Sean’s State of the Blog Address

Apart from awards postings it’s been pretty quiet round these parts.  Truth is I am busy.  The day job which I do three days a week is sucking 5 days energy out of me at the moment and it’s getting on into Winter (cold and dark).

That being said there are great cogs in motion, momentous designs afoot.

Galactic Chat

You may have noticed there’s a slow down in Galactic Chat.  The reason for this is two fold: 1) I started my own podcast in December and contributed a number of interviews to that and 2) Galactic Chat is undergoing a bit of a refurb. 

I have been handed the conch by its founders and will be relaunching in the near future with a slightly different format and some fresh voices.  So keep your eye out for Galactic Chat Version 2

Writing

I have done virtually no short story writing, but have submitted poetry to a couple of competitions and intend to submit one to a specfic anthology.

Reviewing.

There’s been a slowdown in books reviewed this year. Due to the lack of energy and that some or the books I have received from big name publishers have been pretty ordinary- note that’s not bad, but they lack a certain something.  I sat down to read Graham Joyce’s Some Kind of Fairytale they other day and had to stop (its a non review copy) because it is the kind of writing that is just a pleasure to read.  I knew it would keep me from books I have to review.  Luckily I got in the mail the other day George Turner’s The Sea and Summer .

I have to rotate through my review copy so that all my publishers get a fair go.  I am hoping that after The Sea and Summer  I’ll be able to get into some works by Cat Sparks, Eliza Victoria and the anthology Next.

Viewing

I must admit with the coming cold and the lack of energy my port of call has been good quality drama.  Therefore I have imbibed Season 1 of Hell on Wheels and Season 1 & 2 of Lark Rise to Candleford.  I have been greatly enjoying Call the Midwife and am wondering when Dr Who will get back to being a drama with touches of the same quality. Maybe they need some more Cornell writing.

Aurealis Awards 2012 (Held May 2013)

International Speculative Fiction #4

Issue 4 of International Speculative Fiction is out featuring yours truly’s review column. In which I cover some of the recent works of independent self publisher Rabia Gale and the award winning Eliza Victoria.  But of course I shouldn’t be the only reason you pick up a copy of this FREE publication in one of its multiple formats (mobi, epub or pdf).

In this issue Roberto Mendes and Ricardo Loureiro have managed to bring together another great collection of story art and non-fiction writing from around the world.  The fiction section features works by previous World Fantasy Award winners including Ken Liu.

The non-fiction section features an interesting  interview with Zoran Živković on the fantastical tradition in European writing:

The term “fantastika”—used in slightly different ways in many European languages—doesn’t seem to have a satisfactory English equivalent. It could have been “fantasy” if that term hadn’t been reduced to a marketing label that means “Tolkienesque” fiction.

Fantastika is by no means limited to that narrow section of the spectrum. It is, in fact, the spectrum itself—all nonmimetic prose. Nearly 70 percent of everything written during the past five thousand years is nonmimetic and belongs to one of many forms of fantastika: folklore, oneiric, fairytale, epic, and so forth.

There’s also a wonderful profile of Romanian artist George Munteanu, that’s worth a look (note the cover image is his as well).

While you are there you should also take the opportunity to download their free 2012 anthology.

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