4 Things: GenreCon, Novella Diary, Upcoming Workshop, A Reminder

NEW GENRECON GUESTS

Wait up, I’m going to deploy the banner, ’cause I *really* love our banner this year:

We made some pretty big announcements over on the GenreCon site yesterday, all in the form of names being added to the conference guest list. I won’t belabour the point here, except to just post some names: John-freakin’-Connolly (best-selling Irish crime novelist who understands a thing or two about other genres); Kathryn-freakin’-Fox (best-selling Australian thriller writer who knocked the Da Vinci Code off a bunch of best-seller lists a few years back); John-freakin’-Birmingham (my family will know him for He Died With a Felafel in His Hand; everyone else should get to know his Weapons of Choice series which have been taking over bookshops over the last couple of years).

Add those names to Chuck Wendig, Anne Gracie, Anita Heiss and Kate Cuthbert and I start to get really excited about programming this year’s conference.

Now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’m going to try a particularly subtle form of marketing:

COME TO MY FREAKIN’ WRITING CONFERENCE, PEOPLE. IT’S GOING TO BE WALL-TO-WALL AWESOME!

NOVELLA DIARY UPDATE

It’s not dead, just sleeping a little. I’ve moved away from the daily updates a little early in favour of doing a weekly update on Friday, where I usually have a little more time.

Also, I’m hoping that moving the updates to the Friday will break me out of my now-customary weekend stall.

UPCOMING WORKSHOP

If you’re in the Rockhampton area around June 22, I’ll be coming up to do a free workshop on Short Story Writing at the Rockhampton library. Here’s the blurb:

Short fiction has its own tropes and tricks, and this exciting course offers budding short story writers, and those looking to brush up on a few basic skills, the chance to explore and develop short fiction. This engaging workshop features writing and ideas development exercises examining beginnings, place and setting, character development, dialogue, and the all too important ending.

Bookings and additional details available on the QWC website. Including the sentence that I’ve cut off the end of that paragraph on account of it’s deployment of an exclamation mark.

I loathe exclamation marks. They’re right up there with Illinois Nazis.

On the other hand, I’m looking forward to being back in Rocky, since it’s been about a year since my last visit. I even promise not to mention the time when Virgin Blue left me stranded in the Rockhampton airport for twelve hours and just kept forgetting to announce the flight delays.

I don’t hold that against you, Rockhampton. You remain a lovely city

Virgin Blue, on the other hand, is on my shit-list.

A REMINDER: TRASHY TUESDAY WRITING SCHOOL

I’m going to write a whole bunch of writing advice based on some pretty trashy movies. I’m still looking for feedback on the films people would really like to see. Come nominate your preferences, and save me from the overwhelming number of people who seem to be amused by the idea of making me re-watch Suckerpunch.