Margo Lanagan, plus some more Random Bits of News

Hello Bloggies -

Yet another week with only one post here. And on a friday, none the less. Talk about leaving things until the last minute.

But, in my defence, it's been a busy week. Also a really fun one. If exhausting. On Wednesday, I was lucky enough to spend the day with the wonderful author (and all round nice person) Margo Lanagan, who generously agreed to come down here to Canberra for a day to do a couple of lectures for my classes here at UC.

Margo, for the uninitiated, is the author of numerous novels and short story anthologies, most of which have won bucketloads of awards including (but not only) Hugos, Nebulas, Ditmars, Aurealis, Prinz Honours, CBCA awards, and many many others. Last year, her novel Tender Morsels was the winner of the World Fantasy Award for best novel. (Also probably my favourite book of 2009, and which, as you can see, now has a spanky new cover by all round clever bugger Shaun Tan).

But most of you know that stuff already, so I won't bang on about it now.

Margo delivered two fantastic lectures for us. The first was a general talk about her creative process and the realities of life as a published, award winning author. One of the things I really love about Margo's approach to these things, and which I always find incredibly refreshing, is how completely grounded and down-to-earth she is in her treatment of these issues. As she took us through the writing process for Tender Morsels it became very clear to all present that here was a writer who took writing seriously - very seriously - but who at the same time was able to maintain a positive and sensible perspective on the balance between the writing life and 'real' life.

Her second lecture, which was to the literature studies class in which we're currently looking at Tender Morsels addressed all sorts of issues related to the novel, including its classification as 'YA', the tabloid media beat up in the UK which followed the book's release there, the use of violence and the inclusion of 'taboos' in writing, and about a dozen other equally interesting topics. It's always fun getting an insight into another author's ideas and creative process, not least because it enables me to flagrantly steal ideas and techniques for my own writing. (Which is fine to do, because Margo said so...)

All in all, Margo Lanagan Day was a really enjoyable one for all concerned at this end.

(For those interested, Margo is a prolfic twitterer, and can be found @margolanagan)

In other news, earlier in the week I got a package from Queensland, and inside it were two shiny new copies of the first print run of Daywards. After ten years, I'd expected to be all excited upon recieving these particualar books in the mail, but for the most part I have to say the predominant feeling was a profound sense of relief that it was all - finally - over.

The book looks very nice. Bright and, uhm... rather gold and shiny. (Dat Book gots bling, fo shizzle!) It also looks very, very nice parked beside Nightpeople and Skyfall. It'll hit the shelves on the 29th of March, but before then anyone lucky enough to be at the Somerset Celebration of Literature, between the 17th and 20th of March, can get an early copy from the bookshop there. On the first day of the festival the book will also be officially 'launched' by the very generous James Roy.

Anyway, that's it from me for the moment. Long weekend this week for all us ACT residents, and me and my little brood are off down the coast to Tathra.

Cheers
Tony

Festival Time!

Next week I'm off to the Melbourne Writer's Festival. This looks like it's going to be a fantastic week, and if you're in Melbourne, please come and see me. It'll be my first time away from Toby and Min in eight and a half months, so I'm bound to be lonely and in need of friends :)

On the bright side, though, I'm involved in some great sessions, with some *awesome* people:

This Sunday, the 23rd, I'm part of a Professional Development Masterclass on the ins and outs of writing Young Adult Fiction alongside the fantastic Margo Lanagan I'm really, really looking forward to this one, as I haven't seen Margo for years (Actually, Margo was one of the first writers I ever interviewed, on stage at the 2000 CBCA conference in Perth). Since then, she's produced some of the most challenging and beautiful writing to come out of this country, including several brilliant anthologies of short stories, and most recently the stunning Tender Morsels, which I'm reading at the moment.

Then, on Monday 24th, I'll be talking about Into White Silence. This should be a pretty enjoyable session; I'm taking a lot of my photos from my trip to Antarctica, as well as all my research materials, and will be talking about the entire writing process, and how it's changed the way I view narrative. I'll be keeping it fairly open and informal, with lots of opportunities for questions.

Tuesday morning, I'm really looking forward to meeting Scott Westerfield for the first time. I'm a big fan of his work, especially Peeps, (which is how a vampire novel should be written. No sparkly vegetarians here...) and his Uglies series, so actually meeting and being involved in a panel session with him will be fantastic. We're going to be discussing Place, in Space and looking at the role and importance of setting, especially in regard to speculative writing.

On Tuesday afternoon I'm talking about The Imaginative Landscape alongside fellow author Tony Birch, whose novel Shadowboxing I currently have parked on my desk, waiting for me to finish Tender Morsels, so that I can get on to it.

Finally, I'll be doing an in-conversation on Wednesday afternoon - sort of a general meet the author type thingy, which will involve a lot of discussion on just about every topic under the sun.

All in all, it promises to be a really interesting few days, so please do come along if you can. It'd be great to meet some new people. (Or old people, for that matter...)