Tag: peeps doing cool stuff
Works in Progress

This Weeks Project

It took me most of February to get there, but I finally climbed back on the submission horse and sent out short stories last night. Night quite the February I’d planned for back at the beginning, but given the distractions of dead computers, illness, parental birthdays and toothaches I’m settling for getting 25% of the way towards my submission goal and carrying the rest over to the month of March. This week I’m getting even more basic and going for straight wordcount goals. Between now and the 7th of March I’m aiming at the following: In other news, the most excellent peep Jason Fischer is co-editing an upcoming issue of Midnight Echo and he’s looking for cross-genre SF/Horror works. And I’m almost out of coffee, so that’s it for me this morning.

PeterMBall 01/03/2010
Adventures in Lifestyle Hacking

One of the reasons I like the future

Being a single bloke who lives alone, I have a certain blindspot when it comes to shopping. Actually, I have several, but the one I speak of here primarily kicks in when browsing through the area marked “fruit and vegetables.”  I have my staples – there’s usually a spanish onion or two in the house, plus some potato and sweet potato if I’m splashing out- but I generally stick with a few vegetables and rarely touch the fruit at all. If ever there were a guy who steps forth to challenge the statement that “man cannot live on curry and pizza alone,” it’d probably be me. I’ve mostly arrived at this situation through habit, laziness, and the tendency towards belt-tightening when one lives alone and doesn’t get to share around the general costs of living. I’m also aware that it’s not a good state of affairs, especially since I’m taking the easy route of take-away food far more often than

PeterMBall 12/02/2010
Journal

Only Thursday

‘Tis a Thursday, today. Somehow this fact managed to elude me until I rocked up for the Friday launch of my friend Chris Lynch’s Tangled Bank anthology, which wasn’t on for obvious reason. I really shouldn’t be trusted to run my own schedule. That said, the momentary mortification hasn’t really done much to dilute the fact that this is a week of awesomeness among my friends. There’s Chris’s launch tomorrow, the official announcement that Angela Slatter will be doing a short-story anthology with Ticonderoga Publications, due for release at Wordcon in September, and we’re counting down the days until Jason Fischer’s zombie novella After the World: Gravesend hits newsagents on Monday. On top of this there was discounted ginger marmalade on sale at the grocery story today (score!), my laptop repaired and came in towards the lower end of the projected costs (double-score!), and I’ve managed to start watching a  TV series on DVD without spiraling into the twenty-four episode

PeterMBall 11/02/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

This is my Pimp Hat

Three things worth noting: 1) Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts @ Podcastle The audio version of Ben Fransisco’s story Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts is live over at Podcast. Go forth and feast your ears upon it; you will not be sorry. 2) Fantasy Magazine Best Story of 2009 Poll If you haven’t had the chance yet, hie yourself over to Fantasy Magazine and place a vote in their 2009 reader poll to determine the favourite story published there last year. My votes swung towards Angela Slatter’s The Chrysanthemum Bride and Lisa Hannett’s The Good Window, but as usual you can’t go wrong with the majority of the stories that Fantasy publishes. 3) Apex Magazine’s First Annual Reader Poll Apex Magazine is also looking for your vote on the best story they published in 2009, although I’m steering clear of recommendations given that two of the stories involved were mine.

PeterMBall 12/01/2010
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

PeterMBall 16/12/2009
Works in Progress

IAF Auctions/Interfictions 2

Alongside the release of Interfictions II comes the Interstatial Arts Foundation Auction featuring art pieces, jewelry and other works based upon the stories in the two Interfiction’s anthologies. A full list of the pieces is being rolled out on the IAF Auctions blog over the coming month, but allow me to call attention to Item 4 on the list, Mia Nutick’s Black Dog Forever, which is based on my story in IF2: http://iafauctions.com/interfictions-2-auction-4/… I don’t know about you, but I file this under “cool.” Go forth and peruse the other awesomeness on offer, for all sales go towards the IAF. Hell, let me just quote for this bit: “The Interfictions auctions have become a major aspect of the Interstitial Arts Foundation’s fundraising efforts, allowing the organization to fund other interstitial arts projects, including future Interfictions anthologies. Please join us in celebrating the anthology and support the Interstitial Arts Foundation by bidding and spreading the word.” Interfictions II has also racked

PeterMBall 09/11/2009
Works in Progress

Words, words, words (With bonus Angela Slatter Interview)

Before I begin, let me direct you to this: Marshal Payne’s Super-Sekrit Clubhouse has a new interview with my Write Club peep Angela Slatter, which should give you a pretty good insight into why I usually use words like “awesome” and “inimitable” when discussing both her and her writing. Angela remains one of those folks who fuses talent, hardworking dilligance and bucket-loads of smarts in her approach to writing (although she’ll refute the latter with Simpson’s referenes, giving half a chance). She speaks wisdom and her writing is good – so go read about her now, while she’s still an ’emerging writer’, and then  you can join me in the nodding and looking smug when people start talking about how this awesome new ’emerged’ writer in the years to come. And if you don’t, well, I’ll mock you -with a very mocking mock – because that’s the kind of guy I am. Okay, back to the entry. Or, to put it

PeterMBall 06/11/2009
News & Upcoming Events

Yep, the internets are full of stuff I’ve been involved with this week…

…so I may as well go with the hat-trick when it comes to blatant acts of self-promotion this week and mention the following: 1) The Coming Dark at the Internet Review of Science Fiction A long-ish article about the apocalypse in its varied form, put together by my write-club peep Angela Slatter and featuring a bunch of talented Aussie writers (plus me, who is pretty lucky to be sounding coherent given that I was drafting responses to these questions during Gen Con Oz a few weeks back. Not to self – don’t agree to deadlines that coincide with conventions you’re working at). Spec-fic writers tend towards the strange, the weird, the unpleasant—that’s their writing, not their personalities. We’ve had the apocalypse penciled in for a while now, so how are some of us going about documenting the coming dark? How is our changing, frayed environment affecting the writing of authors on our side of the literary divide? A small chunk (really

PeterMBall 09/10/2009
Journal

Your regular transmission is interrupted with this breaking bulletin:

Jason Fischer – Clarion Peep, Awesome Dude, and purveyor of zombie stories – has won the second quarter of the Writers of the Future competition and a trip to LA. The Fisch has been chasing this dream for about three years now, often coming tantalisingly close to earning a spot, and there are no words for how happy I am that he’s finally picked up the victory. Honestly, it couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke. By all rights I should be kneeling in the rain, shirt torn, playing air-guitar to November Rain in honor of this achievement (ask Jason why and maybe he’ll explain). Instead I’m blinking, bleary-eyed, into the dust-cloud of doom that seems to have enveloped Brisbane (and Sydney), and somehow it just doesn’t have the same effect.

PeterMBall 23/09/2009
Writing Advice - Craft & Process

Some Awesomeness, Some Writing Advice, Some Help Needed, and Some Horn Spotting

1) Two Reasons Angela Slatter is awesome The latest Clarkwesworld magazine has an interview with eight Emerging SF authors, including the insightful and rather startlingly talented Angela Slatter. She says some smart stuff, as do the rest of the interviewees, and it’s well worth a read. If, however, you like you’re writing advice in a more direct and focused form, I really suggest heading over to Angela’s website and read through her advice on editing. Actually, I’d advocate printing out the entire post and keeping it handy next time you’re proofing something. I’ve been lucky enough to have stuff edited/proofed by Angela before and I can say with certainty that she knows of what she speaks here. 2) Interesting Writing Advice from Across the Interwebs Still on the writing front, I’d also recommend going and taking a listen to Mary Robinette Kowal’s guest-spot on the Writing Excuses podcast. It crams four really useful pieces of advice to fiction writers (based on

PeterMBall 04/09/2009
Writing Advice - Craft & Process

Links and Things

1) Chris Green Distills the Clarion Wisdom I went to Clarion South with Chris two and a half years ago. He’s a smart man, very interested in things, and on something of a roll of late as far as publications and sales go. Over the last week Chris started distilling some of the major lessons we learned during the workshop into a series of very short, controlled blog posts. Given his terse nature, these are short and easy to digest, and they’re basically the high points of the workshop in collected form (and since he doesn’t believing in tagging posts, I’ll send you straight to the first entry and let you follow along from there). 2) Philip Pullman on How to Write a Book This amuses me in its accuracy. 3) Reviewage andPimpage – My comrade-in-writing Ben Francisco – and the first man to tell me “this should be a novella” – engages in some Horn Pimpage on my behalf – The Fix diggs my

PeterMBall 19/08/2009
Journal

Links, Reviews and Dancing

I’ve been all words, words, words this week, resulting in big long posts both here and elsewhere, so today I’m aiming for short and brief. Lots of getting in, doing the pimpery, and getting out. And this time it’s not all about me, just like, two thirds about me. You know how it is. Cool Stuff: The Outlandish Voices Podcast A project set up by Laura E. Goodin, a friend from Clarion and fellow believer in the power of the middle initial, to deliver readings by Illawarra’s established and emerging science fiction, horror, and fantasy authors. Laura is one of those folks whose not content to be contained as far as her creative ambitions, so she’s managing this while simultaneously picking up momentum as a short story writer and playwright (with, I suspect, a host of novels getting written as well). I get tired just reading her blog and trying to keep up with her various projects, especially given her propensity for making them

PeterMBall 07/08/2009

Book Information?

Please send us an email at support@laautor.tld

Need Help?

Please call us at +6221.1000.1212

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

About Laautor
Support
Newsletter

Signup our newsletter to get update information, promotions and insight.

Copyright © 2021 Laautor, All rights reserved. Powered by MoxCreative.
Facebook Twitter Youtube