Tag: Awesome Things About 2009

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Awesome Things About 2009 – the Rest of the List

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I ran out of 2009 before finishing the list. Given that I’ve managed to start 2010 with a whole bunch of stuff unfinished, much of it urgent and really needing to be done, I give you the truncated version of what would have rounded out the fifteen awesome things about 2009. 10) Non-Fiction, Part One: Booklife, Jeff VanderMeer I’ve been known to bemoan the fact that there are very few resources for writers that actually teach you the stuff you need know once you’ve got the basics of things like “plot” and “character” and “not looking like a crazy freak when submitting” under control. In many ways the learning curve for writing becomes a hodge-podge of received wisdom and scraps of knowledge gleaned from conversation, with the occasional outright question being asked of friends and contacts further along the path when need be. From that point of view, Jeff VanderMeer’s Booklife is one of the best writing guidebooks

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Awesome Things about 2009 (9/15): Amanda Palmer, Live

Once or twice a year I get out to see a live gig that reminds me why I like going and seeing live music. It happens far less often these days than it did in the past, but as a Dresden Doll’s fan it was kind of inevitable that I’d sell internal organs in order to go see the Amanda-Fucking-Palmer solo tour when it passed through Brisbane. Short version: Awesome Long version: totally worth living without a spleen until I can buy mine back from the pawn broker.

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Awesome Things About 2009: Hail to the Peeps edition

Among the many things to be thankful about in 2009 is the fact that it’s been a very good year to a lot of my friends who also toil in the wordmines. There’s nothing quite so awesome as being part of a community full of folks doing cool stuff, and it seems like virtually everyone I know has spent the last twelve months firing on all cylinders. Among the highlights are Ben Francisco‘s story Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts in Realms of Fantasy, seeing photographs from the set where one of Angela Slatter‘s stories being transformed into a short film, and the news that Chris Lynch will be launching his publishing company’s first anthology before the year is out. Basically, lots of folks have done lot of cool things this year.  And given the time you can bet that I’d loudly and assertively celebrate the awesomeness of every single one of them until you too became a fan of what

Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Awesome Things About 2009 (6/15): Write Club

I keep saying it, I know, but write club is awesome (For those wondering what the hell I’m talking about, I recommend this post and this post on Angela Slatter’s blog*). Turns out it’s a remarkably popular idea too – I’ve had a couple of conversations where people wondered how Write Club worked, and it seems Angela gets asked about it as well, so I figured I’d share my** thoughts on why write club works for those who may be curious. Reason 1) Angela Slatter is Fricken’  Awesome Granted, I say this quite a bit on this blog as well, but it doesn’t diminish the fact that it’s true. Even if you ignore the fact that she’s a superb writer whose keen critical eye has stopped me from looking like a goose a couple of times this year, and the fact that she’s generous with both her time and connections, she’s one of the people I enjoy catching up with once a week.  If you’re

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Awesome Things about 2009 Fiction Edition

2009 is totally going down as the year that I rediscovered how much I enjoy reading for pleasure. It’s one of those habits that eluded me a while back, which was kind of unfortunate given that my book-buying habit didn’t exactly die off at the same rate. And it’s not that I stopped reading, exactly; I just fell into the trap of rereading old favourites with the occasional new work creeping in. By the end of June I’d made the decision that this should be rectified and promptly started ploughing my way through the seemingly endless array of novels and non-fiction that fill my too-read bookcase. Since then I’ve managed a fairly steady pace of two books a week. I’ve barely made a dent on the unread book read pile of doom, but it’s still exposed me to a lot of kick-ass fiction. To whit, I give you the fourth and fifth instalment of Awesome Things about 2009:  The City

News & Upcoming Events

Awesome Things About 2009 (3/15): Aurealis Awards Short Listings

The 2009 Aurealis Awards short-list was released over the weekend and it contained a whole mess of good news – Horn secured a berth in the short-list of both the Fantasy and the Horror novel categories, and I made the Science Fiction Short Story list twice with both Clockwork, Pathwork and Ravens and To Dream of Stars: An Astronomer’s Lament. There’s even more good news on the short-lists in the form of nominations for peeps such as Chris Green* (for both SF, Horror & Fantasy short story), Angela Slatter (Fantasy short story) and Twelfth Planet Press (a seemingly unending parade for various projects – I think every book they released this year is up for something). ‘Course, most of the folks who read this blog have already heard this news from other sources (I was having a slack weekend, internet-wise), so I figure I’d just make a note, say “awesome” and off my congratulations to the other finalists – it’s a shiny list of folks to be

News & Upcoming Events

Awesome Things about 2009 (2/15): Horn

When I started chatting to the spokesbear about putting a list of 15 awesome things about 2009 together, the first stipulation Fudge came up with was “do not treat every individual publication as its own awesome thing, because that will be cheating.” “What about Horn,” I said. “Surely it deserves a spot on its own?” And at that the spokesbear pondered and said: “Well, yes, there’s Horn. That was pretty awesome. I suppose that’s okay as an entry on its own.” Which is just as well, because the overall experience of seeing Horn released has easily been the most Awesome thing that happened this year. Seeing the finished book for the first time was awesome. Seeing it get its first few reviews was awsome, especially given its tendency to pop up in places like the Courier Mail, Locus and Jeff VanderMeer’s blog. Getting the news that “BTW, Horn‘s made a profit” was awesome. Getting asked if there were more Miriam

Gaming

Awesome Things about 2009 (1/15): Pathfinder RPG

Today PeterMBall.com is a year old. This caught me a little off-guard when I went and looked at the archives, since it seems slightly inconceivable that I’ve only been posting to the website for a year instead of meandering around on livejournal (where, admittedly, this still blog runs a feed and much of the conversation happens). It got even worse when I realised that one of the first posts being made was “Horn has sold to Twelfth Planet Press,” which means we were one day shy of announcing Cold Cases a year exactly after Horn. Spooky. Between this moment of  nostalgia and the Americans celebrating Turkey Day and the vising 80-point-plan of awesomeness, I came up with the following: Awesome Things about 2009 (1/15): Pathfinder RPG Stick with me on this one, because there’s a lot of introspection involved in it making the list. Okay, to start with, this is probably important to know: I’m a big ol’ geek and Roleplaying Games