Random Interview Questions

Inspired by the random thoughts that some book titles evoke, I decided to come up with some random questions based on various author's titles. I've been sending the questions out and the answers have started coming back.

Begining later this week I'll be posting the answers here in a new feature called Random Interview Question (RIQ).

Get in touch if you're an author who'd like a question, or you'd like to suggest an author or question for me to include.

Dutch Acceptance

My short story World Wire Web, first published in Nature magazine, has been accepted by Dutch magazine SF Terra. I'm particularly pleased with this as I've already had 2 near misses with Dutch magazines so I'm glad to be finally making it into this language.

This will be the 4th language for World Wire Web as I'm already expecting translations in Galician and Danish. Along with a German story I'm expecting, this will take me to 24 published languages.

Forgotten Experiment

I've just discovered blogger's new statistics and analysis (I say new, I have no idea how long it's been available) and I discovered the answer to a forgotten experiment from November 2007.

Back then I was posting a short story most Fridays and one week, as an experiment, I based the story on several keywords that were trending that week, a story called Let Me Entertain You.

I now find that that post has had as many hits as the second and third most popular posts on my site combined, five times more hits than any of my other stories and twenty times more than the average post. I think the experiment worked.

Unhelpful Writing Advice

I recently dreamt I was giving writing advice to some people and awoke with 2 bits of almost-plausible sounding advice in my head:

1. Don't allow your character to remain inactive for more than 2 hours.

2. Always write death scenes in the morning when you have more emotional energy to put into them.

After posting about this on a writing group I'm in, Helena Bell was inspired to blog about The Greatest Writing Advice in the Entire World. Take a look - it's brilliant.

Eastercon 2012

As usual I was just at EasterCon for the Saturday, and this year spent most of the time in the dealer hall helping out and standing in at the TTA Press stand with Roy Grey, wandering round, chatting and drinking tea.

I met lots of people I've spoken to before at other cons, plus a whole selection of new people who wandered past the stall or who were manning other stands. In vaguely chronological order:

Martin McGrath, Ian Whates, Tony Lee, Gareth Powell, Chris Priest, Nina Allen, David Tallerman, Aliette De Bodard, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Damien Walter, Ian Sales, Terry Jackman, Mike Cobley, John Meaney, Charles Stross and probably many others. So many others went past in the crowd too...

World Palindrome Championships

After some delays' I've heard that issue #8 of The Palindromist magazine is due out next month, including my palindromic story of time travel and bio-engineered lycanthropy entitled Time Did Emit. I discovered The Palindromist when it was featured on Have I got News For You? last year.







Meanwhile, The Palindromist's editor Mark Saltveit has been crowned World Palindrome Champion at the first world championships in New York. From the press release:

A standup comedian from Portland, Oregon defeated two professors, two computer programmers, a cartoonist and a book clerk to win the first World Palindrome Championship, hosted by Will Shortz, the New York Times' crossword puzzle editor.

600 word nerds filled the ballroom at the Marriott Hotel at the Brooklyn Bridge and watched seven prominent palindromists deliver new reversible verses written on the spot. Audience members voted by deploying signs that said "WOW" on one side (for their favorite) and "HUH?" on the other. Portland comic Mark Saltveit squeaked past Minnesotan John Connett, a professor of Biostatistics, by an audience vote of 169-165.

Victorian SF Adventure

The final editing of my slightly steampunk, Victorian SF adventure story The Journey Within is now complete and both myself and the editors of the Ancient New anthology are happy. Now just awaiting a publication date...

Anthology Wins Steampunk Award

The Best of Steampunk Awards are given out annualy by the Steampunk Facebook group, the largest steampunk community on Facebook with almost 175,000 members.

Among this year's awards are:

Best Anthology "The Immersion Book of Steampunk" by Immersion Press

Best Short Fiction "Cinema U" by G. D. Falksen, published in The Immersion Book of Steampunk

It's a wonderful recognition of the fabulous stories I was fortunate enough to receive for the anthology.

Eastercon 2012 Approaches

It's 4 weeks until Eastercon arrives and I'm looking forward to a day of meeting up and chatting with numerous other authors, publishers agents et al in the SF field. I've not looked at the programme yet, but I've really enjoyed myself the past couple of years and I'm sure this year will be no different.

The Gondolier in Gaelic

The Scottish Gaelic translation of The Gondolier appears in issue #71 of Cothrom, the magazine for learners, supporters and readers of Gaelic. My contributor copy arrived today - a glossy, colour A4 magazine full of all kinds of articles in Gaelic and English.

This is the 21st language I've been published in, and the 11th for The Gondolier.