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give us your fear
Chris and I are already receiving submissions for the Campaign for Real Fear, so keep them coming! We say: “Give us your terror, your fear, Your horrid tales yearning to alarm, The wretched stories of your teeming brain. Send these, the disturbed, nightmare-tossed to us, We lift our laptops to behold their forms!” With homage to Emma Lazarus and The New Colossus. Also, it pleases me no end that the Australian Horror Writers Association has announced its finalists for the 2009 Shadows Awards and three out of the five entries in the Long Fiction Award are women. There are also three women out of five in the short fiction category,…
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Campaign for Real Fear
Christopher Fowler and I have launched the Campaign for Real Fear: a horror short story competition. Send us your best 500-word story that explores horror in the 21st century. We want diversity of characters and themes, and beginner or pro can enter. The top ten stories will be published in Black Static, and podcast by Action Audio. The deadline for entry is 5pm GMT, on Friday the 16th of April. If you want change, you better write it. Information on how to enter is available on the Campaign for Real Fear web site.
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words on foot
I’ve been reading Nietzsche today. As thinkers go he’s clear and reasoned. In fact, he’s a little too perceptive for those who like their self-delusions, so sometimes his surgical excision of unpleasant human motivations can make for glum reading. He’s a bit of a grump at times too, especially when it comes to young people. In Human, All too Human he has an entire section called “From the Soul of Artists and Authors”, which had me laughing, nodding, and sometimes grimacing. He has high standards: Speak not of gifts, or innate talents! One can name all kinds of great men who were not very gifted. But they acquired greatness, became…
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get some direction, quick
Before I inflict my weekly tiny piece of prose upon the web I’ll mention a couple of items that might be of interest to some of my readers. First off while perusing the films appearing in the forthcoming Spanish and Latin American Film Season at the IFI in Dublin I noticed that on Monday May 11th it’s showing a Mexican science fiction film called Sleep Dealer. We don’t often get opportunities to see sf films from other countries in Ireland, and it looks like it will be at least entertaining. Also, I’ve posted an entry over on the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild’s Blog about a new screenwriting conference, called…
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a flash sale
Today I heard from Tyree Campbell, the editor of Aoife’s Kiss, that my flash short story, “Homunculus”, will appear in the September 2008 edition of the publication. Hurray! Eastercon, or Orbital 2008 (the annual UK SF convention), is two weeks away, and I’m really looking forward to it. It’s my first Eastercon, but it won’t be my last as I’m already booked in for the following year: Eastercon LX. I’m impressed with the programme for Orbital, which has panels and events running into the late evening every day. I won’t be bored. I’m contributing on three panels during the convention: At 10am on Saturday in the Commonwealth East and West…
