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That’s what I’ll have to do in about a ten days when I get back from Melbourne Supanova. I’ll also need to remind myself that a writer writes and doesn’t just swan around the place talking to people. Which is what I’ve been having a great time doing! To add to the school and library visits I’ve done email interviews and blogs galore. At the moment I’m blogging for the whole week on the Random House blog. There are giveaways for Burn Bright going on, including winning the book and snaffling bookmarks and stickers.
I’m having my own MARCH MADNESS!
Pretty soon though it will be back to work and the year is going to be filled with Tara Sharp and Burn Bright #3. It should be huge fun. I LOVE my job.
Signing off with some pics from recent events – tty after the Supanova Extravaganza.
 Kinokuniya with Yunyu  Moorebank SHS  Callaghan College  Linsay Knight and MDP - Random House dinner  Redcliffe SH
Here is my schedule for the week. Would love to see some friends there!
MDP author talks will be held at: Arana Hills Library from 6.30pm on Monday, March 28; Strathpine Library on Tuesday March 29 from 6.30 pm; Narangba Library on Wednesday March 30 from 6.30pm; and at Redcliffe Library from 10am on Thursday March 31.
“Multi-faceted author Marianne de Pierres will bring her blend of fantasy, humour and crime writing talents to a series of talks at Moreton Bay Region Libraries later this month.
Moreton Bay Regional Council Lifestyle and Amenities spokesperson, Cr David Dwyer, said the popular author had just released her first novel for young adults, Burn Bright – which delves into the world of glamour and the darker aspects of teenage anxiety.
“Marianne de Pierres has a strong and dedicated following and her talks from the author’s perspective are always riveting,” Cr Dwyer said.
“It’s your chance explore the world and influences of a well regarded author in the comfort of a local Moreton Bay region library.”
Marianne de Pierres’ previous works include the multi-award-nominated Parrish Plessis and Sentients of the Orion series as well as the Tara Sharp humorous crime series written under a pseudonym, Marianne Delacourt.
Bookings are recommended and can be made through individual libraries.
Followed by:
An evening with Marianne de Pierres
Victoria Point Library
Thursday 31 March, 6 – 7pm
Come along to hear Marianne talk about her writing across both science fiction and crime genres and her new venture into young adult dark fantasy.
Refreshments will be provided. Please RSVP to Anne on 3884 4011.
This event is brought to you in partnership with Angus & Robertson Victoria Point.
 I’ve just finished the first of a three week tour and am having a weekend breather before Brisbane and Melbourne events, which include two Supanovas. I’m also still trying to find all my passwords and urls that I lost with my computer crash. So forgive me if my posts are a little sparse the next week or so.
To keep you entertained though I have posts coming soon from LA Gilman and Ilona Andrews. So stay tuned.
I would also like to say how delighted I am that BOTH Mirror Space and Transformation Space have shortlisted for an Aurealis Award in the Science Fiction Novel category. The winners will be announced in May. Many friends and colleagues are also on the lists, notably my ROR-ette writer’s group buds, Trent, Margo, Tansy, Richard and Dirk.
 The Generosity of Strangers
Growing up, I wanted to draw comics. If you’d gotten ahold of my notebooks from middle school on, you’d have found the margins (and sometimes whole pages) filled with pen drawings of superheroes and other such byproducts of a life spent between the covers of DC and Marvel.
My high school art teacher encouraged me to choose art as a college major, and thinking I would blossom into an illustrator, I went for it.
Then, in the final semester of my second year of art school, I took a night class in Creative Writing. (Is there somewhere a class called “Noncreative Writing”?) I can no longer remember the name of the woman who led this class, but she quickly managed to shake up my little art major’s snow globe of a brain. I began writing short stories. They were all derivative, ideas and plots stolen from Rod Serling, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, and anyone else whose sf, fantasy, and horror fiction had graced the pages of Playboy magazine. To this day nobody believes me when I say I kept a collection of Playboy going back to about 1964, for the fiction.
Some threshold got crossed in that semester, though. In my third year as an art major, I could not maintain my interest in it. I missed afternoon studios. It’s extremely difficult to fail art classes in drawing and painting, but I was giving it a shot.
When finally my off-campus apartment was gutted by a fire, destroying six semesters-worth of paintings and drawings (oil on canvas  makes an excellent combustible) while by some bizarre fluke leaving a story I was working on intact, it really was divine-intervention overkill.
Most authors I know were sure they wanted to be writers from the time they were six. Some claim they were composing poetry in the womb. My addiction began late.
A year passed during which I tried twice to write a novel. The first one was 68 pages long. Yeah, I knew what I was doing all right.
The second one was at least more or less the right length at 250 manuscript pages. I had by then read a couple of books by David Gerrold about his experiences writing for Star Trek, and knowing nothing about proper etiquette, I sent him a fan letter in which I explained (apparently rationally) that I’d written a fantasy novel and did not know what to do with it now that I had. Knowing no more than that, David Gerrold sent me a letter of introduction to Lin Carter, the editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. I attached this gracious letter to my manuscript, boxed it and sent it to New York. It was rejected. But–and perhaps because of David’s kindness–Lin Carter sent with the rejection a line by line analysis of the first ten pages of the book. While ten pages was probably all anyone could have endured without falling into a state of gibbering madness, Mr. Carter had also done me an incredible kindness.
Soon after that, I was accepted at the University of Iowa, where I met and was taught by the likes of T.C. Boyle and Joe Haldeman. T. Boyle introduced me to Joe–another kindness. And Joe encouraged me to submit two stories along with an application to the Clarion workshop at MSU. I’d never heard of it.
 At Clarion in short order I found myself in a one-on-one conference with Samuel R. Delany. This was like sitting before God while he gently exposed your inadequacies. And they were formidable inadequacies. Delany did not for a second let me off the hook. It hurt. It was supposed to.
I could say that all of these mentors were just doing the job they were paid to, but I don’t think so–certainly not David Gerrold or Lin Carter.
I think that on some level I must have expressed the excitement that writing kindled in me; and they, recognizing the nascent addict before them, went further than they had to–what’s nowadays referred to as “paying it forward.”
I heard Joe Haldeman not long ago tell an audience that a writer needs three things: Talent (and you don’t need much), perseverance (a heap of that), and luck. The luck, he said, is the thing that’s out of your control. Which may be true, but sometimes your luck is made through the generosity of strangers. As a teacher of writing I’ve tried to remember what these people did for me and when confronted by a young addict, to serve an occasional helping of that myself. Remember, kid, the first one’s always free.
Bio:
GREGORY FROST is a writer of best-selling fantasy, science fiction, and thrillers. He has been a finalist for every major sf and fantasy award. His latest work is the duology Shadowbridge and Lord Tophet. Voted one of the best fantasy novels of the year by the American Library Association, it was also a finalist for the James Tiptree Jr. Award in 2009 and received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly. His previous novel, the historical thriller, Fitcher’s Brides, was a finalist for both the World Fantasy and International Horror Guild Awards for Best Novel. His latest short story, “The Dingus” leads off in Ellen Datlow’s anthology Supernatural Noir, out in June. He also directs the fiction workshop at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, PA.
With my Burn Bright book tour just around the corner, I thought it was time I put some links up. If you’re in Sydney, Yunyu and I’ll be at Galaxy Books (23rd March, 5.30), Ultimo Library (21st March, 4-5pm) and Kinokuniya (24th March, 6pm).
Following that I’ll be back in Brisbane for a week, visiting libraries. (Look in the sidebar for details). Then back down to Melbourne where events are yet to be confirmed.
And there have been some gratifying reviews for Burn Bright so far, none more than the two at Inside A Dog.
And Marcus has just finished the March newsletter which is a Burn Bright special.
Tansy Rayner Roberts pops in to give us a sneak look at the next book in her delightful Creature Court series.
The Shattered City, Creature Court Book Two
Velody is now the leader of the Creature Court – and struggling to keep her daylight life separate from the nightly battles against the sky. But both worlds are about to collide in a devastating way.
Two young men are murdered, and the Lords and Court turn against each other with grief, anger and accusations. The Duchessa cancels the Sacred Games, and the city of Aufleur stops healing itself after every battle…
Things, in short, get worse. That’s what Book 2 is all about, isn’t it? Things Get Worse. The middle book of a trilogy often gets a bad rap for being ‘padding’ or ‘extraneous’ but I have always loved them best. The middle is when things get really interesting, once you’re fully invested in the characters and their torments, but not yet having to psych yourself up for the grand wrap up. It’s also often the hardest for an author to talk about, because beginnings and endings are so much more glamorous.
Rest assured, in The Shattered City, things get worse. There’s more sex, death and natural disasters than in Book One, and the frocks are prettier. Some things that we thought were gone for good are back with a vengeance. And you have a 100% authorial guarantee that a City. Will. Fall. — Tansy Rayner Roberts
And while we’re looking at some excellent upcoming reading, I’d like to mention Nightsiders by Sue Isles. This is part of Twelfth Planet Press’s Twelve Planet series.
In a future world of extreme climate change, Perth, Western Australia’s capital city, has been abandoned. Most people were evacuated to the East by the late ’30s and organised infrastructure and services have gone.
A few thousand obstinate and independent souls cling to the city and to the southern towns. Living mostly by night to endure the fierce temperatures, they are creating a new culture in defiance of official expectations. A teenage girl stolen from her family as a child; a troupe of street actors who affect their new culture with memories of the old; a boy born into the wrong body; and a teacher who is pushed into the role of guide tell the story of The Nightside.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction by Marianne de Pierres
- The Painted Girl
- Nation of the Night
- Paper Dragons
Thrilled to say that Margo Lanagan and Trent Jamieson have dropped by to share a little something about their new and upcoming books.
 A PIECE OF YELLOWCAKE
Yellowcake bears a family resemblance to my previous three short story collections – White Time, Black Juice and Red Spikes. There are ten stories in it, and all but one contain some magical or fantastical element; ‘Heads’, the war story, is the only fully real-world story.
This collection’s different from the other three, though, in that only one of the stories, ‘Into the Clouds on High’, was written especially for the collection. That story, about a woman being assumed into Heaven (as, in my Catholic childhood, I was taught Jesus’ mother Mary was), I wrote because one of my editors thought the collection as a whole was fairly dark, and asked if I’d mind providing a story that lightened things up a little. So I guess, if you’re wanting a laugh a minute, perhaps Yellowcake is not the cake you want to be eating!
The remainder of the stories were published in various places from 2006 to 2009. One of my favourites, ‘The Point of Roses’, came out as an extra in the UK edition of Black Juice – I’m very pleased to be able to bring the soft-toy dog in that story, Pumfter von Schnitzel, to new readers. Several of the others came out in anthologies that were only published in the US, and three were published only in Australia – one, ‘The Golden Shroud’, in a book for the educational market.
The variety of stories is as great as I could make it, given that I wasn’t writing them with a collection in mind. There are a couple of retellings, ’The Golden Shroud’ extending the Rapunzel tale, ‘Night of the Firstlings’ putting a new slant on the Passover story. The snide wizard’s-vengeance story, ‘A Fine Magic’, was a whole lot of fun to write, I remember. ’Ferryman’, about Charon’s daughter, I didn’t realise was as sad as it was until I read it aloud to a conference-full of librarians in New Zealand and nearly made myself cry. ‘Heads’ probably takes the cake for bone-crushing depressingness, but, oh dear, nobody gets out of ‘An Honest Day’s Work’ untroubled, either, and dozens of characters end up dead.
Most of the Yellowcake stories were written while I was working on my novel Tender Morsels, which came out at the end of 2008 (in Australia and the US, 2009 in the UK). They were a way to refresh my brain and my writing, during the longer slog of the novel. I love how it only takes a tiny spark to set the idea for a short story alight. However dark the content, in comparison with a novel it feels very playful to me to set a short story running and see where it takes me. I hope people enjoy reading these ten short runs through the wilds of my subconscious as much as I enjoyed writing them. — Margo Lanagan
ARE YOU READY TO ROIL?
Roil is part one of the Nightbound Land Duology. It’s my monsters and Steampunk book. I love monsters and I love the accoutrement of steampunk, and I’ve loved them both since I started reading Michael Moorcock as a child. If I’ve done my job well, these books should be dark and fast: a smoking, shuddering rollercoaster at midnight.
Shale is a world drowning in a monster-haunted darkness called the Roil. It’s a place where everyone has been pushed to breaking point.
There’s David Milde, addicted to the drug Carnival, and survivor of a political coup. All he wants is to save his own skin, and maybe score some more Carnival. Then there is Margaret Penn out to destroy the Roil for what it did to her family and her city. Vengeance is her only goal: get in her way and, well, you don’t want to get in her way. The Old Man Cadell may be the greatest monster of his age, guilt and weird hungers drive him, but he holds the key to Shale’s salvation (possibly). And then there is Kara Jade pilot of the Roslyn Dawn. She’s proud and loyal. But where do her loyalties lie? If any of them are to survive they may need her most of all.
That’s not even mentioning the cruel Mr Tope, or the single minded and murderous Mayor Stade whose chief regrets are not killing his closest friends earlier.
Night will fall, but who will fall with it? — Trent Jamieson
When your good friends have books come out, it’s almost as exciting as if it’s your own. Especially, when you’re in a writer’s group with them and have been connected with the book since the raw manuscript stage. That’s certainly the case with Trent Jamieon’s new series for Angry Robot books. Roil was the first story Trent brought to ROR and we all fell instantly in love with his brilliantly realised world. It’s been through a few incarnations since then and I can hardly wait for the final version. Anything Trent writes is a gift, but this series is extra special.
And it resonates beautifully with another Angry Robot series that’s not far away. Jo Anderton’s first novel Debris is going to be out in October next year. If you’re at all enamoured with the steampunk genre it’s in that ballpark but … different and unique.
So while I’m waiting for these two, I’ll have Margo Lanagan’s latest collection to be gobbling up. Though the stories in this one are not ones I’ve been involved in work-shopping, I always feel close to Margo’s stories, because her work is her. Not the content … but the incredible depth of intelligence and poetry. But hey … everyone knows that!
 Well I promise that after this post I’ll resume normal transmission. But today was the maddest day!!! Yunyu and I danced and threw gnomes all day with the news that her song Angel Arias went live on iTunes and Bandcamp. Over at the Burn Bright site I’ve said some important thank you’s to people who helped us make this work.
Then by afternoon I saw that the cover for book 2 had escaped into the wild, so I shared news of that as well.
I’ve also had some great new readers join me on FB and twitter and lovely reviews coming in for both the review and the song. Yunyu and I are ecstatic. So now I will stop. But I’ll leave you with the cover for book 2. Thanks you Jaroslaw Kubicki. You are a complete genius!
 The day your book is released is always important but with the release of Burn Bright this week, it is the culmination of nearly a decade’s work. Yes, I’ve been working on the manuscript, on and off, for about that long! You might be sick to death of hearing me talk about it at this stage, but when you’ve been with a story FOREVER, it feels like cause to really celebrate.
To add to that, it’s my first creative collaboration with Yunyu. I loved working with her. She is something else: clever, funny and so so so talented. Plus she’s given me an awesome idea for book 2, Angel Arias. This project has also given me opportunities to do some fun publicity, meet a whole lot of new readers, and strengthen my bonds with some people I love and respect like the CoolShite crew.
We’ve been doing giveaways on Facebook, and through the Burn Bright website, and will do the last ones during the CoolShite podcast on March 7th. Remember, to win those ones, you have to email your questions in ahead of time to feedback@coolshite.net.
The Courier Mail did a neat article on the collaboration today, and also listed my Brisbane Tour Dates:
Strathpine Library on March 29 (3480 6698)
Narangba Library (3385 5555)
Redcliffe Library on March 31 (3283 0311)
Victoria Point Library on March 31 (3884 4000)
Pulp Fiction, Brisbane City, on April 1 (3236 2750)
Brisbane Supanova Pop Culture Expo on April 1-3 (www.supanova. com.au)
And while we’re talking about giveaways, Twelfth Planet Press are also giving away 2 copies of Glitter Rose on Goodreads. All you have to do to be in the draw is click a button (and be a member of GoodReads).
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