Concrete Elephant

I realised I haven’t sent out my newsletter in a while…mostly because I muse semi-privately on Patreon and then forget about the actual newsletter thing.

Constuff

I had fun at Glasgow WorldCon, but it made me realise I *much* prefer smaller local cons. I don’t go to cons to meet famous people or see them pontificate about shit. I go there to hang out with my friends, maybe make some more.

(E.M. Faulds and me hanging out in the Glasgow sun, yes)

(Em from ESFF stealing things for a WorldCon scavanger hunt)

Which is why I’m headed to Chester this coming weekend for British Fantasy Con, so I can chill and enjoy writerly company.

Speaking of pontificating about shit, I have ended up on three panels, two of which are at the crack of dawn so you can safely avoid them ;) I’m kidding, you should get up at 6 am, go do some yoga or go for a run, have the hotel breakfast, then come see me and a bunch of excelllent folk trying to sound vaguely intelligent despite their hangovers from karaoke and or/awards dinners.

The programme schedule is up on the BFS website, but here’s where I’ll be when not barconning:Saturday:

Crafting the story in your own voice, 9am (The Arcane Archives) – We all have heroes and people who inspire us, but how do writers emerge from their literary idols and find their own voice?

Panellists: Richard Sparks, C.L. Hellisen, Daniel Walsh (m), Heide Goody, W.P. Wiles.

Sunday:

Writing the Senses and Creating Rich Settings, 9am (Wyvern Room) – For many, and for a host of reasons, description of senses beyond sight is vitality important. How do we accurately write taste and smell? And how do they ground scenes and enrich them?

Panellists: C.L. Hellisen, Priya Sharma, Liv Strom, Shona Kinsella (m), Vicky Brewster.

Submission Stories, 12 noon (Wyvern Room) – Sending a book to editors is a momentous occasion, and we all have different experiences of the process. From horrific to wonderful, there are stories to share

Panellists: C.L. Hellisen, Helen Glynn Jones, Marve Michael Anson (m), Stephen Aryan, Peter Newman.

Writing and Publishing News

Some of you know I’ve been writing and subbing at least one short story a month for 2024. I decided on this course because I was feeling kinda depressed about my novels and couldn’t face writing another one. Things have shifted somewhat there, so now I’m kneedeep in some swampy edits for the Monsters book.

Shorts-wise, it’s been a very different world subbing now rather than ten, even five, years ago. The markets are saturated, there are only a handful of pro-paying markets left and they are often closed to subs.

The healthy midlist of mags is pretty much gone, leaving only a wasteland of for-the-love markets. I’m not dissing them, and some are brilliant, but it does limit your visibility and reach, which is a bit frustrating.

However, I have sold my story Makers to the Tanith Lee Storytellers* Anthology, which I am absolutely ecstatic about, considering Lee is one of my major inspirations (Barker, Le Guin, And Wynne Jones being the others). Even if you can’t always see it, their presence is there. I mean, props to me for selling a story about making a false god with bear shit, lbh.

I also sold The World Has Turned a Thousand Times to fabulously cool print zine Not One of Us.

Life Stuff

I’ve gone to a few excellent book launches in Edinburgh recently - one for Lyndsey Croal for her Shortwave horror/spec collection Limelight

The other was for David Goodman’s spy novel A Reluctant Spy.

In other news, we have two new sons, Cupar and Theo. They are not brothers, but a bonded pair that needed to go together because they love each other like broskis.

Also they are the cutest, as you can see:

And that’s it, you’re all caught up.