Editor Simon Petrie has an interview with me about my story “Home Sick” from the Use Only As Directed anthology. If you’re interested in the story behind the story, why not go check it out?
News
My Loncon 3 Schedule
I’ll be attending this year’s Worldcon in London, Loncon 3. If you happen to see me, say hi!
All my scheduled events are on the Friday, which has the advantage of making the rest of my convention fairly laid back. In addition to the panels, I plan to pop into the SFWA reception and I’ll be attending the Hugo Award ceremony.
Panel: The Pleasures of a Good, Long Info-Dump
Friday 11:00 – 12:00, Capital Suite 7+12 (ExCeL)
Arguably, the literature of ideas is not SF but the one emerging from the recent deluge of speculative nonfictional works. If we want to read about interesting ideas on the future of war, we don’t turn to SF with its rather pathetic, microwaved dystopic visions. We’re better off with books like John Mueller’s Capitalism, Democracy and Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery or Max van Crevald’s Art of War. These are extended info dumps, in which the traditional problems of SF – weak characterization, plot centricity etc – have been eliminated. They don’t describe probable, moral or desirable futures, but remain densely speculative in a way most modern SF simply isn’t. Is it time to get rid of fiction from science fiction and focus on what its geeky readers have always enjoyed, the ideas part — the Info dump?
Panelists: Jack William Bell (Moderator), Cory Doctorow, Kim Stanley Robinson, M. Darusha Wehm
Panel: A Singularity for the Rest of Us
Friday 20:00 – 21:00, Capital Suite 8 (ExCeL)
Is posthumanism really as straight, white and Western as it often seems? How can science fiction talk about post-body identities without diminishing or dismissing embodied identity and experience? This panel will discuss the stories out there that complicate the uploaded experience.
Panelists: Russell Blackford (Moderator), Ibrahim Abbas, Lettie Prell, Hannu Rajaniemi, M. Darusha Wehm
I’m Answering Questions on Goodreads
Do you use Goodreads? Ever wondered something about my books, or want to know what’s coming next? Ask me!
I’m answering questions on Goodreads, so feel free to stop by there and ask me something. I do love hearing from you, after all.
By Popular* Demand: My Writing Process
(*For some value of “popular.”)
I’ve been tagged by Erica L. Satifka in a blog-go-round to talk about my writing process.
Erica, if you don’t know, is a newly arrived denizen of the lovely environs of Portland OR and a writer whose work I always watch out for. I read her story “The Afternoon Revolution” in Strange Bedfellows a couple of weeks ago and it’s still haunting me. Thanks for the tap-in, Erica.
1) What are you working on?
The past few months I’ve been working on edits to Children of Arkadia, scheduled for release by Bundoran Press in March 2015. My editor, Hayden Trenholm, had some excellent suggestions to improve the book, which turned into rather extensive changes. I’m really happy with the result, though, and now we’re at the point where there are just a few minor things to finish.
I’m also in the later drafting phase of a novel-in-stories about a generation starship. My partner and first reader has referred to it as what you’d get if Albert Camus wrote space opera. I don’t know about that, but it’s a much more “literary” style than my previous books, and is full of capital-I ideas. And, of course, [spoiler] you never see them leave and you never see them arrive, so there’s all that awesome existential doubt over the whole thing. It’s good fun.
2) How does your work differ from others of its genre?
I want to write idea stories that say something about the human condition or our current world, without being too didactic or obvious, stories that recognize that no person or situation is entirely good or entirely evil. However, I also try to mostly write plausible futures grounded in real technology and science without spending chapters explaining it all.
I quite like books where deep explanations are done well, but while I want my worlds to be plausible (and I do have the dubious honour of having had several technologies I posited “come true” since my first book), the ideas and story come first. If readers want to research the concepts I inroduce further, that’s awesome. Experts in the field will do a better job of explaining them than I could.
While none of those aspects is unique to my writing, I think the way I combine them is a big part of what makes for a “Darusha story.”
3) Why do you write what you do?
The easy answer is that I write the stories I want to read. I also tend to write worlds I’d like to live in, even if I often focus on their bad neighbourhoods. I write to examine the world in which I do live though a different lens, to extrapolate where we might go for good or for ill. I also like to write characters and relationships that I see in real life but I find underrepresented in fiction, which is another way of saying that I write the stories I want to read.
4) How does your writing process work?
Uh. Slowly?
For longer work I’m a discovery writer (aka pantser), so I often start with a concept, some characters and a vague idea of what’s going to happen plot-wise. Then it just unfolds for me like a flower in bloom, only more exciting. Okay, fine, when it’s going well, it just unfolds for me. Usually I write a couple of hundred words, get frustrated, do something else for a while, then repeat until the flow comes or the story’s done. Like I said, slowly.
Several of my short stories were initially drafted in my head while not sleeping. I’ve even gone so far as to memorize the exact wording of the opening paragraphs before I get around to actually writing them down. It’s still a kind of discovery, though, as the initial imagining of the story follows the same flow. The work here, though, is finding the language for the plot, which isn’t always evident.
Once I get a first (or zeroth) draft done, I tend to leave it alone for a while — a day or two for short pieces, sometimes months or even years for novels. Then I reread, marking up places that need work. I usually do a few editing/rewriting passes before my first readers get it. There’s always at least one pass after to incorporate comments and suggestions, and I’ve done several for some pieces. There isn’t a typical timeframe here — some stories have been turned around in a couple of weeks from initial idea to out-the-door, but Children of Arkadia was five years in the making before I sold it to Bundoran (and we’re still working on it now!).
Did I mention slowly?
Up next, a fellow Wellingtonian who has been going gangbusters lately on the heels of a double award win for the anthology Baby Teeth, for whom he’s a co-editor. Dan Rabarts, you’re it!
I am a writer of fantasy novels and speculative fiction, sometime narrator of podcasts (including stories for the Hugo award-winning StarShipSofa), occasional sailor of sailing things, and father of two wee miracles in a little house on a hill, under the southern sun.
You can find me on Twitter from time to time, and on Facebook now and then. I’d hang out there more often but really, I’ve got writing to do.
Header image credit: “Workflow” by Harsha K R via Flickr
Baby Teeth Takes Two Australian Shadows Awards
I am thrilled to announce that Baby Teeth won the 2013 Australian Shadows Award for Best Edited Work, and Debbie Cowens’ story from the collection “Caterpillars” won for Best Short Story (and let’s not forget JC Hart’s “The Dead Way”, which was a finalist).
Well done Baby Teeth team! Again!
Anthology ‘Use Only As Directed’ coming in June
I’m pleased to announce that I have a story in the upcoming anthology Use Only As Directed. The book will be launched in June at Continuum X, in Melbourne, June 6-9.
Here’s the announcement from publisher Peggy Bright Books:
Use Only As Directed, an anthology of original speculative fiction edited by Simon Petrie and Edwina Harvey, and published by Peggy Bright Books, will launch at Continuum X, in Melbourne, June 6-9. Here’s the lineup:
‘Large Friendly Letters’ — Stephen Dedman
‘The Eighth Day’ — Dirk Flinthart
‘Never More’ — Dave Freer
‘The Climbing Tree’ — Michelle Goldsmith
‘The Kind Neighbours of Hell’ — Alex Isle
‘Fetch Me Down My Gun’ — Lyn McConchie
‘Yard’ — Claire McKenna
‘Dellinger’ — Charlotte Nash
‘Mister Lucky’ — Ian Nichols
‘The Blue Djinn’s Wish’ — Leife Shallcross
‘Always Falling Up’ — Grant Stone
‘Uncle Darwin’s Bazooka’ — Douglas A Van Belle
‘Future Perfect’ — Janeen Webb
‘Home Sick’ — M Darusha WehmThe anthology will be available in print and e-formats.
Congratulations Baby Teeth on SJV Win
I’m delighted to share the news that last night Baby Teeth (the for-charity anthology of tiny scary stories about kids, in which I have two teeny tales) won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collected Work.
Mad props to editors Lee Murray and Dan Rabarts for wrangling this anthology, and to Marie Hodgkinson of Paper Road Press for publishing it.
My Hugo Ballot
I submitted my nominations for the Hugo Awards the other day, and in case anyone is interested, here’s what I sent.
I should note that my ballot suffers from the limitations of what I actually read, especially in the novels category. I just haven’t been reading that much in terms of novels this year, and as always I’m not terribly current. But I did my best. I was much more widely read in short fiction, as is evidenced by the fullness of my ballot in that category.
Novel
The Factory World by Joseph Edward Ryan
Novella
“This Other World” by Anna Caro
“Trial of the Century” by Lawrence M. Schoen
Novelette
“Pearl Rehabilitative Colony for Ungrateful Daughters” (pdf) by Henry Lien
“In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind” by Sarah Pinsker
“The Waiting Stars” by Aliette de Bodard
Short Story
“Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince” by Jake Kerr
“Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer” by Kenneth Schneyer
“Automatic Diamanté” by Philip Suggars (Interzone)
“Yuca and Dominoes” by José Iriarte
“This is a Ghost Story” by Keffy R. M. Kehrli
Best Graphic Story
The Private Eye by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin
Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)
I also nominated myself along with four others for the John W. Campbell Award. I know, nominating myself is crass, but I did it anyway.
Anyone else nominating for the Hugos? Or if you were, what would be your picks?
Facebook is the Académie Française for English
Well, no, it’s not. But you’ll see where I’m going with that. Promise.
English is an evolving language, as arguably is French, but the rightness or wrongness of word usage in English is all about usage. The venerable OED, my pinnacle for all things English language related is all about usage. Words mean what they do because that’s how people use them. End of story.
But, people use words wrong all the time. See, I just did it their. And they’re. Okay, I’ll stop, but you get my point. There’s usage and usage and that’s where Facebook comes into it.
Many of us have long lamented that English lacks a singular gender-neutral pronoun. Many have tried to address this (my personal favourites are zie/zir) but traction hasn’t really been found. Of late, “they/their” have been gaining ground (I know of a few folks who choose those as their pronouns of choice), but I and many others have trouble with using they that way.
“It is just plain wrong,” we say.
“I can choose my own pronouns,” they counter.
“Well, yeah, but…” we mumble.
“Besides,” they say, “Shakespeare did it. Chaucer did it. Jane Austen did it. If those writers can use ‘they’ as a singular, so can we.”
“…”
We shut up and admit defeat.
But, common usage is they key here, and lots of people just aren’t used to hearing “they” as a singular. But those days are now numbered.
As many people have noted, Facebook recently made it possible to choose from 51 different options when indicating gender (here’s a list of them, with some definitions). That’s way cool on its own, but quietly at the same time, Facebook also allowed users to select the pronouns by which they want to be called. There are only three – she, he and they.
The debate over an English gender-neutral singular pronoun is now over, and zie lost. They won.
I’m okay with that.
Campbell Award Contenders – Free Stories and more
For those who don’t know, the John W. Campbell Award is given out each year at the Hugo Award ceremonies (though it’s not a Hugo) for the best new speculative fiction writer. I happen to be in my final year of eligibility for the Campbell, but that’s only part of why I bring it up.
First, fellow eligible author Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam sent around a cool little set of interview questions to all the eligible authors she could find, and is posting their responses on her blog. The survey in which I participated is here, but I recommend reading them all. Find a new author whose work you love today!
And, to help out with that, M. David Blake and Stupefying Stories have compiled a massive free collection of stories by 111 (!!) eligible authors. This has to be one of the biggest, most amazing collections of short fiction around, and it’s free for the download. But it’s only available for a limited time, so get it while it’s hot!
Angels and Automatons – NZ Steampunk Anthology
I’m participating in a very cool project: Angels and Automatons, a shared-world steampunk anthology.
It’s a bunch of short stories set in the same 1864 fictional town of Angelston, New Zealand, where there is goldrush madness, dirigibles and an inventor bent on solving social problems with stem-powered robots. It’s going to be so fun.
The anthology is the brain child of Stephen Minchin of Steam Press, and is currently being funded through a Kickstarter campaign. Check out the project and authors involved, and if it seems like it might be your bag, chuck in a few bucks for what is undoubtedly going to be a fascinating and unique story.
Still reading on paper? I’ve got you covered.
Just in time for the New Year! You can now get paperbacks of my novels from most online booksellers, including:
- Amazon Canada (and other local Amazons)
- Barnes and Noble
- Book Depository (free shipping worldwide!)
- Powell’s
- Books a Million