The Clarion Writers workshops http://clarion.ucsd.edu/ and http://www.clarionwest.org/ are now taking applications. At the suggestion of Jim Kelly, former Clarionauts are sharing five things we learned at Clarion as a Facebook meme. Here are my five for non FB people. I want to be a great writer. Which is a real bummer, because being a greatContinue reading “Five lessons learnt at Clarion”
Author Archives: Damien Walter
Do not judge genre by its covers
Science fiction and fantasy book cover designs are as fashion fickle as an emo kid’s dress sense, and produce the same kind of response. Like some sober-suited middle manager tutting over his son’s electric blue spiky haircut, the literary reader sees the genres’ gaudy covers and wonders how they can go out in public lookingContinue reading “Do not judge genre by its covers”
Are you ready to enter Stapledon-Woolf space?
Jim Worrad returns to this blog in the latest of a series of guest posts. Jim is a member of The Speculators writing group, a writer of weird and wondrous Space Opera stories and an interviewer for Interzone magazine. Here Jim has done no less than identify a new literary element – are you readyContinue reading “Are you ready to enter Stapledon-Woolf space?”
Story Sale to Dark Fiction
My Love Sick Zombie Boy Band, very soon to be published in the Hugo award winning Electric Velocipede magazine, has been accepted by Dark Fictions podcast magazine for their April issue, which will be on the theme of The Waste Land (Death, Living Death and Moral Decay) inspired by the TS Eliot poem. In onlyContinue reading “Story Sale to Dark Fiction”
Perform the injunction!
Writers block. Most suffer from it. Many deny its very existence. Some of us manage to do both at the same time. Writing is a complex and demanding mental, emotional and physical task. It’s hardly surprising that even the best of us sometimes fail to muster the necessary forces to support our cause. Having arguedContinue reading “Perform the injunction!”
Locus Round Table Group
Locus discuss my suggestion that to be true, Science Fiction must be beautiful in their Round Table feature. Thanks to Karen Burnham for starting this conversation. Other participants include Paul Graham Raven, Gary K. Wolfe, Andy Duncan, Russell Letson, John Clute, Cheryl Morgan, Paul Witcover and Terry Bisson. You can read the full conversation here.Continue reading “Locus Round Table Group”
To be true, Science Fiction must be beautiful
One of the interesting things about Science Fiction is the way it straddles that gapping canyon of division in contemporary culture between art and science. Fiction is an art. Science is, of course, science. So what do you get if you make art about science? (I strongly object to the idea that Science Fiction hasContinue reading “To be true, Science Fiction must be beautiful”
As a writer you are free
As a writer you are free. You are the freest person there ever was. Your freedom is what you buy with your solitude. Ursula K Le Guin I write as many evenings a week as I can at a nearby library. It belongs to the city university, but I have taken it over piece byContinue reading “As a writer you are free”
Shame on us all
I very rarely comment on politics. I am by nature a non-political person. I tend to see both sides of most arguments, and there are merits and faults with any position in any political debate. Extremism is always wrong. Beyond that, who is right is mostly a matter of your tribal, partisan allegiances. There isContinue reading “Shame on us all”
Damo’s SF prophecies for 2011
It’s a snowin’ in the British Isles, and it’s put me in mind of the coming end of year. So. I have decided to start a new tradition around these parts, and make my predictions for the key trends in SF in the year to come! And now with no further ado we present… Damo’sContinue reading “Damo’s SF prophecies for 2011”
Steampunk Reloaded reviewed by Lauren Westwood
Lauren Westwood is graduate of Loughborough University’s MA in Creative Writing and was a project intern for the Writing Industries Conference. She is a young writer with a passion for SF and Fantasy, but had never heard of steampunk until accepting my challenge to review the Steampunk Reloaded anthology. Here she gives a fascinating insightContinue reading “Steampunk Reloaded reviewed by Lauren Westwood”
Reality is for people who can’t handle Science Fiction
It’s all too easy to dismiss science fiction and fantasy stories as escapist nonsense. But there’s ultimately something despairing about the charge of running away most readers of these genres encounter at some point. It tends to come from an authority figure of some kind – a teacher, a boss, a parent. It is oftenContinue reading “Reality is for people who can’t handle Science Fiction”
Damien Walter 