A lovely write-up regarding my new book can be found over at the Writers of the Future website.
Check it out here: http://www.writersofthefuture.com/writingcontestnews/2012/12/16/australian-winner-jason-fischers-first-novel-hits-print/969
And of course, copies of “Quiver” can be found, previewed and purchased here: http://www.tamsynwebb.com/
The good folks over at the Writers of the Future contest have rereleased the video of the 2010 awards ceremony. They’ve chopped the 2 hr + video into accessible 5 minute chunks, organised into order of the award recipients! Most excellent. Here you see me and my illustrator Seth J Rowanwood collect our award statues, and thank the folks who got us there. Added bonus – a crooked bow-tie that apparently drove my poor mother crazy 🙂
If you’re a budding SF writer or illustrator, you could do worse than to enter this contest. Info can be found here:
http://writersofthefuture.com
Seth J Rowanwood, my rather awesome illustrator from Writers of the Future (who took out the Golden Award in the sister contest, for his illustration of “The House of Nameless”) was lucky enough to have one of his book covers packed onto the last ever space shuttle launch and sent up to the International Space Station (just the cover, book itself was over the strict payload limit). That’s right – the squeezings of his brain got flown into space. I don’t care where you’re from, that’s damn cool 🙂
Few people get to cross that one off the ole bucket list. Well done Seth!
More info here:
http://www.sethjrowanwood.com/archives/767
Turns out it’s not only foot-fetishists with a thing for Marisol Nichols who swing past this site. I’ve been hit by wave after wave of increasingly sophisticated spam comments. It started off just being garbage link salad to what I assume are russian porn sites or similar, which are thankfully blocked by a handy little plug-in called Akismet. Can’t recommend it highly enough, the hard-working little bugger catches just about everything that hasn’t come over the transom via human hands.
Still, it’s interesting to look at the increasing verbosity of the spam, as it grows and learns, much like electronic sea monkeys. What started off as “Cheap Doxycycline!” and “Farmville cheats” has now grown into fake people who, while they may not quite pass the Turing Test, are definitely evidence that Skynet is here and is trying to make with the blog niceties.
Today’s top 3 philosophical spam moments:
1. “All men have an instinct for conflict. At least, all healthy men.”
2. “The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”
and today’s favourite #3. “The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth–that the error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured on one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.”
Word, Skynet. Word.
In other news, my Writers of the Future swag has arrived. At last my stonking huge trophy sits on the brag-shelf, and I’m looking for the perfect place to hang Seth J Rowanwood’s stunning picture of my story “The House of Nameless”. I am not surprised he took home the illustrator gong, it’s just gorgeous. Speaking of Seth, my talented polymath collaborator has a new story available in an e-anthology, which can be found here: http://www.sethjrowanwood.com/archives/601
Ah yes, was very good to get into this swag of goodies. The added bonus is that Toddler Fisch thoroughly enjoys the enormous box it all arrived in, and loves being ferried hither and yon in said box. Buggered if I know why we buy that kid toys 🙂
The anthology for WOTF XXVI has just been reviewed over at the Library Journal, and reviewer David Rapp says:
“These new stories by talented as-yet-unknowns are uniformly good; some show impressive talent, such as Adam Colston’s “Not in the Flesh,” an interesting take on the sentient android story, and Jason Fischer’s clever “The House of Nameless,” which opens with a girl and a minotaur on a date.”
The rest of the review can be found here: http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/887391-264/xpress_reviewsthe_first_look_at.html.csp
The book has also been reviewed over at The Baryon Review, and can be read here http://thebaryonreview.blogspot.com/2010/09/writers-of-future26-and-exile-reviews.html
Just found out that the winners of the 2nd quarter of the 2010 Writers of the Future have been announced. And 2 out of 3 of the winners are Aussies! WOOHOO!
THE 2nd QUARTER WINNERS ARE
1st Place — Patty Jansen of New South Wales, Australia
2nd Place — Ben Mann of West Australia
3rd Place — Van Aaron Hughes of Colorado
Some special Vegemite congrats to Patty and Ben (and of course Van)! More in the write-up here:
(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.
A final wrap-up blog post will be coming soon, wherein I finish the retelling of my great USA adventure.
In the mean-while, one of the photographers who recorded the event (the lovely Huguette) has emailed me a giant swag of professional photos taken during the week. I’ve uploaded them all into a Flickr account for your enjoyment, and it can all be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jason_fischer/
(Here is part 1 of my epic adventure for those who missed it: http://jasonfischer.com.au/?p=136)
So after returning to the Author Services building turning in our 24-hour stories, John Goodwin (President of Galaxy Press) dropped by to give our class a bit of a talk about media, self-promotion, and interviewing skills. This was really invaluable stuff – I’ve done other writing courses/camps/retreats before, and not once has anyone ever told me about how to conduct myself in an interview situation. Here’s a great example: If someone says to you “so, what’s your story about?” can you neatly summarise your tale in thirty seconds or so? Pretty much every time I’ve been asked this question, I come out with “there’s this guy, you see, and he lives in this land where so-and-so happens, and he has the ability to so-and-so, and then…” by which time the other person has a glazed look in their eyes and you’ve officially lost their interest.
Now change this into an interview setting with the media. You’ve got thirty seconds to sell yourself and your new product, to an interviewer who is probably not interested in the genre and who will unconsciously attempt to derail the conversation to more familiar territory. We were taught how to be concise, how to present ourselves, how to stick to the topic and answer the question we really want to answer (much as politicians do in interviews).
We were put into practice with our “twins” (person you’re sat next to for the workshop), and did dry-runs of our interviewing skills until we were blue in the face. This was invaluable, as later on we first prize winners did film and radio interviews, and all the contestants did film and taped interviews with the folks from Author Services after the awards ceremony. At some stage a filmed interview with us will appear at neverendingpanel.com, and we each did a spot for XM Radio. I’m sure glad we had a bit of practice first!
All books published by WOTF winners are kept in a very cool library, and I too have a book here! It’s the skinny one next to The Jane Austen Book Club.
So here I am, unpacked and somewhat caught up on sleep. I have returned from my epic adventure to the USA and honestly? My head is still spinning from the awesomeness of the week just gone. I figure it’s best to just get everything down as I think of it; I know I’ve always enjoyed reading the accounts of previous WOTF winners, and found it inspiring. I’d read these posts and put my head down, determined, sending these guys one solid story every quarter. Perhaps someone will find this account helpful, somewhat amusing, or a cautionary tale. I’ve littered this account with what photos I had the presence of mind to take.
(I know it’s traditional for many folks to recount their WOTF experience day-by-day, but that’s not how I roll. It’s all melded together at this stage anyways)
Caught between a rock and a Hard Rock place…given the opportunity of a lifetime I still managed to squeeze in the odd tourist moment.