Category: News

It was a big one! Headed off to the Joanna Fowler Network fundraiser and was thoroughly entertained by the zumba dancers and a lovely fashion parade. The hall was filled with stalls selling candles, gift-ware, stationary and all sorts of lovely things. I talked for a while about writing and then we drew some amazing raffle prizes, including a $900 gift basket from Harbourside Day Spa. Mrs Fowler spoke at the end and was very emotional about the support. Katie and Sarah Brewster were amazing and I hope are having a well deserved rest today. Huge effort ladies!

I then headed home to get the news that Transformation Space won Best Science Fiction Novel at the Aurealis Awards. Trans Space is the final book in the Sentients of Orion series and probably the hardest book I’ve ever written. It was a complex and sweeping series that required intricate plot mechanics to get it to pull together. Not only that but I wrote most of it when I was suffering badly from my heart symptoms. Just goes to show what you can do when you have the passion!

Below is my acceptance speech which was read by Sean Williams:

Hi Everyone,

Be assured that if Sean is reading this, that I’m keeled over in a corner somewhere from shock. Having been a finalist a number of times, I never really expected to take the next step.

I’ve asked Sean to accept on my behalf because, aside from being my friend, he knows more than anyone else how difficult it is to survive as a Science Fiction novelist in Australia, and this award is as much about him and his legacy, as it is about me wining tonight. Congratulations to Sarah Creasy as well for her nomination. I’m thrilled to be on an all girls shortlist with her.

I couldn’t be with you this evening as I’m speaking at a fundraiser at my son’s school. His chemistry teacher had a bad fall and was left severely and permanently injured. This night is to raise money for the equipment that she needs to move home. So, much as I’d love to be with you all on our annual night of genre celebration, it was very important that I was a part of their efforts.

Now, to some thank you’s. Firstly, to my agent to Tara Wynne, who I love and without who life wouldn’t be the same. To my publisher, Orbit Books who took a risk with a Australian writing cyberpunk nearly ten years ago, and who have been nothing but a pleasure to work with. Extra special thanks go to Darren Nash who edited all the Sentients of Orion novels and made me believe I could do it.  His confidence helped me grow as a person, not just  as a writer. Also, to my writing buddies, Writers on the Rise, who are never far from my side. And lastly, my family, who are curiously proud of their slightly-odd-but-never-boring, mother, sister, aunt, and wife.

And of course to you all tonight, many of who are my dear friends. You should know that this award means a whole universe to me. Thank you.

MDP x

To this, I would like to add a few more thanks. Firstly, to Amy Parker who proofread and nitpicked over the raw manusrcipt and helped me make it a better story. If you look in the sidebar you can see her business contact. I highly recommend her services.

Secondly, I want to thank all the readers who stayed with a series that was different from the space opera norm, and trusted me to deliver a story worth reading.

Finally, I’d like to thank the MDPWebber’s: Bec Stafford, Kylie Fox, Mandy Wrangles, Bel Hamilton, Amy Parker, Cels Jansink, Jamie Marriage, Janette Dalgliesh and (more recently) Phil Coss. Your support and cheering from the side feels like my family.

Walking Around Harper Blaine’s Neighborhood

You may have already seen the walking tour of Harper Blaine’s stomping grounds around Pioneer Square in Seattle—it’s up on YodioTours.com. I think it’s kind of a fun  experience and it’s one of those funny little projects where one little connection grew into a whole chain of opportunities. Marianne asked me to say a bit about the tour and how it happened, so here goes….

The project sort of fell into my lap back in November 2010 when I got an e-mail from Yodio founder Clay Loges. He’s a Seattle guy and he frequents Seattle Mystery Bookshop, which is not only a favorite of mine, but it’s located in Harper’s working neighborhood and gets mentioned in one of the books, since Harper is a Mystery reader herself. Clay was looking for offbeat material for new tours; new ways to connect to customers with content that was not the usual historical or quick highlights kind of thing. He thought using fiction that was set in Seattle might be a fun angle and he asked the staff which series might be a good fit and were written by local authors who might be interested in creating a tour based on their books. I was one of the authors the staff recommended since they like my books, but they also know they’re pretty accurate about the area and history of Pioneer Square.

Clay got in touch with me and we met over coffee to discuss the idea. I’m not sure he was that excited by me initially, since I get pitched by a lot of people who have ideas that propose to bring me fame and fortune at only the cost of my time, copyright, effort, or endorsement, so I may have come off a bit aloof. Most of these sorts of pitches are scams and I often end up saying “no.” This time, since I needed to do nothing but take some photos and write a script, I figured it wouldn’t be much of a risk, so I said “sure.” I had no idea how much more fun it was going to be than I thought.

I spent some time walking around Pioneer Square on my proposed route, taking photos, and then looking over a sample script to get a feel for the format and timing before writing a script of my own. While I was doing it, I began to remember all the reasons I’d first decided to set a book here—the historic district of Seattle is funky, strange, and full of bizarre thing, bits of history, and the outright silly. Writing up the script was a lot of fun.

Clay and I exchanged a lot of e-mails picking the photos and make note of photos we needed to get, then matching up the photos to the script and editing it to create an informative and fun tour with a route that would take an average person about 45 minutes to cover if they didn’t linger or take any detours. This was more like work, but not exactly the kind you dread and mostly it took no more than an hour or two once the original script was created.

I decided to write the script in a casual style as if I were actually walking along with the user through Pioneer Square. I’ve actually done this with a few fans and it’s a lot of fun. The “voice” of the tour is fun and informative and just a little goofy here and there—just like it would be in person. Because I’m a little goofy too and how serious can you really be when you’re talking about books that feature monsters in the sewer, insecure vampires, and ghosts of dead bootleggers?

It took about 4 months to get the whole thing together, including adding a few missed photos and recording the audio—which I did with Clay on my boat. Clay assembled the final pieces and then published the tour to the YodioTours site. So far it hasn’t made any money for me, but it was still a lot of fun to create and I might even do another one if I have the chance—after all, I’ve written six books with this character and she’s gone out of town to London and now to the Olypmic Peninnsula which would also be fun to revist. In the meantime, I’ve referred a few other writers and historians—including the head historian of the Underground Tour who helped me with the research on one of the Greywalker books and who is also a great friend of the Seattle Mystery Bookshop staff—to Clay and I hope they have as much fun getting the landscape of their own books out to others as I’ve had.

The funniest thing about doing the tour was rediscovering things about the area that I’d almost forgotten since I’d written the first three books. I’ve spent so much of my time on later books that I’d begun to forget my own backstory. So now I feel like I’ve had a chance to reacquaint myself with my characters and their town and… I still like them. Which is a nice thing to realize after all this time.

My thanks to Marianne for letting me chatter about this, here. I hope you enjoyed it.

Kat Richardson

Bio:

Kat Richardson is the Bestselling author of the Greywalker paranormal detective novels. A former theater brat, magazine editor, and English Country dancer who escaped from LA, she now lives on a boat (not a houseboat) in the Seattle area with her husband and the ghosts of ferrets.

Book Chick City is hosting a Women of SF week next week. I’ll be one of many bloggers, so drop by and enjoy the discussion.

And later next week Michael Connelly is talking at QUT.

Brisbane — Wednesday 25 May — 6.30 pm
Venue: QUT Auditorium, Kelvin Grove
Cost: Free. Bookings: Not required

Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane Writers’ Festival and Brisbane’s Better Bookshops present: Michael Connelly in conversation with Donna Hancox.