4F Day! Four Questions for Friday

I asked a few questions of each of our contributors to help people get to know us better. I hope you enjoy their answers! Any suggestions for the next round of questions gleefully accepted!

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Satima Flavell

What is the earliest you remember Reading?
A book about a bear translated from German into French and English for me by my eldest sister's then BF, who was half French, half German: bad news just after WWII! I read it in all three languages. I was three at the time. Still dig languages but not bears so much:-)

When is the earliest you remember Writing?
A spin-off from a Dickens novel - must've been Martin Chuzzlewit because my MC was called Sarey Gump. I was five and I just liked the name. Hadn't a clue what I was writing about. Things haven't changed much.

When did you know you wanted to be a Writer?
About the same time. I had just discovered Enid Blyton and said I wanted to be a "children's authoress", just like her. I'm afraid I do still have to name her as an influence, which is not good in the early C21!

When and what is the first thing you wrote or did that you are proud of?
Got a poem in the kids section of the Manchester Guardian when I was seven. Used to win prizes for poetry and prose right through school. Cringe material now!:-)


Joanna Fay

What is the earliest you remember Reading?
Reading? Hmm, Dick and Dora in Grade 1? "See Nip Run etc"..although I remember the pictures better than the text.
The first book that left a strong impression on me was at 8...the play of The Bluebird..creeped me out badly...i was sleeping in an attic and had to walk through a cloakroom with no light to get there..very scary!

When is the earliest you remember Writing?
Oh, grade 1 writing book...I loved making letters, curly writing. I remember writing poems around 8.

When did you know you wanted to be a Writer?
Not till much later. Year 12, I thought I'd go on to do either journalism/creative writing or art... art was my first choice though and got into that.

When and what is the first thing you wrote or did that you are proud of?
Probably the first poem I got published, in the school mag when i was 15...not very proud. More seriously, I guess, with a win in the first comp i entered (the Banjo Paterson 2 yrs ago)..what a fluke...and then the second...a minor short story comp, but together they whetted my appetite for competitions.


Sarah Parker

What is the earliest you remember Reading?
I remember doing the ERA cards in English very clearly, I loved them so much. I've always been surrounded by books, so I don't have a lot of specific memories.

When is the earliest you remember Writing?
We had to make a book from one of our favourite books, I think I was in grade 4 or 5, and I did the Hobbit. I copied some of the poetry out and decorated it with scrolly drawlings and things. Not original stuff, but I do have short stories from around that time. I always wrote, and I always wrote things.

When did you know you wanted to be a Writer?
I think I was in denial... but I wrote novels in year 10. My first novel was co-written with a friend who I have lost contact with. A lot of the ideas were hers, but she wasn't good at English. I always expected to write novels, and when I finished highschool I expected to be a teacher.

When and what is the first thing you wrote or did that you are proud of?
I was very proud of that Hobbit book. I wrote a poem which my teacher entered in a competition once, and I'm still pretty proud of my work in Consensual a Trois.


Carol Ryles

What is the earliest you remember Reading?
Grade one (age 5). I wasn't allowed to read before that age, because my mum was told it would confuse me.  I remember the stuff they gave me to read was super easy. I saw what the grade twos and threes were reading and theirs looked much more interesting, but I had to wait a year for that.

When is the earliest you remember Writing?
About the same age. I remember being really eager to write. Once I started being taught, I used to write all over the place. It was such a neat feeling

When did you know you wanted to be a Writer?
I remember writing stories at school for composition in grade three, but we usually had less than an hour to get it done, so my stories were awful. Then I'd go home and try again, but my writing was still awful. Nevertheless, I still wanted to be a writer, but it took me 40 years to believe I could do it.

When and what is the first thing you wrote or did that you are proud of?
In grade six, I won a prize  for writing a report about a school excursion, judged by the manager of a Hunter Valley Winery. At the time, I suspected I was the only one that entered :) but I won $10. Back then that was about a years worth of pocket money


Helen Venn

What is the earliest you remember Reading?
I was five as far as I can remember. My mother was told she mustn't teach me to read although I was desperate to learn. So I taught myself. I couldn't wait to go to school. I had visions of all those lovely books and was delighted when I was finally given my first reading book. I took it home and read it that night. I was shocked to discover the next day that it was supposed to last the whole year.

When is the earliest you remember Writing?
I wasn't really interested in writing before I went to school although I could manage my name, numbers and a few words. Just as well really because  we spent most of the first half of the year learning pencil skills which at least provided a challenge given I could already read. I didn't do much in the way of Writing as in story telling until later. I just made up stories to tell my brothers. They seemed to like them.

When did you know you wanted to be a Writer?
Around twelve I started to really enjoy writing compositions. I was fascinated by dictionaries from age eight - I still am - and so I had a lot of fun using words I had picked up. It went on from there. I even enjoyed writing complicated reports when I was a public servant when everyone else was trying to avoid it. It took me quite a while to really begin fiction writing though. The urge was there but I let myself get distracted for a long time. I finally enrolled in a one year creative writing course and then there was no stopping me.

When and what is the first thing you wrote or did that you are proud of?
'Wheels' my first ever story written in 1994 when I was doing creative writing classes with Pam Steenbergen. It won the Alexandra Hasluck Award in 1996. Talk about a thrill!

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I hope you enjoyed the Four Questions Friday! I enjoyed asking them. It's been a real pleasure to find out more about my friends, and to think back on my own history. We'd also love to hear about YOU! I've added the questions here so you can fill them out, and tell us more about yourself. We're looking forward to your replies!

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You

What is the earliest you remember Reading?
When is the earliest you remember Writing?
When did you know you wanted to be a Writer?
When and what is the first thing you wrote or did that you are proud of?

KSP Mini Con

Come along and meet up with the Egoboo WA writers - and many others - at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre, 11 Old York Rd, Greenmount, next Sunday, May 2 between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm.There's an updated program on the KSP Mini Con blog here with all the details.

KSP Mini Con Program

Taken from the KSP Mini Con Blog.

It's Here.
The Mini Con 2010 program that is. We're excited about it and hope you will be too.
We have some great panellists and topics covering a wide range of writerly topics so come and enjoy them on May 2 at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre, 11 Old York Road, Greenmount WA 6056.

Here's the complete list:

10:00: Casting Call: heroes, villains and monsters. Hal Colebatch, Toby Coulstock, Liz Grzyb, Bevan McGuinness and Carol Ryles (mod)

11:00: Writing Intensives e.g. Clarions, Writers of the Future: do they work? Lee Battersby, Sonia Helbig, Carol Ryles and Helen Venn

Kaffeeklatsch: Nanowrimo with Elaine Kemp and Sarah Parker

12:00: Stuck in the Mud: Writers' block/painting characters into a corner: Sonia Helbig, Sue Isle and David Kitson

1:00: Should WA writers use WA settings? Lee Battersby, Adrian Bedford, Stephen Dedman, Russell B. Farr (mod) and Juliet Marillier

2:00: Romance in Fantasy. Lyn Battersby, Satima Flavell, Elaine Kemp and David Kitson

3:00: World Building: Dave Luckett, Bevan McGuinness, Helen Venn and Carol Ryles (mod)

Kaffeeklatsch: E-publishing with Elaine Kemp and Tehani Wesseley

4:00: Turkey City Lexicon: Have some fun with overused tropes of SF. Russell B. Farr, David Kitson, Dave Luckett and Ian Nichols.

More details soon.

The Writer's Journal

This is a different beast from the diary you might have kept as a child. Diaries record facts but journals do much more.

In a diary you might list where and how you spent the day. “Went to beach. Very hot. Rescued baby.” A journal entry might describe the same trip to the beach but it will be in very different terms. “The sand seeped up between my toes, so hot I raced for the water, shedding towel, thongs and bag as I went. The water lapped around me, so soothing, and on the beach a rainbow garden of umbrellas bloomed.” Or it might be something that grabs your attention. “I couldn’t believe it. This baby was crawling straight for the water and this is a surf beach. No sign of anyone looking after it either. I ran and picked it up just as a wave crashed down. And while I was standing there wondering what to do, this enormous man, all tats and dreadlocks, stalked down the beach, grabbed it out of my arms. “Don’t you touch my kid,” he snarled. You would have thought he’d say thank you. I was shaking for ages. How could they have just left the baby like that!” Same beach, same day but very different parts of the experience remembered in different ways.

Journals can include details of what has transpired but they also give us the opportunity to look deeper – into how we feel about what happened, how we might respond to a situation, a chance to vent. It's a place to express your innermost thoughts on any subject you choose in any way you choose. It's not meant to be shared unless you want to. These are your thoughts at that point in time. They may offend others. They may not even be representative of your usual thoughts. They may be investigating emotions or situations. Whatever they are they are yours and they should be honest. You don't have to explain or justify what you write – to anyone.

Because of this, commonsense will tell you not to leave your journal lying around where someone might pick it up and read it out of casual curiosity. I keep my journals discreetly in a place where they are not likely to be seen unless someone is deliberately looking for them. Still you should protect yourself. If something is particularly controversial you can, after you’ve finished, stick the pages together or rip them out. The benefit comes from the actual writing, rarely the rereading.

There are few rules. Dating each entry so you know the context in which you wrote it is desirable. Don’t worry about grammar rules, punctuation and spelling and do try not to correct or cross out hard though it is. Doing that breaks the flow and spontaneity of your train of thought and you won’t achieve the depth in your writing you otherwise could. Don’t censor yourself. This is a time to be honest even if it is painful – and sometimes it might be – but it will also give you the opportunity to work out how you feel about important happenings in your life. You can be yourself with no need to impress others.

You may or may not choose to write an entry every day although it’s not hard to devote fifteen minutes a day to journal writing. You may opt not mention any details of your life at all, you may use it to reflect on all your life or you may include only particular areas. You may write to triggers like poetry, songs or in response to what is happening in the world around you. You may just want to rant about something or someone. It’s your journal and you get to choose.

In our journals all we have to do is write. This is quite a gift. While we are doing this we learn – about ourselves and our past, to find solutions to problems, to recognise our joys, to understand others and how complex they (and we) are, what we want to write about and to develop our creativity and improve our writing ability.

In the end it’s the process of journal writing that’s most important. We may end up using some of what we write in other places but more than that we gain an understanding of ourselves and in that journey, we also gain an understanding of the world we live in – and our writing benefits.

Book Launches at Swancon: Belong and Scary Kisses

So, the good news is: I've got my contributor's copies of Belong and it looks very pretty. I've read several of the stories and can't help thinking what an awesome job everyone has done: writers, editors, printers and British and Australia Post for getting "Belong" to Perth on time.

Thank you and hugs to Belong's fantastic editor, Russell B Farr.

Belong will be launched this Thursday at Swancon 9pm at the All Seasons Hotel, 15 Robinson Ave, Northbridge. I'll be there, along with Sonia Helbig and we'll both be reading a teaser from our stories: Sonia's is "Initiation" and mine is "Deeper Than Flesh and Closer", which is about a vastly changed future Earth that has been colonised by refugees from the past.

Also being launched at Swancon -- this time Friday at 10pm -- is Elizabeth Gryzb's anthology, Scary Kisses. The anthology is a collection of sexy and scary paranormal romance which will definitely whet your appetite. And the fantastic cover is by Amanda Rainey.



Contributors to Scary Kisses include Annette Backshall who is a member of our writer's group at the KSP Writer's centre and one amazing lady. When she's not fighting fires in Perth as a professional firefighter, she writes an awesome story and is a great critiquer as well. Date with a Vampire is Annette's first publication. Go Annette!!

If you can't make it to Swancon, both books can be ordered from Indie Books Online

--
Carol.

Don’t sweat the small stuff

Eventually, any writer who is serious about the craft will start to think about sending work to a publisher or agent for consideration. If the creator has ever attended a publication workshop or Googled for instructions, they will take great pains to “get it right” according to whatever method they've come across.

But just what does “getting it right” entail? There is a standard formatting system that is preferred by many publishers, particularly those in the short story market and more especially the American speculative fiction short story market. It involves using Courier or Courier New fonts, double spacing the lines, indenting five spaces at the beginning of lines (opinions vary as to whether or not the first line after a line break should be indented) using a hash as marker for line breaks and not using widow/orphan control. A useful version of this, written by Vonda McIntyre, can be found at http://www.sfwa.org/2008/11/manuscript-preparation/.

Yet there are many publishers who dislike Courier fonts and specifically request, for example, Times New Roman. Some say one and half spaces between lines are fine. Some want the synopsis double-spaced; some say this applies only to the manuscript. Some don’t say what they want at all.

I suspect these things are not as cut and dried or even quite as important as some pundits would have us believe. I've seen several mss by published authors that varied widely from the commonly accepted standard. For example, one uses a pair of tildes, centred, as her line break markers; one uses three asterisks, centred, and another uses a hash but prefers not to centre it. I've seen at least one ms by a published author that just left the gap with no marker at all. And I have edited material by published authors that was not even double-spaced! Mind you, these people are all fine writers, far better than I, and they could probably write the ms by hand on coloured paper and get away with it. As a new author, I would not dare do that, and neither, probably, should you!

While we need to give ourselves every chance in this wretched publication gamble, the important thing is that we have good stories, set out in a way that's easy to read. All the hopeful new author can do is read the guidelines on the publisher’s or agent’s website and stick to them to the letter, and if no guidelines are given, just use something like the above method and cross your fingers. As with all things, there's no profit in sweating the small stuff. After all, in a hundred years - or even five years - it will not matter at all!

Shades of Sentience: A Short Story Anthology

Shades of Sentience, an anthology of fantasy, horror, magic realism and science fiction short stories edited by Alanna and Lara Horgan, will be launched at the Brisbane Supanova from April 9-11. The collection is drawn from winners and finalists in the recent Shades of Sentience Short Story Competition run by sentientonline.net, a website that offers reviews, interviews and articles on everything from geek stuff to science fiction that has become real. Contributors include Joanna Fay, a member of Egoboo WA and the Speculative Fiction Group at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre.

'Fantasy and horror, science fiction and magic realism: these terms provide only the barest glimpse of what you'll find within these pages. Enter dreamscapes and nightmares; fall with souls rocketing into oblivion and fly with others who've discovered how to glide on broken wings. Walk within the minds of angels, demons, monsters and humans, not a sparkle among them, and try to choose your side. Nothing in this book is black and white - good or evil. We all see the world through different eyes, and each story gives you a different perspective. Will any of them change yours?'

This book is a collection of twenty new short stories by award winning authors from Australia and around the world:

Thou Art by Lewis Allan
The Sound of Water by Charles Canning
A Final Glimpse of Dark and Light by Debbie Cowens
Murray the Sex Machine by Matt Cowens
Time I Am by Stephen Davey
Threadsongs by Joanna Fay
Problem Solving and Its Consequences by Chris Fletcher
Forever Young by Steven Gepp
Mirror Mirror by Alice Godwin
Loving the Gorgon by Laura E. Goodin
Lucid Dreaming by Kia Groom
Sentience by Alanna Horgan
Memorandum by Crisetta MacLeod
Special Treatment by Craig Maslowski
The Ambush by Michael Noonan
Devil?s Dinner by Melanie Rees
Incident on the Tulla by Janeen Samuel
Monster by Amanda Spedding
The Candle Suicide by Daan Spijer
Revelations by Katharine Stubbs

Belong To Be Launched at Swancon

Belong: Interstellar Immigration Stories edited by Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga Publications) is to be launched at Swancon in 4 weeks. Preorders can be made now at Indiebooks Online

Contributors include Egobooer, Carol Ryles and also, our good friend, Sonia Helbig, who are both members of the KSP Speculative Fiction Writers Group.

Belong:

23 tales that ask the question: how far would you go to belong?

The answers will amaze and astound you. Interstate, international, interstellar, beyond the grave - into the great unknown.

113,000 words of original fiction from around the world. Australia, Canada, Argentina, United Kingdom, U.S.A. and Belgium.

Contents:

"Border Crossing", Penelope Love
"Mrs Estahazi", Barbara Robson
"Norumbega", Linda L. Donahue
"Ice", Zdravka Evtimova
"United". Jennifer Moore
"Rekindle the Sun", Mary E. Lowd
"The Gift", Barry Rosenberg
"Prisoner of the Faceless", Kurt Bachard
"Merpeople", Gwen Veazey
"Feather-light", George Ivanoff
"Speaking English", Stephanie Burgis
"Green, Green Grass of Homeworld", Donna Maree Hanson
"I Belong to this Red Land", Edwina Harvey
"All Tales Must End", Michelle Muenzler
"Namug", Gustavo Bondoni
"Song of the Blackbird", Sarah Totton
"A Friendly Gesture", Chet Gottfried
"Initiation", Sonia Helbig
"Slow Cookin’", Angela Rega
"The Ballad of P’toresk", Simon Petrie
"The Hollow Ones", Kylie Seluka
"Trassi Udang", Patty Jansen
"Deeper than Flesh and Closer", Carol Ryles

Perth Writers' Festival

Some lovely spec fiction panels on at the Perth Writers' Festival today at the UWA:

Genre is not a Dirty Word:

Crime, thrillers, mystery ... It's all fiction isn't it? Michael
Koryta, Sara Foster and Marianne Delacourt explore what it means to be
a genre writer.

Chair: Grant Stone Dolphin theatre 11am-12pm

Pulp Fiction:

The new novels of KA Bedford, Lenny Bartulin and Adrian McKinty have a
Chandleresque air to them. They look at the legacy of noir fiction and
its effect on their writing.

Chair Grant Stone. Undercroft 2pm-3pm

From Cyber to ... ?:

KA Bedford, Marianne Delacourt and Garth Nix consider some of the
shifts in science fiction and fantasy writing with

Chair Helen Merrick Undercroft 3pm-6pm

To see what else in on at the festival go here

Katharine Susannah Prichard Speculative Fiction Awards 2010

The Katharine Susannah Prichard Speculative Fiction Awards are now open for short stories between 1500 and 3500 words from anywhere across the genre. Prizes range from $600.00 for first, through $300.00 for second and $175.00 for third plus 5 commended of $10.00. The competition closes on Friday, May 28, 2010.

Entry forms and Conditions of Entry are available from Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre, 11 Old York Road, Greenmount WA 6056 or can be downloaded here.