Category: Uncategorized

First of my “What I Listened to in 2014” posts…

Electronica is a genre I’ve never listened to much, but I found myself beginning to enjoy it more in 2014. This was partly due to picking up on the 20th anniversary of Underworld’s classic Dubnobasswithmyheadman album.

Here is “Rez/Cowgirl”:

Of the bands I heard perform the one year I went to Campalowhum, near Wainuiomata, the best was Sleep ∞ Over (Stefanie Franciotti), who performed in a forest glade – just right for music like “Romantic Streams”:

Shyfx is best known as a drum and bass and jungle producer, which isn’t really my territory, but an excursion into reggae produced this wonderful and ineffably summery song, “Soon Come”:

I should have known I was tempting fate (in a good way) when I posted my roundup of what I’d had published in 2014 and said I didn’t expect anything else to be published this year … because then I got the very welcome news that my short-short “Officials” had been selected by guest editor Owen Marshall for inclusion in the December 2014 issue of Flash Frontier.

This is an excellent issue with stories from these New Zealand and overseas authors:

Elizabeth Farris, The Ossuary
Maggie Rainey-Smith, Turning the Worms
Steven Gowin, Earthquake Weather
Brenda Anderson, Can We Get You Anything?
Tim Jones, Officials
Maris O’Rourke, Cast-offs
Keith Nunes, With Her Eyes Open
Annette Edwards-Hill, A Life Well Lived
Frank Beyer, Under the Turnstyle
Paul Beckman, Color Coordination Rules
Heather McQuillen, The Stick, the Boy and the Shell
Rita Shelley, Vested Interest
Patrick Pink, The Hurt That’s Blood
Mike Crowl, The Memorial
Steve Charters, Letting Go
Celine Gibson, Constancy
Michael Webb, Game Over
Gail Ingram, Aoraki
D R Jones, Yeah, Nah
Adam J Wolstenholme, Down Goes His Lordship
Helen Moat, Danger Zone
Fortunato Salazar, October
Louise Miller, Three Women
Andrew Stancek, Corn Chowder
Nancy Stohlman, The Fortune Teller
Rupprecht Mayer, At Home

There is also a feature by Rachel Fenton:

This month Flash Frontier‘s Rachel Fenton bows out of her role as Features Editor and inter[e]views Frances Gapper, author of The Tiny Key. Also this month, poet and short fiction writer Valerie Sirr leads us through a blind criticism and flash enthusiast David James recommends his favourite shorts by other writers. We end with a piece about craft from flash editor Jamez Chang.

You can read the fiction here and the feature here. It’s a great way to round out the year!

We are standing by.
Our knives are very sharp.

It would please us very much.
You will feel a slight distress.

Tungsten, beryllium.
Knives as sharp as love.

Masked and gowned and sterilised.
Knives as sharp as love.

Credit note: Created by the strange mind of Tim in 2007 or thereabouts, retrieved on Monday from the depths of his unpublished poetry files.

Tim says: This is probably the least Christmassy poem ever, but I wanted to post one more poem before going into holiday mode. From next week onwards, I will follow my usual summer blogging practice of posting (a) YouTube clips of music I’ve particularly enjoyed during the year, in the improbable expectation that you might enjoy it too, and (b) my traditional “What I read in 20xy” posts.

Following representations from concerned blog users, I will make the music posts shorter this time round, so they don’t take so long to load. One post per genre is my new motto! Will power metal, technical metal and Swedish melodeath all get individual posts? Inquiring minds don’t want to know.

The Tuesday Poem: Goes from strength to strength.

Well, many of my weeks are pretty vacant, but this one does have two launches of works that contain my stories.

On Thursday, The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales, edited by Peter Friend, Eileen Mueller and A. J. Ponder, will be launched at the Children’s Bookshop in Kilbirnie. There’s an impressive lineup of authors in this book, which is illustrated by Geoff Popham:

My story in this anthology is my first-ever published children’s story – this most definitely showed in the first draft, but thanks to the editors and their very helpful suggestions regarding what does and doesn’t work in writing for children, I hope it doesn’t show in the final version!

UPDATE: The Best Of Twisty Christmas Tales is now available from Amazon.com.

Then, on Saturday 15 November, as part of Wellington LitCrawl, the 2014 issue of JAAM Magazine, JAAM 32, will be launched in Wellington (and also in Dunedin by guest editor Sue Wootton). The issue includes my story “The Prime Ministers” (What’s that you say? Too soon?), and I’ll be reading from it at the launch. It will be like election night all over again … no, wait, I promise it will be much, much better!

My voice is my calling card and I leave it everywhere
A basso non-profundo croaked through nicotine-stained air
My doctor is persistent but his pockets are well lined
I’m hoovering up the dollars Leonard Cohen leaves behind

My band are all anonymous and play in charcoal suits
With autumn-years arrangements built on mandolin and lute
The critics are persistent but I don’t pay them any mind
I’m hoovering up the dollars Leonard Cohen leaves behind

My after-concert entourage is two doctors and a nurse
At my age adding groupies could only make things worse
My ex-wives are persistent but they’re reassured to find
I’m hoovering up the dollars Leonard Cohen leaves behind.

I have just received my author copy of Disquiet (currently available from Amazon as a paperback, with an ebook coming soon), a new anthology of, as the cover says,

unsettling fiction and poetry to curl your eyebrows from Antipodean authors

It’s edited by Tracie McBride and John Irvine, and authors featured include Alicia Ponder, Eileen Mueller, Peter Friend, Lee Pletzers, and others whose work I’m looking forward to discovering.

My two stories have a foot on both sides of the Tasman: the titular “Tracks” are those of the Melbourne tram system, while “My Occupation” is of the military kind – and it’s set in Southland. I’ll leave you to discover more for yourself…

The New Zealand Book Council maintains a set of Writer Files that give generous space to each writer listed, covering their career to date and published books. I’m happy to say that I’m one of the writers included – I’ve been in since the mid-2000s, after my first two books were published.

Following the publication of the The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, I asked the Book Council to update my page – which they promptly and efficiently did. Along the way, I discovered that there is now a formal selection process for inclusion in the Writer Files, and that if you’re a writer who has had at least one book-length project published (print or digital) and not already included, you have until 28 November to apply for inclusion:

We are continually improving our Writers Files to maintain their breadth, diversity and accuracy. If you are interested in applying for a Writers File, please read the criteria below.

The addition of authors to the Writers Files is at the discretion of the Book Council’s Website Editorial Panel. In order to best manage our limited writing and editing resources, this selection panel considers authors for a new intake once a year, in December, and up to ten new authors are added.
Key dates for 2014

• November 28: Applications close
• December 09: Website Editorial Panel meet to consider applications
• December 19: Applicants notified of Panel decision

The minimum criterion for inclusion is that a writer has published at least one book-length publication (print or digital) or, in the case of dramatists and scriptwriters, critically acclaimed performances or productions. Factors that the Panel will consider are:

• the critical response to published work/s
• how the author’s inclusion in the Writers Files will contribute to the overall diversity of the Writers Files
• literary profile
• breadth of readership and/or volume of sales.

Exceptions to this intake process will be made if an author is participating in an event programme managed by the Book Council, such as Words on Wheels, the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards festival, or Writers in Schools. For more information about becoming part of Writers in Schools, click here.

We also require writers who are profiled in our Writers Files to keep us updated (within reason) about new work, reviews or awards that might be relevant to their Writers File.

Download an application form here.

Having a Writers’ Files entry is a bit like having a better-formatted Wikipedia page with nice people standing by to update it for you (as long as you don’t ask for updates more than a couple of times per year), so if you are an author with at least one published book, I think it’s worth applying.

Madeleine Slavick & co do a great job running the monthly Wairarapa Word. Check out what’s coming up during the remainder of 2014 and get to one or more of these events if you can!

5 OCTOBER – Stories of our Landscape – with Gaye Sutton & Joseph Potangaroa at the Tarragon Cafe, Carterton. Suitable for all ages. KOHA.