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Posts Tagged ‘speculative fiction’

Author interview spotlight- Amanda Pillar

Posted in Interviews, Urban fantasy, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 22, 2015| 1 Comment »

I am very pleased to welcome, Amanda Pillar, who is here to tell us about her first novel. Amanda was one of the editors on Damnation and Dames anthology by Ticonderoga Publications. She has edited a number of anthologies in recent years. Who knew she was secretly a writer!

Pillar_Amanda

Your new first novel is coming out, Graced. Can you tell us a bit about it?

Graced is an urban fantasy/paranormal story that follows the journey of four diverse characters: Elle, Dante, Clay and Anton. It features vampires, weres, humans and a new race called the Graced. The Graced have psychic abilities that are denoted by their eye colours: Green (telepathy), Gray (telekinesis) and Blue (empathy). Eye colours, in fact, are the key to determining what race someone belongs to in the Graced universe, as brown=humans, purple=vampires and yellow=werewolves. Although, Graceds are meant to be a secret race.

Amanda tell us a bit about yourself (where you live, how long you’ve been writing, previous publications etc)

Well, I live in the wonderful town of Melbourne with my husband and two cats (yes, I am a crazy cat lady). I’ve been writing since the ripe old age of 13, although it took a long time for me to produce anything worthy of publication. Recently, I’ve had two short stories published, as well as Graced. One story is in the wonderful Cranky Ladies of History (‘Hatshepsut’) anthology edited by Tehani Wessely and Tansy Rayner Roberts and follows the rise to power of the female king, Hatshepsut. The other was in the stunning Kisses by Clockwork (‘A Clockwork Heart’) anthology edited by Liz Grzyb, and is a steampunk romance. I am also currently editing Bloodlines, a horror anthology.

Amanda what do you find so attractive about the urban fantasy genre? In what ways do you find it fulfilling?

I think the fun with urban fantasy is that it can be contemporary, alternative reality, or set in an entirely new world. It allows writers and readers to look at the world through a new lens, to understand things on a level that may not be achievable with non-supernatural elements. It can make you think.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am currently working on Bloodlines, my next horror anthology. I also have hopes there will be another book set in the Graced universe, so you’ll get to see the characters again, but no publishing plans as yet.

What is your writing process? (planner, panster, write every day, write sporadically, writers block etc).

I’m a bit of both. When I begin to write, I know the start, the middle and the end. I work out the in-between parts as I go. I would love to write every day, but unfortunately my day job and life just tends to get in the way. So I tend to write in bursts when the time allows.

What do you prefer drafting the story or revising and reworking?

I much prefer revising and reworking to the first draft.

What part of writing do you find hardest?

The hardest part of writing for me is the first draft. It almost feels like a purging at times. But I can’t do the fun part until the draft is written, and so I knuckle down and get to it!

What do you plan to work on next?

I am hoping to work on another book for the Graced universe! Otherwise, I have some short story and novel ideas in the works!

9781760082307_Graced_cover3You can find Amanda on her webpage

Graced is available from major ebook retailers and the Momentum Website.

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Author spotlight interview-Joanne Anderton

Posted in Interviews, tagged , , , on June 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I’m pleased today to bring you and interview with the lovely and talented Jo Anderton. Jo is going to tell us about her new book, the follow up from Debris and Suited.

Jo Anderton

Jo Anderton

Hi Jo, can you tell us a bit about your new novel?

Guardian is the third book in the Veiled Worlds Trilogy, and the final step in Tanyana’s journey. The official blurb is:

“The grand city of Movoc-under-Keeper lies in ruins. The sinister puppet men have revealed their true nature, and their plan to tear down the veil between worlds. To have a chance of defeating them, Tanyana must do the impossible, and return to the world where they were created, on the other side of the veil. Her journey will force her into a terrible choice, and test just how much she is willing to sacrifice for the fate of two worlds.”

Unofficially, I’d say Guardian is about sacrifice and love. And the ending still makes me cry.

Jo can tell us a bit about yourself (where you live, how long you’ve been writing, previous publications etc)

I live in Sydney, with my husband and pets, and I’ve always written. Even as a kid I used to tell myself stories, and eventually decided I should try writing them down instead of just keeping them in my head.

Apart from the first two books of the Veiled Worlds Trilogy, Debris and Suited, I’ve also published a short fiction collection The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories, which won the 2013 Aurealis Award for Best Collection.

Tell us a bit about why you write speculative fiction.

Because I can’t help it. Seriously, I’ve tried writing not-speculative fiction and it was so hard. It’s what I love, it’s how I think, and it is definitely how my writing brain works. All my ideas come with unusual worlds and/or magic systems attached to them. I usually blame my Dad for that. He brought me up on a diet of Tolkien and Star Trek and I can’t thank him enough.

Your novel is a third in a trilogy. Are we going to see more of it in future?

No plans at the moment, but there are possibilities. No story ever really ends, does it? And if this story did continue, I know the direction it would go. But for the moment, I’m excited to be working on new projects.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on a new book currently called The Bone Gardens. It’s young adult, it’s science-fantasy, and heavily influenced by the movies of Studio Ghibli (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and Princess Mononoke in particular). Flying gardens of bone and toxic flowers, never-ending desert, steampunk cities, genetic engineering. That kind of thing. And I’m loving it!

What is your writing process? (planner, panster, write every day, write sporadically, writers block etc).

I think of myself as somewhere in between a planner and a pantser. Before I start writing I always know the beginning, the end, and a few important plot points in between. I’ve learned that if I know too much of the story before I start writing it, I get bored! The joy in writing is telling myself the story, learning about the characters, and living it all as it happens. This usually means my first drafts are a wreck, and I have to go back and do significant rewriting, but that works for me too. The most important thing is to enjoy the process, and love telling stories!

I make sure I do something every day. Even if it’s not much — if I come home from work exhausted or my lower back can’t handle sitting in a chair anymore, I don’t beat myself up about it. Even a few words, or some blog posting is better than nothing. I have at least one full-time writing day a week, and most of my holidays are actually for writing J

What do you prefer drafting the story or revising and reworking?

Ha, my favourite part of the process is usually NOT the part I’m doing! If I’m writing a draft I long for revision, when I’m revising I long to be writing something new. The grass is always greener, you know?

But my overall favourite part is the planning — when an idea is fresh and new and full of potential and I can get swept away in it.

What part of writing do you find hardest?

Knowing when to stop. I’m terrible at working out when a story is done. If it was up to me, no story would ever be done, and I would probably tinker with them for eternity. This is why we have publishers and deadlines.

What do you plan to work on next?

The sequel to The Bone Gardens. I think it’s called The Fiery Skies and it’s been waiting very impatiently for me to pay attention. Soon, my precious. Soon.

Here is the cover of Guardian followed by some links to where you can find Jo on the web.

Cover image of Guardian by Jo Anderton

Cover image of Guardian by Jo Anderton

 

 

Website: http://joanneanderton.com/

Twitter: joanneanderton

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/joanne.anderton.16

Details on fablecroft website are here: http://fablecroft.com.au/about/publications/guardian

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Canberra Writers Day

Posted in Conflux Writers Day, Editing, Networking, Writer conventions, Writing, tagged , , , on April 10, 2014| 4 Comments »

The wonderful Nicole Murphy and her team of volunteers put on a wonderful day last Saturday (April 5), presenting the inaugural Canberra Writers Day and the Aurealis Awards. The venue, University House, particularly the Great Hall, had wonderful charm. There’s this long gold fish pond in the quadrangle that I’d love to take home to my place.

Conflux Inc with Nicole at the helm put up bid to run the Aurealis Awards for two years in Canberra. Nicole wanted to make it worthwhile for people to come up for the ceremony and thought up a professional writers day.

The first thing I have to say is that both events were very well run. Nicole and the team were excellent. That’s pretty awesome for a multi stream event. Also, I know it was hard financially as there was absolutely no sponsorship money to be had for either event. That’s pretty tough going. I did note that Escape Publishing put an ad in the Conflux Writers Day booklet. Awesome.

I had a full day and I presented a talk. The plenary sessions were pretty amazing. Joanne Anderton, Kaaron Warren, Ker Arthur, Ian McHugh. All of them had inspiring and interesting presentations on their processes, their journey.

Joanne blew me away with her writing process and her copious notebooks, all so clean. Mine are NOT clean but I do have a similar weakness when it comes to notebooks and pens. I do much less thinking though. But then Joanne is an amazingly talented author and bloody hardworking.

Kaaron shamed me most terribly with her talk on using the minutes when you don’t have hours to write. I’ve known Kaaron a long time and I’ve always admired her talent but also what a devoted mother she is and how family focussed. She’s an inspiration.

Keri talked about her journey to becoming a published author and a New York Times best seller. Her story was a amazing. She persevered when many would have given up. Thank you for the inspiration Keri.

Ian McHugh talked about submitting work, write and submit and repeat was my take away message. Ian always inspires me with his focus and the stories he writes.

I went to the shorter concurrent sessions, which were 20 minutes long. I gave one myself on ‘You are not alone’ the value of writing relationships. It was about writing groups, writing buddies, writing dates and writing retreats. But I ran out of time, which surprised me and I forgot to talk about the really good part of writing retreats- the socialising (read drinking and talking crap). Someone came up to me afterwards and thought I was going to talk about relationships in writing, you know science fiction with romance. I laughed so hard. I would have loved to talk on that topic.

Craig Cormick was awesome.  I have to reprogram my head to say I’m going to win at this writing gig. Marcus Armann talked about Evernote and Scrivener and I’m now tempted to buy the later writing program, particularly after catching Phil Berrie with his word frequency proofing/editing talk. Scrivener has analytical tools that does that stuff. I’m always repeating myself when I don’t want to.

Russell Kirkpatrick sorted his mob into top downers and bottom uppers in the world building sense. He’s definitely a top downer, planning his worlds and then writing the story. I’m quite near the other end. To me it’s story first with an idea of the world, but often I build as I go.

Chris Andrews talked about blogging, which was an excellent session. I learned something. See Chris!

The lovely Shannon B Curtis talk about using Microsoft Word to navigate our novels. That was also very interesting.

The Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild had a table selling books (theirs and others) and I bought a copy of Joanne Anderton’s collection, The Bone Chime Song and other stories and lost it. (so if anyone found a copy. It could be mine).

Overall it was great to network with people and also see the new faces. Again I didn’t get around to everyone to chat.

Congratulations to Nicole Murphy and the team for a wonderful event.

 

I didn’t take many photos during the day, except this one of Russell Kirkpatrick. (Happy birthday Russell for tomorrow!!!).

Fantasy author, Russell Kirkpatrick, presenting at Conflux Writers Day

Fantasy author, Russell Kirkpatrick, presenting at Conflux Writers Day

PS I’ll have to write about the Aurealis Awards in another post. My time has run out this morning. I decided to get up early to write. Though technically writing a blog post doesn’t count as writing.

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