July Australian specfic Carnival
July 15th, 2008This 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.