Anna Caro

I am - and have been for several years - a member of a writers group which meets fortnightly and has members who write poetry, short fiction, novels, reviews, articles, speculative fiction, literary fiction... you get the picture. A lot of people bring in quite polished work they want to make final changes to before submitting for publication (or filing it in a drawer for later reading pleasure, or whatever their goal is). Mine are usually raw, first drafts I want an initial reaction to the plot of, ideas for where it should end up, which parts didn't make sense or need to be scrapped entirely. I find it a great forum for bouncing these ideas around - as opposed to the close editing which I prefer to be done by one person and in writing.

Last night was a case in point: I took along the first draft of 'Fairground' which is a slipstream story about two women visiting the fairground where they, along with the narrator's brother Drew, used to play as children. Drew may or may not have some unexplainable powers, and he ends up revealing some uncomfortable truths for his sister's friend 'Mary'. I thought the story was about Mary's secrets, but after the discussion I realised that it is very definitely Drew's story, and what he does to Mary is simply the beginning of him losing control. Very useful, and I think I'm on track for the rewrite.

In other news, Rachel at Bookie Monster reviews A Foreign Country. It's from the point of view of someone who I believe is not very familiar with the genre (absolutely not a criticism - I've been mostly hearing from people who are and a different point of view is both useful and every bit as valid) and is a mixed bag, but raises some interesting points (I'm also very much not complaining about having my own story described as a definite read-again).

And speaking of short story collections, I've been reading (on my new Kindle! I'll calm down about this soon!) Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction 2009. Obviously many of the stories are not to my taste, but others are excellent. More importantly, I've been getting really excited about the range of SpecFic out there from outside the UK/North America, from countries that I suspect have similar issues with publishing and promotion to New Zealand. I have a tentative idea, which may or may not work, to edit themed collections of, say, three novellas combining writers from NZ and from around the Asia Pacific region.

But I need to concentrate on my own writing for a while. It's been a stunning day, the fruit trees in our garden are in blossom and I've been sitting on the deck with my laptop with the cats hanging round and rewriting 'Fairground'. Here's to holidays!

Places to buy

Wherever you are, you can buy A Foreign Country direct from the Random Static website. We post world wide, and we're hoping to soon offer gift wrapping options so you can have presents sent directly to friends and relatives overseas.

A Foreign Country is also available online from MightyApe and Wheelers and from these bookshops around the country:

Auckland - The Bookie, Parsons, Unity
Wellington - Arty Bees
Christchurch - University Bookshop Canterbury
Dunedin - University Book Shop

We're adding to this list all the time, and don't forget that any NZ bookstore should be able to order it in for you - just give them the ISBN (978-0-473-16916-9). There will also be copies for sale at the Going West festival (via Unity), Armageddon in Auckland and other events to be confirmed. If you're not able to buy, don't forget you can request your local library orders a copy.

News, Comment and Reflections

We've had a bit of attention in the media, including an interview for The Arts on Sunday (I'll let you know when that's due to be aired). Here are some things from around the web:

Article/interview with author Matt Cowens in The Kapiti Observer
Tim Jones blogs about the launch
Whilst not the focus, this post by Ripley Patton includes a brief report from the launch
Along similar lines, here's a report from Amanda Fitzwater

This is a very preliminary roundup - I'll be putting together a more comprehensive one at a later date. Happy reading!

Writing update! Yes, this morning I finally finished the first draft of 'Winter Baby', formerly known as 'Ghosts'. It will need quite a bit of work, of course, and I'm not sure whether it would fit best in a queer or mainstream publication but I'm surprisingly happy with it. Aliens! Catacombs! Babies everywhere! What's not to love?

It feels so good to be doing my own writing again. I've loved editing 'A Foreign Country', and I have some more editing projects in the works (more soon!) but it's come at a price.

I've resolved to get to Readstrange (my writers' group) tomorrow, and I want to finish an (almost finished) piece from a while ago, working titled fairground. It's going to be a another hard one to place - very slipstreamy, with a child who could have magical powers or it could just be a series of lies and co-incidences, but I'd like to get it done. Whatever-name-I'm-calling-my-partner-on-the-internet-now has 'The Shape of My Wife' for editing and I know where I'm going to try sending it, and other ones I'd like to start working on include 'Losing Everything' - needs a substantial edit, would really like to get it finished, 'Light' and 'Fire Mission', both of which I'm about half way through the first drafts.

I also have a vague shape of a potential creative writing masters project forming in my head. I'm not sure if I could do it - it would be a strange shape, possibly involving webfiction, and whilst not autobiographical perhaps more personal than I'm comfortable with. It may not happen (I'd resolved Saturday night to email someone at Canterbury Uni about their MFA programme and the possibility of doing it part time from out of town with regular visits to the region, but, well that didn't happen) but it's taking my brain in interesting directions.

I'm slowly getting back into the blogosphere, but if you'd like to share the state of your WIP's in the comments, please feel free.

As I mentioned in my last post, A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction was officially launched on Friday. Thank you to everyone who came along, and everyone who was there in spirit. Joff Horlor took a great photo of some of the authors.

Many of the stories in A Foreign Country were selected via the open competition run in conjunction with Au Contraire. Entries were judged by author and Au Contraire Guest of Honour Sean Williams, who commented:

"This was VERY difficult. Each of the top three was brilliant in its own way. Weird how themes of parenthood, dreams, and loss weave through all of them."

And the winners were:

1st Place - 'The Future of the Sky' by Ripley Patton
2nd Place - 'Dreams of a Salamander Nation' by Susan Kornfeld
3rd Place - 'Cry of a Distress Rocket' by Brian Priestley
Honourable Mention - 'Beneath the Trees' by Claire Brunette

You can buy 'A Foreign Country' direct from our website or from an ever expanding list of bookshops including Parsons, Unity and The Bookie in Auckland and Arty Bees in Wellington (some of these may not have it on the shelves right now, but they should soon). If your local independent bookshop is not on this list, please mention the anthology to them.

Bookshops which don't have copies in stock will be able to order them in for buyers on request - you'll need the ISBN: 978-0-473-16916-9. There will also be copies for sale at the Going West Festival, Armageddon in Auckland and other events to be confirmed. And don't forget you can always put in a request at your local library.

The Future

Our next publication will be Barking Death Squirrels by Wellington based writer and A Foreign Country contributor Douglas A Van Belle, and we have at least one more novel in the works.

We're shortly going to be overhauling our submission guidelines - if you are looking for a publisher for a science fiction (broadly defined) novel, novella or comic book, and particularly if you're from NZ or elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, I recommend checking our website in a few weeks.

It's all over and I'm back at home with my computer and my cats and a garage full of random stuff including a large number of coke cans (I don't even drink coke). On balance, it was an awesome weekend, and great to catch up with people (and I'm sorry that sometimes my communication methods were sometimes limited to drunken and exhausted flailing). I was particularly impressed by Lee Pletzers understanding that I was asking him to sell raffle tickets by my saying "words, words" and waving my hands above my head.

I very nervously launched A Foreign Country, meeting many of the writers, some for the first time in person. Claire Brunette read her story 'Beneath the Trees' very well and we sold a bunch both there and at the floating market the next day. I will be writing more about the anthology and where you can get it, as well as prize winners shortly (I'll also be emailing authors directly).

On Saturday was the launch of SpecFicNZ which I'm really excited to be on the committee of (and very impressed by our website). I'm hoping to organise a (far more manageable) event of some description in Wellington at some point, so stay tuned.

I got to a bunch of panels on Sunday, but my big surprise was the Blurbs Workshop - basically how to describe your story in a query or cover letter in two sentences or less. This is something I've always struggled with - and mostly found ways to avoid - and I'm not quite sure what helped in this workshop, but suddenly I made a breakthrough and managed to write them for two stories I intend to start shopping over the next few weeks. So big thanks to Lorraine Williams for that one.

Despite a bit of a hold up at the bar, I'm really proud of the cocktail menu we ended up with, and huge congratulations to all the SJV and other prize winners. After the closing ceremony, while some people who - I don't even know how to describe them - decided to put together a worldcon bid, I had a private comatose cat party in our hotel room with alcohol and a hundred odd glowsticks, characterised by such things as sending a friend running to the (quite respectable!) hotel bar with a bunch of cash saying "I have $40! What alcohol can you give me?" and a 1am run to McDonalds, which I normally hate but somehow the fries tasted so good. I <3 my friends.

The hotel were, on balance, excellent (we'll be writing a letter full of praise for the conference manager), and I'd really recommend them to future cons. We had so many people help us out, but from a personal perspective huge thanks to Katrina, Carmel, Simon, Lee, Nomes and Meredith for such things as driving us, feeding cats, bring in alcohol from my cupboard after feeding my cats, helping with printing and reg desk and selling things and setup and god knows what else.

See you next year (fingers crossed). I may even be capable of coherent speech by then.

'A Foreign Country' is printed and all ready for launch on Friday! I'm really excited and more than a little nervous about this - and particularly looking forward to meeting many of the authors in person. The launch is at 6pm at the Quality Hotel on Cuba Street in Wellington and if you can't make it you can order a copy at the link above.

And then on Saturday is the launch of SpecFicNZ. We now have an amazing new website and it's great to see something I've been involved in for a while really taking shape. The launch is at 6pm, same place.

Both of these events, of course, are part of Au Contraire which I've also been involved in running (which is why I am likely to quite soon have a breakdown and take to the drink). Online registrations are closed but there will be doorsales and we have a packed programme going on all weekend (you don't, however, need to be a member to attend the two events above, but I thoroughly recommend it).

Busy weekend all round!

Kerryn recently made a post illustrating how a wordle image of her blog illustrated how much her focus had changed. I decided to do one of my blog:

Seems representative enough, yes? Well right now, this is what my real life looks like:

The short form of this is:
1) I lack Kerryn's insight
2) FML
3) You'd better all get to the A Foreign Country Launch next Friday, so I don't look like a total idiot.

A little delayed, but here's the next installment of my thoughts on the stories in A Foreign Country (which, incidentally, is at the printers! wooo!):

Visitors to Thebes by Miriam Hurst

Visitors to Thebes is one of those stories that proves just how much speculative fiction can be. Set in a world where the boundaries between human and animal are blurred, this packs in everything and yet never overflows; stunning visual imagery, ethical debates about the advancement of science and its implications, age old questions and at the heart of it all a girl's relationship with her father and her struggle to define her own identity.

Miriam Hurst is currently living in Christchurch, working in clinical immunology. She has lived in three countries so far and visited another dozen, with an increasingly expanding list of places to go back to and experience for the first time. She is a graduate of the Clarion West writers' course.

Miramar is Possum Free by Richard Barnes

Satirical, fast paced and filled with characters larger than life (at times literally), 'Miramar is Possum Free' was just the humourous punch A Foreign Country needed. Set on Wellington's Miramar Peninsula, it features incisive characterisation, plenty of action and possums that are not what you might expect.

Richard Barnes lives and works in occasionally sunny New Zealand and has been trying to be disciplined about his writing since winning a competition run by Earthlight, (sci-fi/ fantasy imprint of Simon and Schuster). He has had scripts considered by the BBC and recently had a nasty little story (actually called “Something Unpleasant”) published in the Masters of Horror Anthology. While running, reading comics and watching Doctor Who, Richard has the nagging feeling that he should be writing.

The Future of the Sky by Ripley Patton

Ripley writes that the New Zealand landscape inspired her to write this story because "only in New Zealand have the clouds taken on such personality, such intent and solidity. Here, clouds are not just wispy hints of weather in a distant sky". Based around the mythical air elementals known as sylphs (on which Ripley has written in more detail), this story is beautifully crafted with well rounded characters and an intriguing ending.

Ripley Patton is an American writer happily living on the South Island of New Zealand. She spends her days and nights writing fantasy, science fiction, flash and whatever else strikes her fancy. She has had work appear in various on-line and print magazines as well as being short-listed for the 2009 and 2010 Sir Julius Vogel awards. Ripley is also the founder of SpecFicNZ, an association for speculative fiction writers of New Zealand to be launched in 2010. More information about her and her writing can be found on her website at http://ripleypatton.com/ or on her blog at http://rippatton.livejournal.com

Well the workshop has come to an end. It's been tough at times, and though I knew at the start I couldn't devote as much time as I'd like to it, and still consider what I did manage very worthwhile, I've been a little disappointed that I couldn't do more. Nevertheless, there is nothing to stop me returning to parts of it at a later date.

I was going to write a more detailed review here, reflecting on what I've got out of it. But my brain's all fuzzy with excessive proofreading, and it's just not going to happen. Besides, I think a lot of it has yet to sink in, be digested and ultimately made use of.

So I'll end this with huge thanks to Merrilee, but also to the other participants. I have been reading all your blog posts, even though I haven't had time to comment much. I wish you all the best in revising your stories, or whatever you plan to move on to next.

Tomorrow is the start of what's possibly my favourite challenge; The End is Nigh. It's a very simple idea; just finish one writing related task - though of course, a lot of people end up doing more. I'm hoping this is what's going to get me back on track now A Foreign Country is very close to being done. Thanks to the Creativity Workshop, I have been managing to at least do some writing, but editing and submitting have pretty much fallen by the wayside.

August is going to be a very busy month, though, so whilst I'm writing a long list of everything I want to do, I'll be happy if I just manage to get through one or two. In no particular order:

• Redraft and submit 'The Shape of My Wife'
• Finish the first draft of 'Ghosts'
• Redraft 'Verity'
• Write a synopsis for the planned major revision of 'Moving Water'
• Finish first draft of as yet untitled Creative Workshop story set in Japan
• Finish first draft of as yet untitled Creative Workshop story about creatures made of light