This going to be fun! I'll be speaking early afternoon, between one and two, so do come along and heckle.

As an added bonus, your gold coin will go to a worthy charity.

I'm looking forward to seeing lots of friends (and making new ones) at the Aurealis Awards Ceremony in Brisbane on Saturday.* Who's coming and who's not? Looks like the giant electric head will be absent this year, thank goodness. :-)

While we're gazing into the crystal ball, what about Swancon? I just booked my hotel room and ticket. Hurrah!

* Follow the link. That's exactly what I'll be wearing on the night. And isn't the chick's raygun shaped like a wine bottle?

Huge congrats to all the nominees of this year's Aurealis Awards, among which I'm pleased as punch to be numbered. Saturn Returns is in the running for Best SF Novel, making it my sixth consecutive appearance in that category and giving me my twentieth nomination all-up. I'm excited but not holding my breath. The short-list is very strong, and I haven't had a win in this category since 2001 (which is a bit of a worry :-).

Anyway, it's wonderful to be part such a fine line-up. What an amazing pool of talent we have here in Australia! I'm sure there were many, many other fine stories that didn't make it over the line, and my commiserations go to those who might be feeling disappointed.

Ultimately it's about celebrating the community we're all part of, and in that spirit I'm really looking forward to the bash in Brisbane next year--which will be co-hosted by Kim Wilkins and some big loser from Adelaide... :-)

Today is the first birthday of the Australian Writer's Marketplace, and they're having an online festival to celebrate!

Ron Serdiuk, proprietor of Pulp Fiction Press and űbermensch of the Aurealis Awards, kicked the day off this morning, followed by Nick Earls (author of 48 Shades of Brown). Literary agents Pippa Masson and Tara Wynne from Curtis Brown and Graham Nunn from Queensland Poetry Festival are up later this afternoon. In about three quarters of an hour, it'll be me.

I should've mentioned something days ago. Whoops.

Anyway, if you have the time, come along and join in the fun. I'm sure there are some curly questions about my mo just begging to be asked.

UPDATE: It went well. Thanks, all!

Below the cut is the speech I wrote and delivered for Adelaide PEN on its Denied a Voice event today, commemorating the 27th International Day of the Imprisoned Writer.

It was a terrific dray, with a ton of school kids sitting in the shade of a beautiful tree outside the SA Library. There was African music and a cavalcade of great speakers, including Nobel laureate J M Cootzee and others. I was honoured to be among them, but a bit nervous to be coming up last. Luckily most people stuck the distance, and there was still a good crowd to hear me rant.

This is the full version of the speech. The one I gave was cut by a minute or two in order to fit. Where I've paraphrased or quoted a particular writer without crediting them, as shown by the italics, I've put a footnote which will show you the necessary details. All the quotes are taken from essays, letters and poems collected in Another Sky, edited by Lucy Popescu and Carole Seymour-Jones in association with English PEN and published this year by Profile Books.

( The Invisible Dead )

This Thursday I'll be speaking at Adelaide PEN's Denied a Voice event to mark the International Day of the Imprisoned Writer.

Held on the lawn in front of the State Library of SA, North Terrace, Adelaide, it starts at midday and runs until 2.00. See the program available via the above link. Draw-cards include Nicholas Jose, Juan Garrido-Salgado and Nobel Laureate J M Coetzee.

It's not often I get to be political, so I've taken a looong time to write this speech, but I think it's been worth it. The text will be available online via PEN when it's been delivered, for those who can't make it on the day.

The good folk of Clarion South have just released their list of tutors for the 2009 Workshop.

I'm honoured and very excited to be one of them.

I'm back from Canberra and Brisbane where I've had a lot of fun catching up with friends and celebrating the act of writing--something all of us have in common, even if our methods of celebration differ (mine seem to involve lots of red wine, but that will soon change). A big hello to everyone who danced, chatted, work-shopped, toasted, launched, or schmoozed their way across my path in recent days. My memories might be blurry, but the warm happy of companionship glows on.

A whole bunch of things have accrued while I was gone. I'll work my way through them over the next couple of days. Here's the first installment:

You can peer into my study (the place in which I spend about half my waking life) here, as part of the survey conducted by martinlivings. I was amazed while writing the accompanying blurb just how of much its contents relates to my personal as well as my professional life. Everything seems to have a story--and that's as it should be, I guess, for someone who makes a living from the damned things.

Cat Sparks informed me that we missed International Cephalapod Awareness Day. How did that happen?

Audible has bought Saturn Returns and the sequel novella Cenotaxis. I am dying to hear who will be cast as the voice of Imre Bergamasc!

For anyone in or near Adelaide on November 15, I'll be speaking alongside such literary greats as Nicholas Jose, Juan Garrido-Selgado and J M Cootzee at the Adelaide PEN "Denied a Voice" commemoration of the International Day of the Imprisoned Writer. That's between 12 and 2 on the lawns of the State Library of South Australia. Come along and help raise awareness of those with fewer freedoms than us--and remember how those freedoms we do have have been significantly eroded by our government in the name of security.

And for anyone out there who missed the blanket-bomb email I sent yesterday: in the month formerly known as November, I'll be growing a porn star moustache in order to raise money to help fight male depression and prostate cancer. You can help by sponsoring me (and if you're lucky I'll spare you the photos). Details below the cut.

That's it for today. It's nice to be home--and even nicer to see the rain outside! Huzzah!
( MOVEMBER )

martinlivings is calling for writers to send in photos of the rooms in which they write. "I think this would make a nice snapshot," he says, "to go alongside the one that the ASif team recently did. We've had insights into your minds, now I'd like insights into your private spaces." Ho ho.

This comes in response to the Guardian's recent gallery of writers' rooms, featuring such greats as J G Ballard, Alain de Botton and Jacqueline Wilson. As Martin says about the gap in stature between said greats and the likes of us: "We're not rich, or famous. Heck, most of us don't make a living from writing, and probably never will. But we're not bitter. Angry, twisted, filled with unspeakable rage, yes, but not bitter, no. But we all work at it anyway, and we all work somewhere."

Indeed. I've submitted a snap of my new study for all to see. And creative types of all kinds reading this--not just writers--should also drop Martin a line in order to give us a glimpse into your worlds. I for one am curious..

Sad to say, I won't be working at home for the next couple of weeks--albeit for very good reasons. I'll be at Conflux this weekend and then taking a retreat with a bunch of wonderful friends and writers in Queensland shortly thereafter. I'll be back in town mid-October, just in time for my best friend's 40th birthday bash. Oh, and for The Crooked Letter to be the feature book in SFFWorld's Fantasy Book Club.

Hurrah!

PS. Thanks to everyone who came to see Kevin J Anderson speak at Dymocks last week. It was a great turn-out. Wonderful to see so many people taking the opportunity to meet a writer of his stature when it arises. I was fortunate to spend a lot of time with Kevin and his equally brilliant wife Rebecca last week, at various dinners, bars and even a performance of the War of the Worlds in Melbourne. I'm looking forward to seeing them again in Canberra, if they're not completely sick of the sight of me by now. :-)

PPS. A big hello to everyone I bumped into while I was in Melbourne. It was a non-business trip (thanks to Nick for a wonderful 40th birthday present!) so I wasn't really in SF-community mode. It never even occurred to me that this little Jeff Wayne fanboy would see anyone he knew in the mighty metropolis that is Melbourne. Just goes to show, eh? The world is smaller than we think, and a whole lot more interesting for it.

L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest had a huge effect on me, early in my career, and it continues to inspire and surprise me now, fifteen years later. I have to pinch myself, sometimes.

I returned from the most recent presentation a couple of weeks ago, at which Volume XXIII of the contest anthology was launched into the world. You can see the excellent trailer here. And here is Stephan Martinière's luscious cover. I may have whinged incessantly about the jetlag, despite promising myself again not to, but it was worth every second. (Although I did sleep through a speaking commitment, for which I still feel bad.) It's always a pleasure meeting and getting to know the winners, some of the hottest new writers and illustrators on the planet. Hanging out with my fellow judges is also a highlight. We're all there to work hard and build relationships, and that inevitably involves the odd late night in the hotel bar, or even a quick post-midnight dip (before security throws you out of the pool). Naturally, there are in-jokes. (Hi, Steve!)

Every year the presentation and workshop moves to a different locale, and every year there's something new to see. 2006 featured the beach at San Diego; 2005 was beautiful Seattle. This year it was LA, featuring the robots of JPL and deer on the Caltech grounds. Next year could be anywhere at all--but probably not Adelaide, despite my nagging. :-)

I'm firmly of the opinion now--as if ever had any doubt!--that the WOTF is one of the greatest opportunities new writers can pursue. For me, it started long before I reached the finals. Entering every quarter taught me to meet deadlines, and primed me for the endless lottery cycle of excitement and disappointment that comes with most kinds of story submission. When I did eventually win my third prize in 1992, I received a huge boost from both the workshop and the people I met through it: fellow winners and judges alike.

I came back to Australia with my biggest sale to date under my belt, and was swept up in a media machine that taught me lessons I still employ today. My first TV appearance, my first newspaper article, and my first Ditmar nomination all sprang from that story and the WOTF.

To be invited back ten years later, first as a guest and then as a judge, is an incredible honour. I may be seeing the contest from a slightly different angle now, but I've never stopped learning from it. Tim Powers, KD Wentworth, Kevin J Anderson, Rebecca Moesta and Charles Brown are excellent teachers and wonderful friends--from whom I'm learning an awful lot about passing on the collective wisdom to those coming up behind us. While I may know nothing about art, I do know that Stephen Hickman, Ron and Val Lindahn, and Judy Miller are great people whose company I anticipate more and more with every visit. I look forward to spending time with them. I miss them when it's time to go home. I am so unbelievably spoiled.

So if you fall under the contest's guidelines and have never entered, I say to you: just look at me. The WOTF has defined my career more than any other institution. It gave me early support and encouragement, and it continues to support and encourage me now. I am blessed with a place in a community I would never have encountered but for these annual celebrations. Every year, I return charged with the kind of pure energy you can normally only get from a good con.

Next year I really am determined not to complain about jetlag. It is, after all, a very small price to pay in order to be part of this event. And I hope to see some more Australian finalists too. We've had a lot of success so far (Shaun Tan, Cat Sparks, Lee Battersby, et al) and I know there are more to come.

In 1993, I swore I'd come back as a judge. In 2007, I'm looking forward to the day when we have sufficient local winners to fill a WOTF spin-off anthology. If it hasn't happened by 2017, I'll eat my signed copy of Volume IX. :-)