Sale: "Gravity Well", Scigentasy Magazine, May 2015

I'm super stoked! My story "Gravity Well" will appear in the May issue of Scigentasy Magazine.

"Gravity Well" is my week 5 Clarion story, a weird flash piece celebration women astronauts real and on the page who have died to make our world a better place. And obituary, I guess you could say.

I had massive feelz around this story because it is so weird and for it's length it caused me a lot of angst writing and getting it perfect. Out of all my Clarion stories I thought it would be the one that wouldn't sell...and it was the first to!

I'm really pleased to finally have a piece appear in Scigentasy. They're a venue I have much respect for as they have a focus on gender and feminist speculative fiction.

The story will go live on Saturday the 2nd of May.

Au Contraire 3, Wellington, 2016: Guest of Honour!

Another first!

I've been invited to be a Creative Guest of Honour at Au Contraire 3, the New Zealand national science fiction, fantasy, and geekery convention in Wellington, Queen's Birthday weekend, 2016.

I'm honoured that the New Zealand fandom and writing community believes I'm at a point in my career where I have something to offer as a GoH. I hope to be helpful and interesting, and live up to this belief.

New Zealand's cons are on the smaller scale since we're a small country with a small community, but we are mighty and proud and try to look after each other. It'll be good practise for when I eventually go to Wiscon, Worldcon, or one of the bigger events world wide.

What an interesting week in the life of.

So This Happened...

I won Best New Talent at New Zealand's Sir Julius Vogel Awards 2015 last night.

This is the first award I've won for my writing (the X-Static FM Best Copywriter 1991 doesn't count coz it was a 7th form school ego-boo thing), so it has particular meaning. I'd like to say something meaningful and worthy about awards, but currently I can only come up with "Yay!"

Awards mean what you need them to mean. They're great for the CV. They're great because people are taking notice. They're also popularity contests which have always amused me - I disabused myself of the meritocracy of awards long ago.

But they also mean people care, one way or the other. I'm glad I have a little community of people here in New Zealand who care enough about me and my career that they'd nominate and vote for me. Thank you to the still anonymous person who wrote the nice nomination blurb for me. Thank you to everyone who voted for me. Thank you to my NZ team: Andi Buchanan, Liz Gatens, Cat Langford, Mark English, Paul Mannering, Lee Murray, Dan Rabarts, Debbie Cowens, Matt Cowens, Marie Hodgkinson, Helen Lowe. Thank you to Clarion UCSD. Thanks to all my incredible Clarion classmates. Thanks to my Clarion tutors Geoff Ryman, Gregory Frost, Cat Valente, Nora Jemisin, Jeff Vandermeer, and especially Ann Vandermeer who keeps checking in and cheerleading for me. Thanks to the editors who have taken a chance on me. Thanks to all the people who quietly cheer on the side lines (you know who you are). Thank you SpecFicNZ for their support. Thanks SFFANZ.

It's strange to say Best NEW Talent - I've been at this for five years now, and it's been a hard slog. But the only way is up. Here's to many more great writing years to come.

The Sir Julius Vogel Award Trophy,
a gold diamond shape inscribed with 
Maori and space motifs on a green base

Links of Interest: The Tiptrees, #womenwritefantasy, Shortcuts, At The Edge, Sisters of the Revolution, Glittership

• Women Write Fantasy. Yes we do.
  
  It's back onto the No We Are Not Invisible horse again, with this lovingly crafted "advertisement" for Game of Thrones season five that mentions NOT ONE woman fantasy writer. The response from the SFF community has been the usual sigh of annoyance and once again restart the conversation, this time with the brilliant #womenwritefantasy hashtag on social media. Lots of great recommendations and discussions going on there if you're looking for some interesting reading or to get involved.
• This year's Tiptree Awards have been announced, and congratulations to Monica Byrne for "The Girl in the Road" *rushes to buy this book* and Jo Walton's "My Real Children". Also happy to see Jacqueline Koyanagi's "Ascension" get a nod, because I loved that book. And also happy to see many "Long Hidden" (Crossed Genres) stories make the Honours List, because Long Hidden is a game changing anthology.
• Women in SF&F Month is on again at Fantasy Book Café, and as always they have lots of good posts, discussions, and recommendations. Here's the first post for the month "Some Assembly Required: Recommendation lists for more inclusive fandom" by Renay of Lady Business.
• A few year's back, a Kickstarter was run to fund a feminist speculative fiction anthology, charting the history of the genre. Ann and Jeff Vandermeer were tapped as editors, and the anthology is almost ready for release. "Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology" is now available for pre-order. I'm really looking forward to this anthology, not just because it's my thing, but because the Vandermeers have an excellent eye for detail and quality stories.
• More anthology goodness. New Zealand publisher Paper Road Press has announced "At The Edge". Continuing the recent history of excellent antipodean anthologies like "A Foreign Country", "Regeneration", and "Tales for Canterbury" (Random Static), "At The Edge" is set to explore the liminal of New Zealand speculative fiction. It will be edited by Lee Murray and Dan Rabarts, and submissions are open until July 31.
• More from Paper Road Press! Introducing their "Shortcuts" series. Get a taste of New Zealand speculative fiction with a series of novellas being released over the next six months. The novellas are available in e-book format for a small $NZ3.33 per month. The first novella is "Mika", by Lee Murray and Piper Meija.
• Here's another venue I'm happy to see get Kickstarter funding and off the ground with lots of support. "Glittership" is an LBGTQ science fiction and fantasy podcast. They have big plans to be a reprint venue, and if they can reach their stretch goals they'll be able to do original fiction too. Go Go Glittership!
• Is talking about feminist, queer, and local speculative fiction my response to the bullying, stacked Hugo ballot this year? Could be. Anywho, congratulations to deserving people like Ann Leckie, G. Willow Wilson (OMG I love "Ms Marvel"), Julie Dillon, Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples (OMG I love "Saga"), and the entire semi-prozine category (I love them all).