by Jason Fischer | Jul 6, 2012 | Writing
So, we’ve reached the end of the financial year. I’ll be honest with y’all, 2011/2012 was extremely busy, and I came within a whisker of burning out. I wrote over 200,000 words of new fiction, including the current draft of my novel “Papa Lucy and the Boneman”. I also wrote three complete novellas, three or four short stories, a swag of pitches and proposals, as well as all the online buggerising around, social networking and such.
In truth, I did all this in about 10 months – for the last 2 I’ve been taking things very easy. Like anyone bitten too often by the writing bug, I’ve toyed with the idea of just chucking in the towel. And like anyone bitten too often by the writing bug, I laugh at people who say this (including myself). Last couple of weeks I’ve been back on board in force, trying to meet the last swag of deadlines, and planning my time over the next 6 months or so.
Refreshed. Ready. I intend a frontal assault on the Word-Castle, where I will storm the walls. In coming months, I intend to roundhouse several nouns and adverbs in the face, and flush thousands of paragraphs out of hiding.
Finally, some AWESOME and EXCITING news coming soon. The moment it’s all official-like, you can be sure to find out about it here 🙂 I will say one word only: Tamsyn.
PS: here, have a link to an online Elements of Style. Highly recommended for writer-types.
http://www.bartleby.com/141/
by Jason Fischer | Jun 25, 2012 | Announcement, Winner!
Well, it’s all official and such. The results for this year’s AHWA Short Story and Flash Fiction Competition are as follows:
SHORT STORY COMPETITION
WINNER: “Always a Price”, Joanne Anderton
HONOURABLE MENTION: “Life, Death and Customer Service”, Nicholas Stella
FLASH COMPETITION:
WINNER: “Blood Lilies”, Shauna O’Meara
HONOURABLE MENTION: “Fragments of a Botanical Journal”, Matthew J Morrison
(more info here http://australianhorror.com/index.php?view=57)
Congrats to the winners, and well done to all who entered. I was especially chuffed to see Jo win the short story contest – all entries were blind-judged, so we had no idea who the authors were until we’d made our decision. Jo is going great guns with her writing, and her story in Midnight Echo #6 was top-shelf.
Many thanks to fellow judges Alan Baxter and Felicity Dowker, and huge high-fives to Martin Livings for wrangling this thing, and keeping it together when we judges got all Battle Royale on each other. I have it on good authority that the winners will be getting the plague through the post soon. Erm, I meant their plaques, of course 🙂
by Jason Fischer | Jun 18, 2012 | Pimping, Writing
Over at the Australian Horror Writers Association page, the Mentor Program for 2012 has just been announced:
http://www.australianhorror.com/index.php?view=104
There’s a bunch of great folks giving their time to the program this year, and I’m lucky enough to also be on this list. No matter what you’re working on, chances are there’s an AHWA mentor who can help you with your project. I’m specifically interested in working with novellas/short stories, and I look forward to helping my mentoree get their work into shape.
All the relevant details are at the above link, but if you’ve got any questions, please feel free to contact me or the AHWA. It should be noted that the Mentor Program is only open to AHWA members, but membership is cheap and you get many benefits (such as this program, the short fiction contests, Midnight Echo, comraderie, and all sorts of goodies).
by Jason Fischer | Jun 14, 2012 | Pimping
Of all the friends requests to get! A certain Tamsyn Webb (resident of Gravesend, Kent) has gotten hold of a working mobile phone, and can be found on Twitter via the following link:
http://twitter.com/TamsynWebb
Last I heard, things were getting pretty tough over there, but apparently these folks have thrown up some sort of barricade to keep out the neighbours. You know, the ones that are dead but still walk around? If it’s not on the news yet, I’d be asking some serious questions…
Tamsyn in action – I imagine something dead and walking is about to wear that arrow. IN THE FACE.
Tamsyn seems quite happy to chat to folks (well, for as long as Twitter lasts, given that all other communications with the UK seem to be failing). We’re quietly working on the telling of her adventures, which is hard given that she can only write to me 140 characters at a time.
Here’s what we’ve come up with so far, if you’re interested then by all means order a copy in. Her share of the profits will go towards new archery kit, baked beans, ramen noodles and medicine. Okay, apparently she just wants chocolate.
http://aftertheworld.com.au/
by Jason Fischer | Jun 4, 2012 | Awards
The list of winners and honourable mentions for the 2011 Australian Shadows Awards has been released into the wild.
http://australianhorror.com/index.php?view=304
And colour me tickled pink, we’ve nabbed an Honourable Mention for our editing work on Midnight Echo #6! Huge congrats to Russ Farr for winning with Dead Red Heart, and of course these congrats are extended to all winners and HMs. Special kudos go to our authors Joanne Anderton and Andrew J McKiernan, who also got individual HMs for their Midnight Echo stories.
And massive high-fives to my co-editors, David Conyers and David Kernot 🙂 well done, chaps!
