Just a quick signal boost: Each year the Australian Horror Writers’ Association holds a short story and flash fiction contest, and this year I’m one of the judges. It’s a great little contest. Winners receive a cool engraved plaque, paid publication in the association’s magazine Midnight Echo, and bragging rights for a whole year 🙂
Entries are open till May 31st. More details here:
http://australianhorror.com/index.php?view=57
Sometimes, the best anecdotes involve those things that didn’t quite work out. In writing circles, we’ve all got that project that crashed and burned, the one that got away, the thing that for whatever reason lost its mojo, usually after a lot of effort, time, and heartache.
One of my favourite failure anecdotes was to talk about Tusk. This was a novel I wrote in 2004, the product of the Colin Thiele Literature Scholarship that I received from the SA Youth Arts Board. I was fortunate enough to be mentored by local fantasy author Tony Shillitoe, and over the course of 18 months or so I wrote this novel to the best of my abilities.
The tagline for Tusk is this: telepathic elephants enslave mankind. Planet of the Elephants, or as Tony called it “Gladiator in Grey”. So I spent a large chunk of time/money writing this book, sent it to one place, got a rejection, buried it in a drawer and it physically pained me to look at this MS forever afterwards. Again, we’re talking the journeyman stage of my career, where the sting of rejection is a brutal thing.
This was 2005 me. 2011 me is much older, much wiser, and much more ruthless. Especially when it comes to editing. So, after many years of fermenting, Tusk has once more seen the light of day, and has been polished to within an inch of its life. Even better than that, it’s already found a really awesome home.
Which brings me to the next part of this announcement. Black Glass Press have teamed up with the folks at Black House Comics to come up with a new regular anthology comic, called Terra Magazine. There are some brilliant (nay, award-winning) folks from comic circles involved with this project, and there’s a bit of everything in this book. It’s a bit like 2000AD, in that there are ongoing serial stories, you will soon find it on the shelves in your local newsagent, and there’s never a dull moment.
This book has got samurai, detectives, freaks in space, sorcery, yakuza, and cyborg lunatics. Terra Magazine is also the new home for Tusk, which will now be released as a serial story, illustrated prose much like Gaiman’s original stardust. It’s the only non-comic instalment, and will appear in each issue.
There’s some more info about Terra Magazine here:
http://www.terramagazine.com.au/
and a press release here:
http://www.blackglasspress.com/component/content/article/58-terra-magazine.html
In today’s exciting news, Ticonderoga Publications have just announced the forthcoming publication of my first short story collection. You cannot wipe the smile from my face! Here’s the official press release:
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Ticonderoga Publications is proud to announce the forthcoming publication of a collection of stories by the writer of the future Jason Fischer.
Adelaide-based Fischer is a Clarion South graduate and recent winner of the Writers of the Future competition.
The collection is titled Everything is a Graveyard, and is scheduled for publication in late 2013.
The exact contents are still to be finalised.
The collection will revolve around Fischer’s critically acclaimed post-apocalyptic and zombie-themed work.
Everything is a Graveyard will also include new stories original to the collection.
“Jason Fischer taps into the darker sides of human nature like few other writers,” Ticonderoga Editor Russell B Farr said.
“His work blends raw emotion with an honest sense of mortality,” Farr added.
The collection is scheduled for publication in October 2013. The collection will be available in limited edition hardcover, ebook and trade editions.
(for those of you who haven’t read these yet, the first two instalments of my WOTF retrospective can be found here http://jasonfischer.com.au/?p=136 and here http://jasonfischer.com.au/?p=155)
Immediately after the awards ceremony, we writers and illustrators made our way back into the hotel lobby. Before the ceremony, this had been the venue for our swanky dinner, now we found that we were at the site of our first book signing. The organisers of this event are nothing if not awesome, and it makes my head spin to think how quickly they effected this change!
The lobby of the Roosevelt, shortly after its transformation from a dining hall into a book launch/signing. Big stacks of the anthology can be seen in the middle of the room, and along the outside of the room the illustrators wait next to their framed illustrations. Most of the writers can be seen in the middle of the pic, madly signing away.
Just sold my story “Eating Gnashdal” to Keith Stevenson’s upcoming anthology Anywhere But Earth. Nice! Some more info about the book here:
http://keithstevenson.com/CDLblog/submissions/
And a list here of the other authors who so far have been accepted for this book, it already looks like a great line-up of local writers:
http://keithstevenson.com/CDLblog/2010/07/11/abe_update_3/
Many thanks to everyone at Clarion South who helped me with this story, and a big thanks to Russell B Farr for his advice and assistance.
I have mentioned this a few times now, but the time is finally here! Issue #6 of Midnight Echo (magazine of the Australian Horror Writer’s Association) is now open for submissions. This is the SF/Horror issue, co-edited by myself, David Conyers and David Kernot. Submission details as below:
http://australianhorror.com/index.php?view=144
This market is open to all, not just members of AHWA. So have a read of the guidelines, and send your creepy alien tales (of 5000 words or less) to midnightecho@australianhorror.com – it’s as easy as that.
If you have any queries, comment on this post or email me direct at mail@jasonfischer.com.au and I’ll do my best to answer them. Good luck and good writing!
Once more I stand on antipodean shores, and the Writers of the Future week is officially over. And what a week it was! I had the time of my life. Still feeling a bit jetlagged, and there are many things I shall retrospectively blog about, but I need to rest, collect my thoughts, and get some photos off my camera. In the meantime, the awards ceremony itself can now be viewed online – for your convenience, here tis!
Not sure where my speech is exactly in this clip, but it’s towards the end of things. What an incredible night! More soon.
Oscar Wilde, 1882, to US Customs: “I have nothing to declare but my genius”
Jason Fischer, 2010, to US Customs: “I have nothing to declare but my Tim-Tams”
So here I am, and barring the wonders of jetlag it’s AWESOME. I’m definitely going to have to do some retrospective blogging to cover our goings on, it’s quite the hectic schedule we’ve been given. KD Wentworth and Tim Powers are nothing but brilliant, and have been dishing out some life-changing advice.
Part of which was, don’t faff around on the internet, you have to hand in a complete story within 24 hours. So a quick gudday and seeya later! 🙂
The lovely folks organising the WOTF week are blogging both the workshops here, complete with photos:
http://www.writersofthefuture.com/blog
Well, the time is nigh, I have my greenbacks and courage in hand, and Writers of the Future awaits me. I’m taking it stateside for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to work with some jaw-droppingly awesome writers, attend the award gala, and finally meet my fellow contest winners (who seem like a lovely and talented bunch). The anthology containing the winning stories is now available for pre-order on Amazon:
I love the cover-art on this – absolutely gorgeous! Having collected a few of these anthologies, I can tell you that the essays from the judges are worth the cover-price alone. Years of wisdom is thus dispensed, sandwiched amidst stories that could launch many fruitful writing careers, jammed full of the excellent artwork from the sister contest, Illustrators of the Future.
Still can’t believe my writing is actually in one of these…this sure is a nice feeling, folks 🙂
I will try and blog the Writers of the Future week when I get the chance, but it looks like they keep a pretty hectic schedule. It may be a retrospective account of the workshop and other events, but it’ll all end up on here at some point.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a Future needs getting to 🙂
Well, it’s been a week since I announced the Gravesend haiku competition, and it’s judging time. There’s been some great entries from a bunch of folks, and I’ve enjoyed them all. Still, I had to get down the serious business of judging these poems. I weighed up emotional resonance, usage of seasons, and sneaky Romero references, but mostly I counted syllables 🙂
Without further ado, the winners are:
Nature upended,And a bonus winner, because it’s just too awesome, and captures perfectly the true angst of zombie haiku composition:
Brains brains brains brains brainsYour zombielicious copies of “After the World: Gravesend” will be in the post shortly. Congratulations!
ETA: Because he’s a classy haiku-loving kind of guy, Peter M Ball has donated his prize back into the contest. Here’s a poem that narrowly missed out on a spot in the top 3, which I’m now pleased to add to the winner’s circle.
Roused to seek fresh meat