UPDATE : WordPress.com won’t let me embed the Prezi, so you’ll just have to make use of your opposable thumbs and click the link. If you haven’t discovered Prezi yet, you really should. It’s one of the most powerful communication tools on the interwebs, and possibly a minor-revolution for the written word. But this isn’tContinue reading “This is not a recession, it is the end of an era”
Category Archives: Writing Journal
The SpecFic books I read again and again
John DeNardo challenged a number of writers to think about the speculative fiction they return to again and again. My response is bellow. I would love to see a similar challenge for the nonSF books that Sf writers are influenced by, that would be fascinating. Also, I seem to have declared the death of ScienceContinue reading “The SpecFic books I read again and again”
We need a National Library Service
I know the political climate is not good for encouraging large new public initiatives, but the current problems facing our local, community libraries, with an estimated 500 facing closure this year as a result of government spending cuts, needs to be seriously addressed. As today’s National Save Our Libraries day protest demonstrates, libraries are amongContinue reading “We need a National Library Service”
The now of the book
Since I began writing, the book has been dying. No one has time to read any more. In our busy digital lives prose needs to readjust itself to fit in. It needs to be sliced in to ever tinier sections. The blog-post. The status update. The tweet. These things have their purposes, but they doContinue reading “The now of the book”
My Love Sick Zombie Boy Band
My Love Sick Zombie Boy Band is published in the special double issue of Electric Velocipede #21/22. This story started life as the memory of having my heart pounded to bits when I was a teenager. I really did give the young woman a silver ring, but whether it had any magical properties or not isContinue reading “My Love Sick Zombie Boy Band”
Five lessons learnt at Clarion
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”
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”
Damien Walter 