I haven’t been posting much since my son was born. And I didn’t read any of the Booker short list. I know, I’m fired. Anyway.
Lately I’ve been reading Joyland, an online literary journal that publishes high quality short fiction (on the internet! I know!). Here’s a recent story made up entirely of text salvaged from the purple prose spammers use to trick email filters. Clever.
The Man Booker judges have announced the so-called “Booker dozen” of thirteen titles up for the big prize this year.
I’m going to read them all before the prize is announced. Here’s the list:
Byatt, AS The Children’s Book
Coetzee, J M Summertime
Foulds, Adam The Quickening Maze
Hall, Sarah How to paint a dead man
Harvey, Samantha The Wilderness
Lever, James Me Cheeta
Mantel, Hilary Wolf Hall
Mawer, Simon The Glass Room
O’Loughlin, Ed Not Untrue & Not Unkind
Scudamore, James Heliopolis
Toibin, Colm Brooklyn
Trevor, William Love and Summer
Waters, Sarah The Little Stranger
In other cool Booker news, a photographer with the fantastic name Graham Fudger read excerpts from all thirteen books on Trafalgar Square’s Forth Plinth, starting with his favorite, Me Cheeta.
John Scalzi (author of the Hugo Award-nominated Old Man’s War
1. You’re a writer. Prepare to be broke.
Writers make crap. Why do they make crap? For many reasons, beginning with forces outside their control (publishers pay as little as humanly possible; lots of would-be writers willing to work for pennies, keeping the pay rates low) and working up to forces entirely within their control (writers playing with their XBox 360s instead of writing; willingness to be to paid stupid low rates for their work). Most salaried writers in the US are lucky if they get above $50,000 a year; most freelance writers in the United States (which includes novelists, screenwriters, etc) could make more money being assistant manager at the local Wal-Mart. It’s not a joke.
It’s tough love, folks.
Nerd alert. I am heading into massive geek out territory here, but you know, I’ve been writing this blog for about a year now (ignoring my hiatus earlier this year) and it’s about time I exposed my geek underpants.
Andrew Stanton (WALL-E) is working on a screen adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars stories! It’s going to be live action, with plenty of CG, and PG-13, which means… nearly naked princesses!
Fourteen-year-old me is freaking out right now.
A little flash game to find out how good you are at deciphering 17th century handwriting (hint: the words are largely from official documents–wills, parish registers, etc).
The 17th century abbreviations are my favorite part.
H-bly yrs,
Chris
Here’s a series of articles on writing, by the two-time Hugo Award-winning author, Robert J. Sawyer.
The columns focus on practical advice, solutions and problems faced by beginning science fiction writers–and most of it is applicable for writing in any genre. Good stuff.
Carte Blanche is the literary review of the Quebec Writers’ Foundation.
carte blanche, accepts poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Send us your odes, sonnets, free verse, short stories of all types and genres, memoirs, personal essays, book reviews, literary journalism, musings on the writing process—as long as it’s well written (and within our 3500 word limit) we’ll consider it.
They also have an annual prize for an outstanding submission by a Quebec writer.
I really should have posted this sooner.
A local Lloydminster paper, The Meridian Booster, interviewed me for my winning story in Geist! I’m very flattered and want to thank Graham Mason for taking the time to talk to me.
Happy 2009, folks. This has to be my favorite way to ring in the new year: my short short story The Other James Buchanan won a first prize in Geist Magazine’s first annual short long-distance fiction contest. It will also be in print in the next issue of Geist. It’s my first publication, so I’m psyched.
Enjoy!