Why Do We Value Books That Make Us Cry More Than Books That Make Us Laugh?
Some time ago, I was in a room of thirty or so YA writers, editors and other industry people when one writer declared, ‘I know you’ll all agree with me that what makes a good book is a chance for us all to have a massive cry.’ She was...
How To Prepare for the Robot Uprising
I know I’m not alone when I say that I can’t wait for the day when robots are everywhere, making life easy for us so we can lie on the beach or sleep in until noon or apply stucco to walls or whatever we’d like to do if it...
Some of the references in ‘Gap Year in Ghost Town’.
Community Sherlock – various incarnations Cards Against Humanity Star Wars 1984 M. Python Pulp Fiction Doctor Who Oscar Wilde LoTR Superman Wizard of Oz Three Musketeers Telestrations The Sweeney Dorothy L Sayers Arrested Development The Castle CS Lewis Erza Scarlet Lord of the Rings Silence of the Lambs Shane...
Advice for Novice World Builders
Don’t place your Forest of Terror right next door to your Mountains of Doom alongside your Chasm of Eternal Fear. You can have too much of a good thing. Remember: rivers flow from the mountains to the sea, not the other way around. Tempting though it may be to...
Gap Year in Ghost Town Launch
Exciting stuff. We’re having a big launch for Gap Year in Ghost Town – and you’re invited! With the publication of GYIGT due next month, a carnival launch will be held at Readings Kids (315 Lygon St, Carlton) at 6.30 on 17 August. I’m excited that Leanne Hall, author of...
Gap Year in Ghost Town
Gap Year in Ghost Town (Allen & Unwin August 2017) has a cover! Authors, naturally, are always nervous about how their precious work is going to look, but the very clever Craig Phillips has come up with an absolute winner. I love its combination of spookiness and street smarts, and...
Music to Write By
I like listening to and reading about other writers. I find the process of writing fascinating, and I find the multitude of different approaches empowering. There is no single magical formula for writing. There are a million ways to do it and to do it well. Take the business...
Our Venice Trip
4th October – first full day in Venice Yesterday (and the day before?) was the long, long trip. Two legs – Melbourne – Dubai, two hour wait, then Dubai Venice. Arrived in Venice at 3 o’clock and met by Georgia, our landlord, who walked us from Piazza Romana where...
World-building 101
If you’ve ever looked at our world with discontent, unhappiness or a feeling of ‘I could do better than that!’ then fantasy writing is for you. In a lifetime of reading Fantasy and half a lifetime writing it, I’ve compiled a number of hints, tips and techniques for novice...
What publishers are looking for. Some of them, anyway.
One of the other hats I wear is as co-publisher of Aurealis, Australia’s longest-running magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. In a recent editorial, I wanted to let the writers out there know what we’re looking for. It turned into a statement of principles, the criteria by which we...