already familiar with. But even I like to be proven wrong every now and again.

For a review of Ladyhawke's debut album, click HERE

Will Steampunk Please Take Over The World?

Insightful articles HERE and HERE
about one of my favourite literary
genres, Steampunk.

Hah! Hey wait - I Should Know This Already!

BUFFY COAT

The buffy coat is the fraction of an anticoagulated blood sample after density gradient centrifugation that contains most of the white blood cells and platelets.

Joss Whedon is a genius.

SOURCE: Wikipedia

Slipstream Goodness!

Spicy Slipstream Stories edited by Jay Lake and Nick Mamatas has just gone one sale at Amazon. My short story, Outside The Box, features alongside some wonderful authors including Lori Selke, Chris Nakashima-Brown, Carrie Vaughn and David Schwartz. If you're already a fan of slipstream, this collection will be a curious and wonderful addition to your bookshelves. If you're new to the genre and have always wanted to find out more, the stories collected here are certain to leave you wanting more.

Evolution vs Creationism

It's getting a bit scary, really. Who in their right mind can believe that the world is 10 000 years old? How far back do we potentially push ourselves if creationism and intelligent design gets taught in schools?

What are your views?

CREATIONISM BITES INTO THE UK

What-hello?!

Sarah Palin just keeps endearing herself to me. Not.

Alaska's state governor Sarah Palin, Republican vice-presidential candidate in November's US election, is an advocate of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

SOURCE: NEW SCIENTIST

Because I Like Pop Culture References

Beam Us Some Knowledge, Scotty !

The Large Hadron Collider will be switched on soon.
Imagine what we could possibly learn from this experiment.

The BBC site linked below has some comprehesive coverage going of the event if you're so inclined.

Interview at Circlet Press

I did an interview for Circlet Press which has just gone live HERE

Thanks to Jennifer Blackmore for the great questions!

Jules Verne Goes Space Sailing.

The father of Steampunk would be smiling, I think.

Periphery Garners Aurealis Award Nomination

Marianne De Pierres' story, Origins, collected in Periphery has been nominated for an Aurealis Award. Though shortlisting is the real test, this is still nice.

The Movies On Sunday Morning - Hellboy 2

Jen and I went to watch Hellboy 2: The Golden Army this morning. It's still kind of weird seeing Luke Goss--even in layers of make-up--after first encountering him as half of the 90's band Bros.

As for the movie, it was good fun, visually beautiful as one can expect with anything Guillermo del Toro touches. (OMG - I can't wait for his film version of HP Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness .. !!) Several of the designs in Golden Army was reminiscent of del Toro's designs for Pan's Labyrinth. And Johann Krauss' suit was a nice tip of the hat to Steampunk. Perhaps the script did fall a little short in places, not as tight as the first film, but del Toro has a knack for bringing out unexpected reactions in his audiences; at least, in me. I had a case of the watery eye when Red had to kill the plant elemental. That kicked home. Ouch.

Friday Buffy-ness

After having a lengthy conversation about how fantastic the Buffy The Vampire Slayer television series is, here's a poll, just for the fun and the fans. (See top left of page)

"The hardest thing in this world is to live in it."
Buffy The Vampire Slayer - "The Gift"

Americans in New Zealand Wants Me To Tell An American To Vote

They were handing these out at the bus stop in Wellington
earlier this week.
I work with at least one American at the university -
she and her husband are still awaiting their voting forms
after three months...
(click pic for bigger version)

Periphery Reviews

Several new reviews for Periphery:

OurChart

HipsterBookClub

Rainbow Reviews

*Puffs Proudly*

Previously, on Weebly...

I've had enough people now tell me that they are having trouble accessing the Weebly site where I post general updates about my writing that I think moving these to a seperate blog on Blogger is called for. That was a long sentence.

From now on, please find these updates here. I will post a direct link from The Strickland Diaries as well. Below, I have posted all the entries that had been on Weebly to date.

Apologies for any inconvenience and the changing of bookmarks!


WEEBLY NOTICES TO DATE:


Juno Maps

07/14/2008

Check out the partial maps of Juno City at my novel blog. CLICK!

Blog About THE BOOK
06/24/2008

I've created a blog, STRICKLAND DIARIES solely devoted to the unnamed novel I'm writing because I didn't want it cluttering up this space with all manner of weird yet interesting things. Head on over and check it out. Especially if you happen to be fluent in French, or know much about physics and math. And quantum theory.

Nicola Griffith Interview
06/17/2008

A new interview with Nicola Griffith in four parts is now up at Suite101.
Each part contains a link at the end to the following part.

Marianne de Pierres Interview

06/14/2008

I interviewed Australian SF author Marianne de Pierres,
award-nominated author of the awesome Parrish Plessis and and Sentients of Orion series, for Suite101.

Read the interview, in two parts HERE

Periphery Review
06/12/2008

At Pretty-Scary, a great review for Periphery.

Article At Suite101
06/12/2008

My latest article, Writing Speculative Fiction, is now up at Suite101. Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

Haunted Hearths Review
06/12/2008

My story The Oath was recently published in Haunted Hearths (Ed. Catherine Lundoff). A review just went up at Pretty-Scary. I had a lot of fun writing it, because it's a small-town tale and has Gypsies :)

Feed Your Armies With Clonazepam and Zoloft
06/10/2008

This is alarming. A human rights violation without anyone raising an eyebrow.

America's Medicated Army

New Editorial Project

06/04/2008

Still pretty hush-hush-ims, but wickedly cool Australian SF author Marianne de Pierres and I are conspiring on a new speculative anthology. Watch this space...

Mark Deniz Announces Scenes From A Second Storey
04/23/2008

And here it is then! Mark has just officially announced the anthology for which he asked me to contribute to. It will be called Scenes From A Second Storey, and there will be both an Australian and International version.

In My Other Life I'm An Academic

04/22/2008

Who'd have thought it. But yes, I think academic life appeals to me a bit, even though I am still adjusting to the whole idea of being graded and having to write exams 14 years after having left school.
It's mid-term break right now. My major is English Literature, but I've also been taking Religious Study papers, simply because the nature of the papers have always been a personal interest of mine. This term I'm doing Religion and Human Biology, which focus on Darwinian Evolution and how we might be evolutionary primed to believe in supernatural agents. The English paper I'm doing is Contemporary Fiction, which features the following prescribed books:

• The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
• The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
• On Beauty by Zadie Smith
• Eucalyptus by Murray Bail
• The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
• The Queen of Subtleties by Suzannah Dunn
• The Sea - Murray Banville

It's always a good thing to read something you normally wouldn't, and literary fiction is not something I pick up regularly. Some of these books I have really enjoyed, though as a genre writer I cannot be but galled when the authors are considered better writers than, say a Stephen King or a Nicola Griffith. Thus, I chose to write my first essay on a discussion of literary merit, comparing Jonathan Franzen and Stephen King in terms of what their fiction might contribute on a cultural level, and whether such contribution may possibly influence the merit of the work. we'll see how it goes.

New Short Story

04/22/2008

The wonderful Mark Deniz of Morrigan Books has asked me to contribute an original story to an anthology he will be editing. I don't think he has said much about this publicly, so lest I not be the one to let the cat out of the bag. Suffice to say that I think his concept for the collection will yield fine and intriguing results. I'm thrilled to be part of it.

Stalking Daylight

04/22/2008

Australian SF author Marianne de Pierres and I have been working, on and off for two years on a film treatment for Enchanter Productions, tentatively titled Stalking Daylight. We just heard from the producer interested in the treatment that he would like to option the treatment so he can take it to the Cannes Film Festival as one of his projects in a bid to garner further interest. This is good news, especially after Marianne and I have worked quite a bit on the project and are really both at the point where we want to see it move on to the next step. Fingers crossed!

Periphery Now Available

Periphery - Erotic Lesbian Futures is now available. The first 200 copies sold out within two weeks and left the publisher scrambling for more. Thanks to Steve Berman at Lethe for the great job he's been doing amidst all the other kerfuffles he's had to attend to. If we sell a few more, it will be the biggest title Lethe Press has ever had. (Bribe your friends now!)

Table of Contents

Marianne de Pierres
Nicola Griffith
Gwyneth Jones
Kristyn Dunnion
Lyda Morehouse
Tracey Shellito
Melissa Scott
Carolyn Ives Gilman
Jean Stewart
Catherine Lundoff
Elspeth Potter
Cecilia Tan
Sharon Wachsler

Periphery Reviews

Arlene Germain, Contributing editor, The Crown
"An exceptional collection of 14 stories of remarkable and wondrous erotic science fiction. While exploring the spectrum of human emotions, the quintessential hallmark of great storytelling, the various talented authors take the reader on a magical and sensual sojourn. A captivating and compelling reading experience awaits those who dare to venture beyond the ordinary. . . . Well worth the time to enjoy. There is something to satisfy everyone within these covers. . . . A genuine galactic jewel. . . . Offers an odyssey which will fascinate, excite, and enlighten any reader."

Sheela Ardrian, Reviewer, Fearless Books
Works on all three facets: as erotica, as Lesbian literature, and as science fiction. Many of the stories emphasize one or two of those facets over others, but a few manage to balance all three with thrilling results. This is also a fine sampling of work from today's prominent writers of queer and speculative fiction. . . . Fans of dystopic science fiction will be especially delighted. This would make an ideal textbook for a class on queer literature or dystopic fiction. Grab a copy before the fundies set them on fire.