DALEK IN THE BATHROOM

Want to find out why the hell this post has that title?

Monique Mulligan has interviewed me over at Write Note Reviews.

Go. Read. All will be revealed.

KSP SF MINICON FULL PROGRAM

Oh yes, my friends, I shall be there. And it will start oooh, and aaahhh, then later there will be running, and screaming....

Get your peepers on this little lot and tell me you don't want to come on down and hang out. This is going to be one fabbo day:

The 2012 KSP Speculative Fiction Writers Group Minicon

Panellists include :

Local Writers: Lee Battersby, Amelia Beamer, Hal Colebatch, Cathy Cupitt, Stephen Dedman, Joanna Fay, Satima Flavell, Sonia Helbig, Elaine Kemp, Pete Kempshall, David Kitson, Martin Livings, Dave Luckett, Juliet Marillier, Ian Nichols, Anthony Panegyres, Carol Ryles, Guy Salvidge, JB Thomas. 

When: Sunday, 9 September, 2012  9.30am-4.30pm

Where: Katherine's Place, 11 Old York Road, Greenmount (Turn into the first driveway after you turn in from the highway and park at the back)

Cost: $15, or $10 if you book in advance. Leave a comment at http://kspminicon.blogspot.com.au/ if you want to do this.

Lunch: A decent meal and tea and coffee will be available for a gold coin donation or you can BYO - there are no eateries in the vicinity.

Programme

Discussion Panels: Meeting Room

10:00 Breaking the Rules

“Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em.” - Terry Pratchett

Sometimes the 'rules of writing' need to be broken. But what are they and how and when do you get away with breaking them? And what do you need to be aware of before you do? All the best writers are renowned for breaking rules and new writers are crucified for it, yet there are times when we all need to cross that line.

Lee Battersby

Sonia Helbig

Martin Livings

Anthony Panegyres

Guy Salvidge

1100: Is the Internet the New Slush Pile

Google the question: “is the internet the new slush pile?” and the wisdom of the masses will tell you that since mid 2011, there has been a grass-roots change in the world of publishing. The inference given in hundreds of articles unearthed by such a search is that you should no longer submit to slush piles while trying to get noticed. There's a new wave of authors who publish their material directly to the Internet in the hope that their book will attract the attention of publishers and agents. But what does this method of gaining attention achieve and will it replace the tradition of slush pile Mondays? For that matter, with so many new writers self-publishing, is there a need to be picked up at all? Or is it a path to self-destruction of the writer's rights?

Stephen Dedman

David Kitson

Dave Luckett

Ian Nichols

12:00 Lunch

Book Launch, The Corpse Rat King by award winning author Lee Battersby (Angry Robot Books)

Lee Battersby is the author of the novels The Corpse-Rat King (Angry Robot, 2012) and Marching Dead (Angry Robot, 2013) as well as over 70 stories in Australia, the US and Europe, with appearances in markets as Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, Year’s Best Australian SF & F, and Writers of the Future. A collection of his work, entitled Through Soft Air has been published by Prime Books. He’s taught at Clarion South and developed and delivered a six-week Writing the SF Short Story course for the Australian Writers Marketplace. His work has been praised for its consistent attention to voice and narrative muscle, and has resulted in a number of awards including the Aurealis, Australian Shadows and Australia SF ‘Ditmar’ gongs.

He lives in Western Australia, with his wife, writer Lyn Battersby and an increasingly weird mob of kids. He is sadly obsessed with Lego, Nottingham Forest football club, dinosaurs, the Goon Show and Daleks. He’s been a stand-up comic, tennis coach, cartoonist, poet, and tax officer in previous times, and he currently works as the Arts Co-ordinator for a local council, where he gets to play with artists all day. All in all, life is pretty good.

For more about Lee see: http://www.davidmcdonaldspage.com/2012/06/2012-aussie-snapshot-lee-battersby/

1:00 Critting and Crowd-Sourced Editing

Should writers have their manuscripts criticised by a broad audience of their fellow writers? What value does it add to your work? Can you lose your ideas by letting others see your manuscript before the editor does? How about crowd-sourcing of editing? Is it possible to let others perform the work for you while reading early revisions of your manuscript? And how do you even take advantage of such services? Should they be avoided completely?

Amelia Beamer

Satima Flavell

Pete Kempshall

Juliet Marillier

Anthony Panegyres

2:00 Building Characters without Cardboard

In online reviews, a common complaint against many recent authors, especially those who choose to self-publish, is that their characters seem two-dimensional or otherwise lack depth. So what does the aspiring author need to consider in their writing so that their characters seem more real to the reader? And how do they achieve it? Are characters planned or imagined? And what are the pitfalls that many new writer, and even experienced ones, fall into? And how do you write convincing characters from the other gender?

Lee Battersby

Martin Livings

Juliet Marillier

Carol Ryles

JB Thomas

3:00 Has Erotica Become Just another Mainstream Sub-Genre

With Fifty Shades of Grey now the fastest selling book ever, it's difficult to ignore the part that erotica has played in this series’ success. Writers thinking of including sexually explicit content in their novels are often confused by the terms ‘erotica’ and ‘pornography’. How should a modern writer approach this situation? How to avoid mistakes? Should erotica feature in a serious novel at all?

Amelia Beamer

Cathy Cupitt

Stephen Dedman

Elaine Kemp

Kaffeeklatsch Schedule (Library)

1PM – 1:30PM Joanna Fay: Publishing with a small press overseas

Joanna’s Daughter of Hope, the first novel in her epic fantasy sequence The Siaris Quartet, has recently been published as an e-book by Musa Publishing, a relatively new e-press in the USA. From the comfort of her lounge room in the Perth hills, Joanna has taken an intensive 'high learning curve' this year on the road to publication, while coming to grips with both the potential and pitfalls of online promotion.

2PM - 2:30PM David Kitson: Self Publishing – A complete end to end guide for anyone planning on doing it themselves

David’s self-published novel, Turing Evolved, broke into the top 20 Science Fiction book list on Amazon.com and is now rated at four-and-a-half stars with one hundred and fifty customer reviews. Learn about David’s experiences with editing, uploading, customer feedback and eventual contact and representation by a literary agent.

3PM – 3:30PM Juliet Marillier: Theme to be announced

Juliet is a New Zealand-born writer who now lives in WA. Her historical fantasy novels for adult and young adult readers include the popular Sevenwaters series and the Bridei Chronicles. Juliet’s books have won many awards including the American Library Association’s Alex Award, the Prix Imaginales and the Aurealis Award. Her lifelong love of folklore, fairy tales and mythology is a major influence on her writing. Juliet has two books out this year: Shadowfell, first instalment in a fantasy series for young adults (available now) and adult fantasy Flame of Sevenwaters, to be published in November.

   

I WILL PERSUADE YOU, MY PRETTIES

Man, I have been all over the interwebbernets in the wake of The Corpse-Rat King Approacheth Day TM (That'd be TODAAAAAAY).

If you need persuading to part with some readies, allow me to point you to the following reviews:

• ·         Beauty in Ruins
• ·         Thirteen O’Clock
• ·         Fantasy Bytes
• ·         British Fantasy Society
• ·         Troubled Scribe
• ·         Mike L Andrews
• ·         Melinda’s Bibliophile Blog

Not to mention I've been interviewed by a bunch of people. 

• ·         Beauty in Ruins
• ·         A Thousand Wrongs
• ·         Dark Scrybe
• ·         Rowena Cory Daniells
• ·         Aussie Snapshot 2012, Ebon Shores

Not to mention guest blogging. Oh, there has been guest blogging:

• ·         Angry Robot
• ·         The Qwillery
•           Ripping Ozzie Reads

And if you still need persuading, what else can I do but offer you a bitching mega-extract courtesy of Pat's Fantasy Hotlist?

·       

Enjoy it, my fine fellows, for tomorrow we die! Well, not really. But enjoy it anyway.

SO THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE

After almost two years since I wrote the first words as part of Nanowrimo 2010, I can finally look my little book in the eyes and proudly say:

Release Day!

The Corpse-Rat King (CRK to its friends) is officially available. 

Go. Buy. make your Uncle Lee happy.

KSP MINI-CON ON AGAIN!

It's nearly time for the biennial KSP Minicon at the Katherine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre up in leafy and lovely Greenmount.

There's always a good mix of panels and a relaxed attitude. I'll be on two panels this year, including 'Breaking The Rules', which is likely to be lively :)

And I'll be launching The Corpse-Rat King! I'm talking to the publisher about getting copies,  and if they don't arrive in time I'll still be doing a reading and handing out signed things-- if not the book, then definitely things-- and we'll sort out getting copies into your hot little hands if they're not already arrived, and it'll be my usual blend of chaos, irreverence and sweariness no matter what happens.

It's on Sunday, 9 September, from 9.30am-4.30pm at Katherine's Place, Old York Road, Greenmount. The whole day will cost you only $15, or $10 if you book in advance, which you can do by heading over to this KSP Minicon page post and leaving a comment. They'll also have a good lunch available for $5 or you can BYO - there are no eateries in the vicinity, so it's a good idea to be prepared one way or the other.

And make sure you like their Facebook page while you're at it: all the cool kids are doing it.