Over at Terra Incognita, my story Hush is now online as a podcast — AND coming soon to iTunes. Double the Hush!
This time we don’t get the whiskey tones of Nick Evans, I’m afraid. The author has to read her own stories at Terra Incognita. Must be part of that whole global economic crisis thing. I’ve tried to remember what I learned watching Dorothy Porter read one of her stories at Stanton Library years back. What I liked most was that she made it sound like a conversation. No Grahnd Poh-etry Rahding Voice for Dorothy Porter. I loved her more for that.
But heck, I never even shook her hand. So you can be assured that all flaws and shortcomings in this reading (well, this story, too) are mine.
Hush is one of the six new stories in A Book of Endings. It’s a little bit steampunk, a little bit revenge tale. And it features a dog and a talking horse. What more could you want?
—–
A Book of Endings, go on, buy it via Twelfth Planet Press.
Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
For anyone waiting on a copy of A Book of Endings from last week’s launch (where we ran out of books), the box has arrived! Distribution is imminent.
I’m off to the World Fantasy Con in a little over a week, though, so we might have to make this quick. May have to be a pub gathering next weekend. ;p (Note to developer friends: ever done a soft launch AFTER the real launch?)
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Lots of excellent endings in last week’s poll. Thanks, everyone. I had a blast reading through the nominations.
I got to hear the ending to Ulysses (without having to read the book — thanks, Wendy! And great ending, too). I found myself in complete agreement with Stephen Dedman about the excellence of the ending for Casablanca, & I was reminded of the cheeky ending for the original Italian Job via Jon Gibbs. Cold Comfort Farm, Lord of Light & Bridge of Birds received intriguing mentions. And then there was Pet Sematary (oooohhhhhh, good one, Chuck!).
Tansy & Cat nominated two fabulous ‘dumb courage’ endings — Blake’s 7 & Zulu. Both great films, not just great endings. bluetyson (eep, I don’t actually know your name!) also nominated Blake’s 7 (deservedly, one of the best endings evah!), & also The Usual Suspects for good measure. What a fantastic movie that is, too. Brilliant whodunnit.
David Carroll’s real life ending for Thelma & Louise was awesome. I loved this one. And then there were the metatextual endings: real life by Paul Haines. Hard to argue with that one! And Gillian Polack’s ‘pick your own ending’ made me chuckle out loud. Well done on that one!
But in the end I decided to give the free copy of A Book of Endings to a sentimental favourite. Grant Watson’s nomination of ‘The Monster at the End of This Book’ was a book my little sister received, but which bewitched me even more than her, I think, for the break-out unpredictability of it. I’d never seen anything like it! A book which actually referred to ITSELF as a book! Far out, man! (What? It was the seventies…)
Because you see, gentle reader, the monster at the end of the book … is…
Well, I won’t spoil it for you.
Grant, feel free to step forward & claim your prize!
Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
A huge thank-you to the people who came to the launch of A Book of Endings yesterday. NG Gallery put on a damn classy show (the catering was so artfully done most people actually *mistook* it for art), & the crowd was cheerful & kind & wonderful. I was blown away by the number of attendees. Among the crowd were many friends & family I hadn’t seen in years. (One relative commented that the last time he’d seen me I’d measured up to his waist.)
I was overwhelmed.
Margo Lanagan gave me the most gracious, convincing write-up I’ve ever had (thanks Margo!), & I believe my family was duly impressed. Especially when I burst into tears. (We shall speak no more of that.)
Alas, we sold out of every book I had! Some of you put your names on the order list, but if you haven’t done that & you’d still like to order a book, please just let me know via the comments, or email me at deborahb AT-diddy-AT livejournal.com. I shall post ‘em off when ‘the publisher’ sends more.
Special thanks has to go to my sister, Rachel, whose up-selling skills were something to behold. Instead of offering people change, she’d ask them if they wanted to purchase a second book. Some did fall for her charms — & I just love that my good buddy Sue rocked up to the head of the signing queue with no less than FOUR books in her hand! They do make great Xmas gifts.
Also there was a rather special family photo taken of the Biancotti-Wegert-Reganzani-Miller family which I intend to frame for the wall.
Thanks again to everyone. I’m just blown away.
More photos at Flickr here & at Cat Sparks’ photo stream, or feel free to forward your own!
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Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12
What is your favourite ending (book, TV, movie, or real life)?
I’ve been thinking about endings — as I am wont to do — & I thought I’d list a few of my favourites to inspire you to tell me your own favourite ending:
* Best ending = LITTLE BIG, by John Crowley: I don’t often describe a book a ‘beautiful’, & that’s because I’m reserving the label for Little Big. This is a stunning, satisfying, unsettling, undeniable book. I’ve never been more convinced by a book — more convinced it was real, & merely transcribed. My first writing teacher, Terry Dowling, mentioned this book as having the ‘perfect last line’. What I remember of it is the sheer bittersweetness of the whole journey. I love this book.
* Most surprising ending = THE LAND OF LAUGHS, Jonathan Carroll: I’m a big Carroll fan, & my love affair began here, as it should, with The Land of Laughs. Thing is, the ending of the book is so … downbeat, say … that I actually turned the page expecting to see, well, another page. I was mistaken.
* Best subversive ending = THE BLOOD OF ROSES, Tanith Lee: This could be my favourite Lee book. This, or THE BIRTHGRAVE, I’m not sure which. But this one has the best haHAA! ending, the best ‘ohwillyoulookatthat, establishedempire, Ibetyouweren’texpectingTHAT!’ ending. I would almost call it a barbaric yawp of an ending.
* Best no-don’t-end ending = ASH, A SECRET HISTORY, Mary Gentle: I have a bunch of Gentle books on my shelves, but I’m afraid to read them in case they don’t live up to A Secret History.
* Best ah-get-fcked ending = THE SPARROW, Mary Doria Russell: I loved this book. I didn’t necessarily love the ending, though.
* Best we’re-all-gonna-die ending = a tie, between Angel (end of endings, Season 5) & Blake’s 7 (Season 4 — were there only 4 seasons??). Both featured that against-all-odds kinda ending that fires the blood, sets the heart racing & makes you want to leap into the TV & fight alongside your erstwhile, ill-fated heroes. Rawr!
* Best we’re-almost-all-gonna-agree-on-this ending: Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. Curse you, William Goldman, for your soul-destroying, heart-wrenching scripts & your gorgeous ‘dumb courage’ theme. I both love and hate you.
OK. What’s your favourite ending?
Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
A reminder for anyone who’s free this Saturday afternoon (and also, in the vicinity of Sydney), that A Book of Endings will be launching locally:
3pm Saturday 10 October
NG Art Gallery
Upstairs at 3 Little Queen St
Chippendale NSW 2008
(about 2 bus stops from Central Station or a 10-minute walk)
Launch MC: Margo Lanagan
Champagne & OJ provided, or feel free to purchase a drink at the bar downstairs.
$25 on the day (cash sales only on the day, or order online)
And in honour of the event, I’m giving away a FREE! copy of A Book of Endings to the person who has the wackiest answer to the question:
What would be YOUR favourite ending?
(Feel free to interpret that any way you like).
Best answer chosen by Friday this week. Postage anywhere in the world!
Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
Spring is a crazy time. Not just because of odd things like dust storms, but also because spring is when I want to do EVERYTHING at once. I want to write and read and paint and sing and watch great cinema and scour my brain of all the ideas it has spinning around inside.
Today the air is crystal clear again, sky is blue, the ‘red menace’ (as the media is calling it) has retreated & if it wasn’t for the photos, you’d swear it never happened. Flickr has an entire project dedicated to yesterday in Sydney: it’s called the Red Sydney Project, unsurprisingly. Some of my photos are there, too. And members of the Red Sydney Project have been asked to contribute to a print-on-demand project called Dust Storm. As you see, we in Sydney are obsessed with the whole red dust event.
And, of course, we still have the dust. Anything that was outside yesterday is now covered in a layer of red dust. Apparently car wash firms are having a field day.
But none of this is what I wanted to discuss today. I wanted to say that due to an unforeseen double-booking, Garth Nix won’t be able to make the Sydney launch of A Book of Endings on Saturday 10-October. Garth is a tough act to follow, of course, and with his absence the question became, ‘what brave, thoughtful soul will step unto the breach? what noble, wise, etc?’
But in excellent news, Margo Lanagan has promised to don the mantle — or the cape, as it were (I haven’t told her about that bit) — for the role of ‘making me look good to my family’. Margo promises my fam will be impressed. Though there was an element of ‘mwhahahahaa’ to her words, I’m pretty sure.
A Book of Endings. Launching Saturday 10-October, 3pm at NG Gallery, Little Queen St, Chippendale. Now with extra Margo Lanagan!
Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
Years back, when I was clearly more of an optimist than I am now, I started collecting links on ‘promoting your book’. Just the links, not the articles, because I didn’t want to fill up my computer with useless words. And now that I have a book, of course all those links are out of date. I have text files full of links to broken pages! What, I wonder, did those pages say? And where are today’s pages?
My head is filled with questions!
So now I’m looking for good resources on promotion for writers. I understand there are such things as ‘press releases’ and ‘review venues’ & even ‘bookstores’, & I’m wondering how you write ‘em, contact ‘em, or convince ‘em to carry your book.
I’ve been wondering this for a couple weeks (since the launch, in fact), but today the questions were really brought to the fore when one gentle friend said to me, “I looked for your book in Borders AND Dymocks, and they both didn’t have it!” She even, apparently, convinced the helpful woman in one of these stores to put it on ‘the list’, whatever ‘the list’ is. I hope it’s a good list. I hope I get on it!
If you, gentle reader, have a link (that’s still active) to a place in the interwebby which addresses any or all of these questions, feel free to post that link here.
Conversely, if you are a marketing student looking to work for free for a good cause, well, you probably should be looking into the plight of native fruit bats or something, rather than wasting your time with my queries — but if you do have a term paper lying around that explains all these things, well, your work is welcome here.
Now I might do some recreational reading, for once, because my head is toast.
Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
A quick update because I have to do some novel writing tonight, but wanted to say hurrah! and thanks! to all the people who came to the very first launch of my very first book, A Book of Endings at Cabinet Bar over the Continuum weekend in Melbourne. I’m not sure if it was the Lady Lara’s (ie. gin & champagne cocktails), the welcoming staff at Cabinet, the cheeriness of the crowd who were able to find their way out of the con hotel, down the road, around the corner, into the alley way (past the garbage bins) to brave the steep staircase into the bar, or whether, indeed, it was Mr Strahan’s compelling & convincing speech & Mz Krasnostein’s convivial catering — or indeed, whether it was ALL of these things — but the launch was a blast!
Thank-you to the peeps who came, the peeps who accosted me the next day in the corridors to say, ‘Sorry I missed your launch!’, & the peeps who couldn’t make it but thought about it, or are thinking of coming to the next one:
Sydney Launch of A Book of Endings
3pm Saturday 10 October
NG Art Gallery
Upstairs at 3 Little Queen St
Chippendale NSW 2008
(about 2 bus stops from Central Station or a 10-minute walk)
Launching by the inimitable Mr Garth Nix.
And if you stick around at the gallery (well, if you stick around until October 27), you can see Nick Stathopoulos’s gallery exhibition, Playtime. I had a preview of some of the new works recently & they’re fabulous.
Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
It’s here.
Well, not here. It’s in Perth, but it’s also (hopefully) on its way to Melbourne for launch during the Continuum weekend.
It’s A Book of Endings & it looks like this (byo cute puppy).
So at 5:15pm on Saturday 15 August, it will (hopefully) be launched at Cabinet, 11 Rainbow Alley, a 3-minute walk from the convention hotel.
And many thanks to everyone who helped out with launch venue suggestions! Who knew Melbourne had so many funky little bars within a metre of a randomly chosen hotel?!
I love that city.
(Sydneysiders, stay tuned for confirmation of the local launch.)
Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
An update!
Firstly, my program items for Continuum include just one confirmed very cool, event:
Reading with Sean Williams!
Sunday 2.00pm Sun Sphere
Yes, reading WITH Sean, who graciously agreed to my cunning plan to avoid reading my own stuff.
The idea was planted in my head years back by Simon Brown, who listened sympathetically to my comment that I don’t like reading my own stuff. Simon said, ‘Next time we’re both at the same con, let’s swap.’ And then he fled to Thailand.
So, filled with a sense of uneasy duty re. the promoting of my first book, A Book of Endings, I approached the ever-gracious Mr Williams with the inherited plan and he, graciously, agreed! Which means Sunday from 2pm, he’ll be reading some of my stuff & I’ll be reading some of his, & we might swap back & forth or whatever fits in with the timeslot(s).
There is another unconfirmed event, of course, which is the launch of A Book of Endings (now available for pre-order) by the eminent Jonathan Strahan. This is the rogue, off-campus, programme-defying plan to have a glass of champagne to celebrate the fact the book is (hopefully!) printed and available for sale. But if it’s NOT printed or for sale, there will still be champagne, although we may all have to buy our own ‘cos the publisher will be in tears. (We shall buy drinks for the publisher, too, in that event.)
We DID have one of your standard programmed launches, but for various reasons that timeslot didn’t work out* & the programmers have been very accommodating in letting us do some kinda rebellious off-grid whatever-we-want thing instead. We don’t yet understand what that thing is because we are miles away from Melbourne, but we need a venue within very, very short stumbling distance who’d accommodate us for an hour probably on Saturday at 5:30pm. Perhaps we shall even do a launch-&-run, by turning up in a bar, ordering drinks, sending up a rousing cheer, & then running like hell before the owners of the establishment work out what in god’s name we’re doing there.
And once we have THAT plan in hand — whatever it is– by god, there’ll be a celebration!
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* The chaos of the launch does not phase me. Once we decided to go with the title, A Book of Endings (now available for pre-order), a whole bunch of things turned upside-down & so it is only to be expected that crazy, arse-about stuff is gonna happen with this book from woe to go. Or, go to woe, whichever is set to happen last…**
** Plans for the Sydney launch of A Book of Endings (now available for pre-order), however, are tracking well. Keep 3pm Saturday 10 October free for a launch by the awesome Garth Nix!
Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
*Apparently* — and I don’t quite believe it — editing is completed on A Book of Endings.
I am heartily sick of everything I’ve ever written.
On the plus side, nice to know I can endure a rapid editing phase (I remember Karen Miller telling the story of her worldcon adventure one year where she spent the weekend in her hotel room editing an entire novel in 3 days. This is clearly the gold standard of professional writing!).
I have to admit, though, that I no longer know what those 6 new stories in the book actually are, what they’re about, or why I wrote them in the first place! (If anyone ever reads this collection, perhaps they could let me know the answers to the first 2 questions. The final answer may be lost in the fog of history.)
But what I’m most impressed with & grateful for is what *other* people are doing for this project. Just one f’instance out of the army of people working on, helping with & supporting this project: Graham Joyce took time out of a busy schedule right before going on leave to give me this charming cover blurb:
“Deborah Biancotti’s superb collection of short stories reminds me of the engaging work of Robert Aickman. She is a damned fine storyteller and her sheer originality, zest, energy and style fill the dark skyline of the modern world with luminous flares of mysterious force.”
It takes a village to write a book, & I’m blessed to be part of this one.
Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
In my (new & ongoing) obsession with book production, I’m interested to find out about this publishing house via Jeff VanderMeer’s blog: Write Bloody Publishing. They proclaim: “We are proud of our unique style by utilizing modern painters, photographers and rock album designers for all our book cover art.”
Of course, they publish only American authors, so my interest is purely academic. But what a great idea, book covers like rock albums! C’mon, let’s storm those parapets, eh?!
Head over to check out some charming objets de la littérature. You can even take a peek inside & read some of the text, if titles such as “Cast Your Eyes Like Riverstones Into the Exquisite Dark: A Book of Night Poems” (Danny Sherrard) take yer fancy.
In other news, I’m planning a Sydney launch for A Book of Endings. Will keep you posted. Plans so far sound kinda cool, if I do say so myself.
Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
OK, so I’m getting a little obsessed with cover art (ever since Nick Stathopoulos turned in the fabulous A Book of Endings cover!). Yesterday I spent a couple hours staring at these sites:
http://www.thebookdesignreview.com
http://shelvedbooks.blogspot.com
http://henryseneyee.blogspot.com
I also followed various links, finding myself in a world of cover debate. Including a link to a rant by Stuart Evers on the good side of bad books:
See, I’m not convinced there’s a value in that. Surely life is too short for bad books in the same way it’s too short for bad coffee, bad food and bad love affairs…?
Over at The Guardian, Alison Flood asks the question “are we really going to admit to judging books by their covers?” To which the answer must be ‘yes’. Even in an age when more & more of us are looking at electronic solutions for our libraries, it’s probably useful not to stray TOO far from your content with a misleading cover.
(This presented a particular problem for the cover of my own antho, as I find myself moving further away from genre into just a kind of ‘weird urban’ storytelling. Which — I hope! — the Stathopoulos cover captured rather brilliantly!)
Please-god, spare me from ever having a chicklit cover! Or from finding myself in the ‘chicklit’ section of Barnes & Noble (seriously, does that exist?). Somewhere I’ve seen chicklit referred to as the ‘buying shoes in the big city’ genre. Which reminds me, I think I *did* write a story about buying shoes in a big city once. But I like to think it was only because I needed shoes. And live in a city.
I digress. Let’s leave the final word on that one to author Janelle Brown, ““Chick lit” is a catch all for everything that’s not “hard” literature written by a woman. It implies that the male experience is universal, while the female experience is something only other women would be interested in.””
Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
It’s here!
Nick Stathopoulos has done something really special — and really quite different to his usual work — to create this striking, modern, urban cover. A far cry from his trademark surreal landscapes or beautiful portraits.
I love it!
Buy the book, get yourself a Nick Stathopoulos cover.
There’ll be stuff inside, of course, but nobody will know if you don’t read it.
Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.
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girliejones:Twelfth Planet Press is pleased to announce the contents of our upcoming short story collection by Deborah Biancotti. A Book of Endings will feature 21 stories including six new works by the author. Coedited by Alisa Krasnostein and Ben Payne, A Book of Endings will be launched at Conjecture, the Australian SF National Convention, in Adelaide, June 5-8, 2009.
The Distance Keeper
The Dying Light
The First and Final Game
King of All and the Metal Sentinel
Life's Work
Number 3 Raw Place
Pale Dark Soldier
The Razor Salesman
Seven Ages of the Protagonist
Silicon Cast
Stealing Free
Stone by Stone
Summa Seltzer Missive
The Tailor of Time
Watertight Lies
And including 6 new works:
Coming up for Air
Diamond Shell
Hush
Problems of Light and Dark
Six Suicides
This Time, Longing
girliejones's blog over here.In other news, I was on the bus yesterday, during a fetid, humid kind of day, & I was reflecting deeply on what it is about junkies I hate so much. I mean, they're just people like everyone else, right? And they have their human foibles and their graces and their need for release. And then it dawned on me.
I hate the way it takes them so damn long to count their change.
Just get on the bus already...
My 2009 part-retrospective, part-new-stuff collection will be called A Book of Endings, published by Twelfth Planet Press at next year's Natcon.
Won't say any more. Don't want to jinx it.
I'm going about this marketing gig the wrong way, aren't I?
