Category: News

I met Jo Anderton on the Orbit/QWC writers retreat a couple of years ago, in which I participated as a mentor to the ten writers selected to attend. After talking to Jo, I realised what an incredibly good work ethic she had to support her writing talent. Subsequently, we did a bit of work together on her new novel, and I’m terribly delighted to say that it, plus sequel, will be published by Angry Robot in 2011 and 2012.

Angry Robot has this to say:

Series opener Debris introduces us to Tanyana, leader of a matter-manipulating team. Following an accident, she’s dismayed to be demoted to little more than a garbage collector, but it soon becomes obvious she’s been manipulated into that role by the faceless faction she calls the Puppet Men, to uncover a world-shattering secret.

That man Marc Gascoigne said, “With the ever-increasing popularity of Japanese and Korean anime, manga and computer games, it’s been surprising that there hasn’t been more SF and fantasy showing its influence. Debris’s mix of SF and fantasy themes, exotic future-medieval settings, Dune-esque warring factions, and a fabulous kick-ass heroine is exactly the sort of on-trend science fiction Angry Robot was set up to publish. We’re damned pleased to have Jo on board.”

The retreat group (now called the Orbiteers) have stayed in contact  and have enjoyed other successes since then, including the release of novels by Graham Storrs and Luke Keioskie.

Group facilitator Janette Dalgleish has also won a character in my next Marianne de Pierres series thanks to her amusing and rather special encouragment when I needed help getting my last novel finished. Janette will be officially cowpunked!

There is something special in the synchronicity of like-minded people; magic things happen.

Delighted to say that my interview is up at OMG Squee. Find out who brings out my inner fan girl, and a little more about my Glitter Rose collection. Many thanks to Min Dean and Deanne Sheldon-Collins for having me to visit.

This is for Rena, and because I found it SO amusing. Straight from the Stanford Uni site:

Canadian cowboys appeared very similar to the cowhands across the border in the United States. A broad-brimmed hat for shelter from sun and rain, snug jeans, and high-heeled boots were standard garb. Although unpolished by the urban standards of Montreal or Quebec, Alberta cowboys could likely read and write. . . .

Ranch hands in Canada stand alone among the cowboys of the Americas in having very little negative imagery associate with them. In fact, Canadians go to considerable pains to distinguish their ”civilized” and cultured West from the violent, rough-and-tumble frontier to their south. . . . Historian L.G. Thomas noted of the not-so-wild Canadian West that ”the body is American but the spirit is English.”

Nineteenth-century sources recorded considerable differences in cowboy country north and south of the Forty-ninth Parallel. . . . The Calgary Herald in 1884 contrasted the cowboys of Canada and the United States. ”The rough and festive cowboy of Texas and Oregon has no counterpart here. Two or three beardless lads wear jingling spurs and ridiculous revolvers and walk with a slouch, [but] the genuine Alberta cowboy is a gentleman.”

Source: Slatta, Richard. Cowboys of the Americas. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. 51.