podcast

 journal, the wages of salt, writing life  2 Responses »
Aug 142010
 

People, it's ALIVE.

It, in this case, being the podcast of my short story "The Wages of Salt".


Squatting to examine a buried shadow, I nodded. There was no academic or scientific value in salt — it would not advance my thesis, nor bring any glimmer of knowledge about the theriomorphs — but it would sell. White gold, the economic cornerstone of New Persia.

I brushed at the crust. Dirty grains clung to the sweat of my palms. The shadow underneath, too clean-edged to be a phantasm, didn’t change. “Here,” I said. “Help me.”

“It’ll just be another ammonite.” But he knelt and set to scraping beside me.

My fingers touched cloth.

I jerked back, staring at the dark linen we’d uncovered. Suspicion lifted the hairs on my nape and I dug faster, harder, in danger of damaging the specimen with haste.

An arm emerged from the salt. Beside me, Hareem had uncovered a knee. Working feverishly now, we followed the contours, salt flying from our fingers, until the entire body lay bare to the sky.

Hareem let out a low whistle. “Now this,” he said, “will fetch a fiefdom.”

So, if you couldn't get hold of a copy of Postscripts, or you really have a hankering for audio fiction, or heck if you simply like free fiction, trot yourself on over to PodCastle and enjoy.

 Posted by at 4:13 pm  Tagged with:

ebooks and excerpts, oh my

 announcements, journal, shadow bound, shadow queen, shaping lily, the wages of salt  Comments Off
Jun 242010
 

FIRST

You do all realise there will be random and intermittent Mongolia stories for some time to come, right? Never fear, they won't be your typical I did such and such, saw such and such, and am now cramming seven gazillion photos and details into one drawn out day type posts, mainly because I'll bore myself shitless if I even so much as tried that.

However, tonight I have other news, writing-ish news, which I should impart first. This brings me to:

THIRDLY

The PodCastle contract for "The Wages of Salt" has been signed and returned. I'll let you know the date it's podcast when I know it. I must admit, this being the first audio version of one of my stories, I'm eager to hear it read aloud.

In other short fiction news, ASIM #45 didn't go live while I was away, as far as I can see. In case you were trying to keep an eye out. Again, more when I know it.

SIXTH AND LASTLY

Here's something I didn't know before now, but might come in handy for you: there's an ebook version of Shadow Queen available!

Apologies for not alerting you all to this sooner, but I only found out because I had need to visit the A&U website today and noticed a new link.

So I guess that means you international types now have an easier way of accessing the book than wrangling with postage rates.

AND, TO CONCLUDE…

For all of you eagerly waiting to find out how Matilde's story ends, courtesy of the good folks at A&U you can now read the first two chapters of Shadow Bound online (or download a PDF for reading later).

The hardcopy version should start appearing on shelves in bricks and mortar stores any time from now on, so get out there and get hunting!

packing status: still borked

 announcements, journal, the wages of salt, writing life  Comments Off
May 252010
 

Good news, landing just before I flit off to lands untrammelled, is that PodCastle will be publishing "The Wages of Salt" in an upcoming issue.

So, if you never did manage to track down a copy of PostScripts #18, or if you did but you'd also like an audio copy of the story, keep your eye on the PodCastle site.

Yay for the little story that could!

 Posted by at 9:44 pm  Tagged with:

nothing like happy to turn a monday around

 asides, the wages of salt  4 Responses »
Apr 122010
 

People, check it out: "The Wages of Salt" received an Honorable Mention in Ellen Datlow's "Best Horror of the Year, Volume 2" !

It's quite a list,1 and my little story that could is in some spectacular company.

Yea verily, tonight I am not a little bit chipper :)

  1. such a list, in fact, that I missed my name entirely on the first pass. It wasn't until Ben Payne posted the Australian-only summary that I found out. [↩]
 Posted by at 8:29 pm  Tagged with:

i have been team-built

 announcements, journal, the wages of salt  Comments Off
May 282009
 

For those of you waiting for its arrival: I haven't seen a copy myself yet, but it looks like Postscripts #18 has been released into the wild.

This is the issue which features my story, "The Wages of Salt", and google alerts tells me it's made at least one good impression so far.

Now, being a writer, and therefore of delicate emotional constitution, this pleases me immensely. But I'm especially glad to see this story available for general purchase, because it's one of my favourites. Part of that is because, of everything I've written, "The Wages of Salt" is the story which best survived the translation from my head to the written word; it's always a tricky process, and every story takes a few wounds in the process of being pinned to the page. Also, partly it's because I simply adore the world I created in that story, and I'm keen to go back and write more in that same world. I have a few snippets of ideas, waiting for time and inspiration and a solid plot.

melbournebotanicgardens02

I took this photo yesterday morning, as I wandered through the Royal Botanic Gardens on my way to work. (In fact, I took quite a lot of photos. I would have taken more, but it was 8 o'clock in the morning and only 6°C: my fingers froze.) I liked the image of a circle of chairs gathered beneath a circle of trees, all empty. I wonder what meetings go on there? (Whatever they are, I bet the ones I'm imagining are far more interesting than the reality.)

it never rains but it pours

 journal, the wages of salt  Comments Off
Mar 212009
 

The signing sheets for Postscripts #18 have come and gone on their merry way and I can say this with certainty: I have no signature. Truly, every single one of those sheets is unique.

I am currently sitting in my car, which is at the moment a very expensive sculpture, on account of the battery going to sleep sometime in the past two weeks and now declining to emerge from its coma. Given that I need the car today in order to find a place to live, my previous plans having exploded in rather spectacular and last-minute fashion, I am, needless to say, a little peeved with life right about now. For values of a little roughly approximate to I think the world can just go ahead and burn, what do I care any more?

So, my apologies, but sporadic and unfocussed (and haphazardly abandoned) is going to be a feature of this site until life JUST SETTLES DOWN, DAMMIT.

In the meantime, have a snippet of awesome to entertain you: Predator X (link courtesy of splinister)

PS: Comments are not turned off, but please be aware that I may be a little distracted and unable to get around to answering any of them for a bit.

adventures in relocation, part the whatever

 journal, the wages of salt  3 Responses »
Mar 172009
 

I cannot tell you how much I love today's xkcd.

Today, I ventured onto Melbourne's public transport system all by myself, and successfully navigated my way to ambush Tess in her natural habitat. Inconveniently, I forgot to actually determine precisely where her natural habitat was in relation to the closest train station, but luckily she rescued me, and fed me chicken, so all is right with the world.

She also handed over the box containing my signing sheets for Postscripts #18. I'd been wondering where they got to, but now the mystery is solved: they came to me via NZ. Given they came from the UK, this either means they went the very long way around, or overshot me and had to backtrack. Disturbingly, someone else's customs declaration has been stuck over the original customs declaration, and the new declaration states underwear. You know, I know the box doesn't contain underwear, and yet…I still don't wanna open it…

i'm just no good at blurbs

 journal, shadow bound, the wages of salt, writing life  4 Responses »
Feb 042009
 

Today, I am full of requests for blurbs and biographies.

Note to self: when you write a story, write a blurb then and there. You'll need it later.

Pledged has been read through (and hopefully all those embarrassing typos caught and corrected) and emailed to my agent and editor, which means it's off my desk for the immediate future. There was a lot of wonky formatting this time around, courtesy of the switch to mac (Word on the mac seems determined to ignore my underlining, bastard program). Of course, I forgot to send along a blurb, so had to spend this morning on that.

Also, news from PS Publishing that Issue #18 is ready for design, which means I need to provide a blurb and bio for them. It looks like they'll be publishing a signed edition as well, which should prove interesting, as the signing sheets are set to arrive…right in the middle of my interstate move. Oh yeah, that'll be fun.

lose some, win some

 journal, the wages of salt, writing life  6 Responses »
Nov 212008
 

In the lose-some department, news from my agent is that one of the UK publishing houses considering Shadow Queen has decided to pass. C'est la vie.

In the win-some department, Google Alerts is a dangerous wonderful thing. Today it informed me that Issue #18 of PostScripts Magazine will be released in Spring 20091, and will contain my story, "The Wages of Salt". Okay, so this isn't new news, since this is a sale I made long enough ago that I've long since been paid and spent said payment, but it still counts, because I'd forgotten about this story and am excited to see it slated for a firm publication date.

In the er…oops department, I really shouldn't have had that bourbon and coke. Now I'm sleepy.

  1. I'm presuming this is Northern Hemisphere Spring, so April-ish next year [↩]

on cashing foreign cheques…

 journal, pre-crash, the wages of salt, writing life  2 Responses »
May 022007
 

So my cheque for PostScripts arrived in the mail yesterday. (Woot for publications which pay on acceptance!) It was such a cute cheque, with Superman1 on it, I was quite reluctant to hand it over to the bank.

My reluctance only intensified when I stood there for nigh on half an hour while the bank teller keyed in all the information she needed to. Granted, foreign cheques are always going to have the information in unfamiliar corners. And there's the whole American date format, which threw her for a while. The writing on the cheque was too small for her to make out. The always-fun moment where she accidently wiped everything and had to re-enter the data. And the especially fun moment where she wanted to know if perhaps the American cheque had been drawn in Australian dollars, since it didn't say anywhere that it was specifically American dollars…?2

And then she needed to know what city and state the cheque was from. I pointed out that "Cranston, Rhode Island" was probably what she was looking for there, but she was dubious. "Isn't Rhode Island a city?" she asks. "Which would make Cranston a suburb. And I need to know what state Rhode Island is in."

See, this is where watching movies and retaining trivia comes to your rescue. "I'm pretty sure Rhode Island is a state," I say. "After all, in Miss Congeniality, the contestants are all from states — Minnesota and Dakota and California, right? And one of them is from Rhode Island."

Not the most structurally-sound way to make a point, no. But it's all about the lowest common denominator, people. It was something she'd believe3, and it was going to be aeons quicker than asking her to google it.

You do what you gotta.

  1. Seriously! Superman! What kind of bank issues cheques with Superman on them? None of the banks I know have fun cheques. [↩]
  2. I gave her my best are-you-kidding-me? look. It seemed to work. [↩]
  3. As opposed to the alternative: "I'm pretty sure Rhode Island is a state, not a city. Although I don't have a map or supporting evidence on me… [↩]
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