Conflux

Progress Report 2 Now Available

mabinogi — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:02:15 +0000

We are pleased to announce the availability of Progress Report 2.

Download and enjoy to find out more about what’s happening this year at Conflux.

Workshop Request

Karen — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:34:26 +0000

Gillian Polack will be presenting another workshop this year on Friday afternoon 2 October 2009. She has suggested several ideas for this year’s presentation – but asks what Conflux members might like? So over to you – you can comment on this blog or write to Chair@conflux.org.au by 17th July 2009. If you would like to know more about Gillian – see her web page http://www.trivium.net/gillianpolack/

Thank you!

Virtual Mini-Con 2009

Karen — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:30:52 +0000

We are pleased to announce that this year’s Conflux Virtual Mini-Con will be held on Sunday 3oth August 2009. The program (like most programs it is a moving feast – so note that things might change) is:

9am to 9.30am – Welcome, introduction and Conflux generally.

9.30 to 10.30am Liz Argall

10.30 to 11.30am Gillian Polack

11.30 to 12.30pm Richard Harland

12.30 to 1.30pm Jim Minz (10.30pm Saturday US time)

1.30 to 2.30pm Maxine McArthur

2.30 to 3.30pm Bruce R Gillespie

3.30 to 4.30pm Cat Sparks

4.30 to 5pm – Closure Gillian Polack and Stuart Herring

Of course, there will be other interesting forum. We do hope that you will join us!

Changes to workshops on Friday

The Programmer — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 05:45:28 +0000

Sorry for the inconvenience, but we’ve had to swap two of the workshops. Jack Dann’s workshop “A Writer’s Guide to Dreaming” has moved back to 3pm, while Karen Herkes’ “Mental Magic” has moved forward to 12pm. If you want to book for any workshop, email workshops@conflux.org.au asap.

A couple of announcements

webmaster — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:04:18 +0000

This is just a quick message to pass on some important announcements about Conflux 5.

First, and most importantly, we need to announce an identity change to our overseas guest. Sharon November, who had been scheduled as our international guest, has had to withdraw due to unavoidable circumstances. We are, of course, sorry to lose Sharon, but we’re very pleased to have arranged instead for Liz Gorinsky to attend in the capacity of overseas guest. Liz is an editor with Tor, in the US, and has worked extensively with both established big-name authors and up-and-coming writers. We’re very much looking forward to her involvement in the Con. You can find out more about Liz on the guests page

We’d also like to bring to your attention that Mark Shirrefs will also be attending Conflux, as a guest, and will be presenting a special screening of his BAFTA- and Oscar-nominated animated specfic short film, ‘The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello’. Mark has considerable experience in writing for TV and the big screen. You can also find out more about Mark on the guests page . There’ll be more about both Mark and Liz in the fourth and final Progress Report, which will be along soon.

Finally (for now), if you’re thinking of putting in an entry for the art show, laying claim to a dealers’ table, or booking for Saturday night’s Banquet, please don’t delay. We’re busy finalising the lists for all of these, so first in best dressed.

That’s it for now. Looking forward to seeing you in – what is it? – less than 20 sleeps now.

Conflux programming update

The Programmer — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:12:27 +0000

Some updates on Conflux for you all. For those who don’t know, Conflux will take place in Canberra at the Marque Hotel on October 3 to 6. All things going well, the program will be up on the website Monday of next week. So check www.conflux.org.au at that time to see the fun that will ensue.

In the meantime, bookings are now open for the workshops, and the Prohibition New York dinner. To attend the dinner, you need to book using the form on the website, and need to do so BEFORE the convention – we have to confirm numbers with the chef, so can’t take bookings at the con. To book into a workshop, you need to email workshops@conflux.org.au I’m replying to them as soon as I read them, so if you’ve sent an email and haven’t had a reply, I haven’t seen it and you’re not booked in. Please, send it again.

Workshops are:
Friday October 3
9am
Blogging with Gillian Polack (costs $10)
Caring for Your Collection with April Herzog (free for members)
The Business of Writing Comics with Liz Argall (free for members)
12pm
The noble and knightly art of the longsword with Chris Barnes (free for members)
A writer’s guide to dreaming: how to transform thoughts, ideas and dreams into fiction with Jack Dann (costs $55))
Finishing the first draft with Maxine McArthur (free for members)
3pm
Mental magic: illusions and tricks of the mind with Karen Herkes (free for members)
Emarketing for authors with Fiona McLennan (free for members)
Creating dynamic characters with Karen Miller (free for members)

Monday October 6 (all free for members)
1pm
Dream Magick, an experiential workshop with Margi Curtis and Leigh Blackmore
Grant Writing with Peter Strong
Writing the otherword with Felicity Pulman
Workshop 13 – superstition, with Nicole R Murphy

A day membership of $50 can get you into Friday or Monday of the con, so you can go to the workshop of your choice as well as take in other aspects of the con on that day. To book, email workshops@conflux.org.au Spaces in the workshop are limited to 15 people (except the sword workshop, which goes to 16) and they will go for 2 1/2 hours. And there won’t be any worksheets or notes for anyone not able to attend – sorry, but you have to be present to get the advantage of the expertise of the people involved.

Workshop bookings

The Programmer — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 21:35:24 +0000

It’s come to my attention that some people have sent in workshop bookings and not having heard anything, are assuming that it’s okay. It’s not – workshop bookings are being taken by The Programmer and she is replying immediately she reads them, so if you haven’t heard, you aren’t booked. Email workshops@conflux.org.au to book, or you might miss out. Go to www.conflux.org.au/2008/workshops.shtml for more info about the various workshops available.

Bits of Conflux news

The Programmer — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:47:55 +0000

1) The Conflux Virtual Mini-con is still up for people to read – go to www.conflux.org.au/forum and check out the fun that you may have missed. You can post questions if you like, but understand that not all the guests will recieve notification if you do so and therefore may not answer.

2) This Saturday night we’re holding a fundraising dinner for Conflux. For $12 you’ll get three courses – nibbles and soup for starters, then casseroles, followed by apple pie and icecream for desert. It’s at 6pm at St John’s Church hall in Reid (that’s in Canberra). To book call 62918009 (we need bookings for catering purposes). All the money is going towards the convention. Hope to see a whole lot of you there.

3) The workshops are now open for bookings. Go to www.conflux.org.au/2008/workshops.shmtl and check out what you want to do, then email workshops@conflux.org.au to make a booking. Two of the workshops will cost extra on top of your membership, the rest are free for members. Spaces are limited, so make sure you get in early.

4) Look out for panel announcements soon. We’re close to developing a list of panels that we’ll then try to match to panellists. If you know you’ll be attending Conflux and want to be on a panel but haven’t sent in a membership form yet, email programme@conflux.org.au and let us know.

Change to virtual mini-con timetable

The Programmer — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:24:25 +0000

Please note that due to unforseen circumstances, we’ve had to do a swap. Cat Sparks will now be appearing at 4pm on Saturday, and Phill Berrie will be appearing at 1pm on Sunday. Sorry for the inconvenience, please notify anyone and everyone!

Invitation to dinner

The Programmer — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:34:17 +0000

Conflux 5 invites you to the Wonderfully Warm Home-made Casserole dinner, to raise money for the convention. The dinner will take place on Saturday, August 16 at 6pm at the Robertson Room, St John’s Church Hall on Constitution Avenue in Reid. It costs $12 and for that, you get three courses – nibblies and soup to start, then a smorgasboard (yes, you heard right, a smorgasboard) of casseroles, ending with hot apple pie and your choice of cream or icecream. BYO drinks. People can, if they wish, then saunter next door after to see and take part in historic dancing with Earthly Delights and the Bordonian Dancers, or stick around and chat. For bookings, call Karen at Richardson Support House on 6291 8009. Hope to see you there!

July Australian specfic Carnival

Karen — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:18:20 +0000

This month’s round up was compiled by members of the Conflux Committee (conflux.org.au), under the guidance of the wonderful Gillian Polack.

Parallel Importing

Justine Larbalestier leads us into the biggest issue of the month – parallel imports of books. She also comments on the writing life.
See also Talking Squid for comments.

The Great Goosle Controversy

Reviews of Margo Lanagan’s The Goosle and their accuracy and/or niceness were an important topic this month. For instance, here’s Paul Abbamondi, over at MyLifeComics. Here’s one of several thoughts by Margo on the subject.

Ben Payne gets into the debate on Margo Lanagan’s The Goosle

Gen Con Oz

Marianne de Pierres reports on Gen Con Oz.

Stephen has been to Gencon Oz “the best four days in gaming”. He spoke on several panels during the convention.

Aurealis Awards

Ben Payne shares his thoughts on the changes to the Aurealis Awards as does Ben Peek (who is definitely not the same person as Ben Payne) Then in response to some lively discussion, Ben Peek talks about the value of the AAs and their role in supporting small press More on the Aurealis Awards, based on a review of them by an English critic, first Ben Peek then Ben Payne.

Jonathan Strahan blogged about the rule changes for the Aurealis Awards.

Alisa Krasnostein also weighed in on the Aurealis Awards rule changes here, here and here:

The writing life

Sharyn Lilley blogged about anonymity and mood swings during writing.

Ben Payne talked about the controversy surrounding the lack of women in Jonathan Strahan’s Eclipse Two .

Ben Payne talked about the need for affirmative action in publishing.

Tehani Wessely finds a cartoon that makes a good point about reviewing.

Simon Haynes challenges the idea of starting the story with a bang.
Glenda Larke on the effect on authors of Amazon’s new plans. Amazon sanctions against authors…

Cat Sparks posted a photographic self-portrait of a semi-clad writer seated at a typewriter.

Jenny Fallon on new novels that are set in a new world, or that use the same world as in previous novels.

VoyagerOnline interviews Jack Dann.

Traci Harding completes a series on how to finish a manuscript.

Jennifer Fallon is inspired.

Justine Larbalestier writes on rejection She also covers “Bad Writing Days”

Daikaiju

Robert Hood gives us his thoughts about the essentials of Daikaiju. And for those into large Japanese monsters this is definitely the place to be because Mr. Hood is prolific on the subject.

Horror

Robert Hood did an interview on his Undead Backbrain website with James Doig about two horror anthologies that Doig has recently published. The two anthologies contain horror short stories by Australian authors from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century.

Children’s teeth – yikes! Enough to put your teeth on edge! No wonder The Tooth Fairy in Pratchett’s books was so creepy. Bet most people didn’t know Kaaron keeps … a box of little teeth at her house.

Interview with Tehani Wessely
More in Mark Deniz’ interview series this month.

Conflux Convention in Canberra 3-6 October 2008
Nicole has been busy with the Conflux program and the Virtual Minicon. Her blog has many interesting details about the program and an outline for the Conflux Virtual Minicon.

Sean Williams also anticipates the Conflux Virtual Minicon.

Gillian Polack provided updatery on Conflux and on food:

on the Conflux banquet;
on the Conflux minicon;
on short story writing and also and judging.

Conflux virtual mini-con – Prepare to Dream

The Programmer — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:35:10 +0000

Conflux will again be holding a virtual mini-con on the weekend of August 2 and 3. What’s a virtual mini-con, I hear you cry? Well, it’s an online convention, a gathering of friends and fans that follow a program to spend an hour chatting with a special guest. Best of all, it’s completely free!

This year, the virtual mini-con will run from midday on Saturday until 6pm on Sunday, with a six hour break early Sunday morning (so we can get some sleep). Current Conflux guests Jack Dann, Cat Sparks, Gillian Polack and Bruce Gillespie will be taking part, along with past Conflux guests Maxine McArthur, Karen Herkes, Ellen Datlow, Kaaron Warren, Jonathan Strahan, Sean Williams, Kevin J Anderson and Jackie French. Conflux workshop presenters, international and Australian writers and members of the Conflux committee will also be part of the fun and ready for a grilling.

Book the dates and times into your diary, and at the appropriate time go to the forums, sign in, find the topic featuring the guest you want to chat to and join the fun. There will also be a lounge, for general conversation in between spots. There will be a special membership for the physical convention available during the weekend, so come along and join the fun. If you have any more questions, contact Conflux 5 programmer Nicole R Murphy on programme@conflux.org.au

Saturday August 2

12pm – Glenda Larke
1pm – Chris Barnes
2pm – Gillian Polack
3pm – Bruce Gillespie
4pm – Phill Berrie
5pm – Stephen Hunt
6pm – Peter Strong
7pm – Karen Miller
8pm – Fiona McLennan
9pm – Maxine McArthur
10pm – Sharyn Lilley
11pm – Karen Herkes
12am – Ellen Datlow
1am to 6am – break
7am – Sherwood Smith
8am – Nicole R Murphy
9am – Jonathan Strahan
10am – Kaaron Warren
11am – Sean Williams
12pm – Kevin J Anderson
1pm – Cat Sparks
2pm – Jackie French
3pm – Jack Dann
4pm – Simon Haynes
5pm – Marianne de Pierres

Note all times are Australian Eastern Standard

Panel ideas

The Programmer — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:51:27 +0000

Conflux 5 programmer, Nicole R Murphy, has started making lists of possible panel ideas. If there’s anything you’d like to see discussed at this year’s Conflux convention, particularly relating to the themes of Dreaming and The Roaring 20s, email programme@conflux.org.au

Programming for Conflux 5

The Programmer — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:48:34 +0000

Work has begun on preparing the program for Conflux 5. Currently, we’re finalising the 13 workshops we will be offering, and then it will be getting the Virtual Mini-con together. But if you’ve got any ideas for panels or things that you think would add to the overal ambience and fit in with our major theme of Dreaming and our minor theme of the Roaring 20s in New York, then email programme@conflux.org.au

As a heads up, the overall look of the convention will be something like this:

Friday: nine workshops, three at a time, taking place at 9am, 12pm and 3pm, followed by opening ceremony around 7.30pm and a cocktail party. Dealers room will be open during this day, and art show possibly as well. All of this at the hotel

Saturday: three streams of panels, a stream of author readings and kaffee klatches, creative corner in the art show with some artists working there, mass book signing in the late afternoon, Prohibition era New York dinner in the evening.

Sunday: again, three streams of panels, a stream of author readings and kaffee klatches, creative corner in the art show, in the evening there will be a speak easy for some low key entertainment.

Monday: in the morning panels and author readings and kaffee klatches, in the afternoon workshops and closing ceremony and dead dog party.

While nothing’s set in stone, I’d be surprised if it varies from that too wildly. So let us know your thoughts. programme@conflux.org.au

Conflux 4 Podcast – It came in a dream – How to generate ideas.

qdog — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 06:25:56 +0000

Panel

Jane Routley – Chair
Trudi Canavan
Simon Brown
Jack Dann

Conflux

Progress Report 2 Now Available

Workshop Request

Virtual Mini-Con 2009

Changes to workshops on Friday

A couple of announcements

Conflux programming update

Workshop bookings

Bits of Conflux news

Change to virtual mini-con timetable

Invitation to dinner

July Australian specfic Carnival

Conflux virtual mini-con – Prepare to Dream

Panel ideas

Programming for Conflux 5

Conflux 4 Podcast – It came in a dream – How to generate ideas.

Conflux 4 Podcast – Blogs – A new community.

Conflux 4 Podcast – Moving on from mobiles – where to next for technology?

Places to read Conflux opinions

Conflux 4 Podcast – Literature versus film – Where does horror belong.

Conflux 4 Podcast – Our island home – Australia from the outside

Conflux 4 Podcast – Clarion revisited – Do writing workshops work?

Conflux 4 Podcast – Young Adult Vs Urban fantasy – is one just the other?

Conflux 4 Podcast – The dead body – How to kill someone heroically

Conflux 4 Podcast – Writing the tie-ins – Novels from series.

Conflux 4 Podcast – Pilots with PMS – women in sci-fi.

Conflux 4 Podcast – Garth Nix interview

Conflux 4 Podcast – Jonathan Strahan interview

Conflux 4 Podcast – Making you squirm – Horror writers read their work.

Conflux 4 Podcast – What makes a good villain – in story and real life.

Conflux 4 Podcast – Simon Brown interview

Conflux 4 Podcast – Kevin J Anderson interview

Conflux 4 ends, onto Conflux 5

Conflux 4 Podcast – Zen and the art of anthology making.

Conflux 4 Podcast – Writing for the end of the world – environment sci-fi

Conflux 4 Podcast – writing disciplines – how different writing helps you write fiction.

Conflux 4 Podcast – Where to start – the must reads.

Conflux 4 Podcast – What people want – booksellers tell all.

Conflux 4 Podcast – What is fear and what is evil?

Conflux 4 Podcast – Urban versus paranormal – which romance is which?

Conflux 4 Podcast – The philosophy of giant monsters – what we could learn from our city destroying friends

Conflux 4 Podcast – The other side of the business – inside stories of publishing

Conflux 4 Podcast – Telling the future – how divination really works.

Conflux 4 Podcast – Prayer and Prophet – making your own religion

Conflux 4 Podcast – Orginal Versus Derived – Spec fic movies

Conflux 4 Podcast – Love, crime and spells – cross genre work.

Conflux 4 Podcast – Levels 1 to 10 – The role of gaming in developing the genre.

Conflux 4 Podcast – Impact of heroes on environment – how character and setting interact

Conflux 4 Podcast – Human, Klingon, Martian – portraying race in sci-fi.

Conflux 4 Podcast – How to hire a henchman – a guide for the overlord.

Conflux 4 Podcast – Graham Joyce Interview