Five Qs with Dr Angela Slatter
You guys have heard me talk about Angela Slatter plenty before. She’s a good friend of mine, but more than that, she’s one of the best writers I know. Specialising in dark fantasy and horror, she’s the author of the Aurealis Award-winning The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, the World Fantasy Award finalist Sourdough and Other Stories, and the Aurealis finalist Midnight and Moonshine (with Lisa L. Hannett). And that’s just a fraction of her bio. She’s the first Aussie to win a British Fantasy Award too. Check out all about her publications and awards here.
Angela has a new chapbook out from Spectral Press called Hearth and Home. It’s a great read and I’ve asked her five questions about it and about horror and her writing in general. The questions are below, but before you read them, go and get the chapbook, as it’s limited edition and there aren’t many left. You can send an email to spectralpress[AT]gmail[DOT]com or maybe get one of the last ones from Angela herself by emailing me[at]angelaslatter[dot]com
You won’t be sorry. So, on with the Qs:
1. What’s “Hearth and Home” all about and why did you write this story?
Well, it’s about a woman whose teenaged son has come home after a lengthy trial. He was found innocent but things are not as they should be, life doesn’t return to ‘normal’. Basically it’s the story of Caroline’s journey through figuring out just how far from normal things are. I wrote it because Simon Marshall-Jones from Spectral Press had said ‘Sooo, hey, how about a chapbook story?’ And I’d seen the work he’d done with other authors such as Gary McMahon in the chapbook series and thought ‘Yep, get me some of that!’
2. What’s the real draw card for you with horror?
I don’t mind gore if it’s well used and cleverly placed for maximum effect, but I really, really hate explicit shock for the sake of shock. It has a numbing effect after a while and that is not the point of horror for me. Horror is about the creeping shiver that becomes a full-blooded scream … I enjoy the psychology of that journey, that’s what wraps me up in a good horror story.
3. Chapbooks are still cool. Why?
I think they’ve never really gone out of fashion in particular, i.e. genre, quarters, and they’re now riding the wave of small press resurgence. I think that’s because small presses are in a unique position to create books that aren’t your traditional trade paperback with the imperative to sell millions. That’s not to say they don’t want to make money, but there’s definitely a place for books are collectable artefacts that remains even in an age of e-books and the throwaway paperback.
I also like to think that you can see the craft in them, they don’t necessarily look like something that’s from a cookie cutter … there’s an individuality to them that feels very human and person-made.
4. If you could organise one of those haunted house murder mystery dinners, who would you invite? And who would be the killer?
Oooooh. I’m going to ask the living and the dead, the real and the imagined! Angela Carter and Tanith Lee, Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Shearman and Lisa Hannett, Mark Gatiss and Christopher Lee, Helen Marshall and Helen Mirren. And Neil Gaiman, who would be the killer and whom no one would suspect coz he always seems so nice.
5. What’s next for Doctor Slatter?
Dr Slatter has three books out this year: The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings (from Tartarus Press), Black-Winged Angels (from Ticonderoga Publications), and The Female Factory (written with Lisa Hannett and coming out from Twelfth Planet Press). No matter what anyone tells you, I am open to working with publishers that don’t start with the letter ‘T’.
I currently have a novel called Vigil doing the rounds; I am finishing my novella for Spectral Press, which is called The Witch’s Scale; and I’m finishing up my collection The Tallow-Wife and Other Tales, which is the result of my Queensland Writers Fellowship year; I’m working on another novel called Scandalous Lady Detective, and going back to an old novel called Well of Souls to finish it off.
In between I am occasionally offering an editing and story development service, but it’s starting to feel like a bit of a time-squeeze at this point!
Find out more about Angela here: www.angelaslatter.com/
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Adelaide this weekend, Brisbane the one after
So the Bound train rolls on, and I’m having a ball! I’ll be heading down to Adelaide this weekend, then up to Brisbane the weekend after. If you’re near either of those cities, I’d love to see you. Below are the details and a few links to relevant events.
Adelaide
Saturday, July 19th I’ll be doing a signing at Collins Edwardstown from 1.00 to 2.00pm. There’s a Facebook Event page here. Please come on by and say hello – it’s at Collins Booksellers, Shop 54, Castle Plaza, 992 South Road, Edwardstown.
If you can’t make it on Saturday, the day before, Friday, July 18th, I’ll be dropping briefly into Dymocks in Rundle Mall around 12.30, so if you’re in the city, it would be great to see you then.
Also on Friday afternoon, I’ll be having a chat with Richard Stubbs on ABC 774 Melbourne via live link.
Brisbane
Friday, July 25th is going to be loads of fun. From 6.00 to 8.00pm I’ll be at Avid Reader Bookshop at 193 Boundary Street, West End, where I will be in conversation with the excellent Kylie Chan, hosted by the equally excellent Trent Jamieson. There will be a bunch of other awesome writers in attendance and all kinds of other cool people, plus wine. How can you go wrong? There’s a Facebook Event page for this one too, right here, and here’s the Avid page where you can book a ticket.
I’ll try to visit other stores in the region of these events and sign stock, so watch my Twitter and Facebook pages for updates.
And Melbourne, we haven’t forgotten you! We’re working on something in your fine city and I’ll be sure to let you know when and where that is once it’s sorted out.
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What a wonderful launch for Bound
I’m on the train heading home from Sydney, tapping away on my iPad, still a little stunned by the awesome night I had last night. Bound was launched at Kinokuniya Bookshop and I have to admit, I was a little nervous.
The bookshop were being wonderfully supportive, the truly excellent Margo Lanagan had agreed to be my official launcher, my publishing team (Rochelle Fernandez, Amanda Diaz, Shona Martyn, my agent, Alex Adsett, and many others) were all in my corner and assuring me it would be great. But what if no one showed up? What if it was a complete flop? At 6pm I started hoping we’d get enough people to have at least one or two folk in each row of seats. By 6.30, all the seats were full and there was an arc of people two or three deep across the back. I couldn’t believe it!
My editor, Rochelle, did a great job introducing us and said things about the book I didn’t know. Things like how it was the third biggest seller at Sydney Supanova. Wow!
Then Margo did a fantastic job of launching, saying truly humbling things about the book and asking me searching questions. There is now such a thing as a “kettle scene”. Here’s a great photo by Jodi Cleghorn of Margo and I enjoying ourselves immensely:
I really did enjoy the whole experience and it seems that everyone else there did as well. They laughed in all the right places and I signed a load of books afterwards and got to chat with an array of excellent people. If I didn’t get to chat with you for long or at all, I’m sorry. The whole evening is a bit of a happy, hazy blur for me and not only because of the wine.
I’m utterly humbled by the event. I am genuinely living the dream here and I plan to soak up every bit of it I can. And it’s all due to the best people out there: my publishers and their belief in me, my friends for their support, and all the people who have taken a chance on buying Bound. I really hope you enjoy it and come back for the next books in the series. I can’t thank all of you enough. All I did was write the best book I could – you all made it real. I couldn’t be happier.
The always generous Cat Sparks took photos throughout the evening and you can see them at her Flickr page here. Thanks Cat!
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Photoshop Bound giveaway winners
So I stole this idea from Mark Lawrence and asked people to photoshop the cover of Bound into whacky pictures, just for a laugh. I was going to pick a winner. Then I couldn’t decide and asked people to go the Facebook album where I put all the pics and Like their favourites. Then I decided to reward the top three, which turned out to be four due to a tie! So I’ll be sending out four signed copies this week.
Here are the results:
Geoff Brown’s entry was a clear winner with 27 Likes (plus it panders beautifully to my ego.)
Also:
David Wood with 11 Likes (you sick fuckers, all o’ya!)
And joint third:
Voytek Zochowski and Josh Connolly with 7 Likes each. And come on, Bruce Lee and CoD Predator? Top work.
Click on each image for larger version. Those Likes might change, but that’s how they stood at 11pm Sunday when I decided to call it.
I’ll contact the winners privately for address details. Congrats all, and thanks to everyone who entered. What a lot of fun that was!
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“Upon a Distant Shore” out now and free in Dimension6
I’ve been going on a lot lately about the release of Bound, but I’m a greedy little writer and have another release out today as well. This one is a short story called “Upon a Distant Shore”, available for free in Dimension6 magazine, issue 2.
Dimension6 is a great new project from editor, Keith Stevenson. Three new stories per issue, three issues a year, of great spec fic over 4,500 words. So that’s longform short stories, novelettes and novellas, in any ebook format you prefer, for free! You can’t ask for better than that.
My story is a short one at around 5,000 words. It’s about an astronaut on the ISS who really wants something to happen that’ll carve his name in the history books. And he gets it. Be careful what you wish for.
I share this issue with Dirk Strasser and Robert Stephenson – fine company indeed. While you’re grabbing this issue, you can snag issue 1 as well. All the details here. I hope you enjoy it!
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One week left to register for the Sydney launch of Bound – please come along
Just a quick reminder that Bound is being launched by the wonderful Margo Lanagan at Kinokinuya Bookshop in Sydney at 6.30pm on Thursday July 10th.
All the details, including an RSVP email address, on the evite below. Click for a larger version. There will be free wine! And books, obviously. And me to sign them. And Margo Lanagan. I’d love to see you there.
It’s me and Kylie Chan in Brisbane
Or, I should say, Kylie Chan and I. As part of the ongoing promotion of Bound, I’m coming to Brisbane on July 25th and I’ll be in conversation with Kylie Chan at Avid Reader Bookshop, hosted by the awesome Trent Jamieson. Honestly, I couldn’t be more honoured by that company. It’ll be from 6 to 8pm on Friday evening. Let’s all go out and get drunk afterwards, yeah? Who’s with me!?
Location: Avid Reader Bookshop , 193 Boundary St, West End, Brisbane, Queensland 4101.
Date: Friday, 25th July, 2014
Time: 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Here’s the event on the Avid page. Put the date in your diaries – it’ll be great to see you there. And bring your friends!
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Photoshop competition for a signed copy of Bound
I saw this done by Mark Lawrence on Facebook and I’m shamelessly stealing it because it’s a very cool concept. The idea is that you photoshop my book into another image and link me to your work of art. The one I like (or perhaps the one that disturbs me) the most, gets a signed copy of Bound. Even though the book is only out in the Australia and New Zealand region this week, I’ll send the comp winner anywhere in the world, so you could score the book long before it’s available in your area.
The cover images are below. Click on them for a higher res version, then right click and save as, and let your creativity fly. You don’t have to be a dab hand at photoshop either – I don’t care about your technical skills so much as the idea. Dodgy graphic art can be hilarious. Impress, amuse or disturb me and you could score the book. Think things like King Kong reading a copy of Bound atop the Empire State Building, or Batman with a copy in the Batmobile or Bound as the Necronomicon or… or… the possibilities are endless. Get surreal, get nightmarish, get weird. When you’ve made your image, you can post a link to it in the comments here, or post it on my Facebook page here, or Tweet it to me here. I’ll start a gallery of entries on my Facebook page and pick a winner at some future point not too far from now.
EDIT: Some entries are coming in and they’re very cool. I’ve started to collect them in an album on my Facebook page here.
Here are the images – have at it!
Front cover:
Full cover:
3D book mockup:
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“Mephisto” published at Daily Science Fiction
I’m very happy to have sold another story to those wonderful people at Daily Science Fiction. If you’re not a subscriber, you should be! Fresh and awesome science fiction, fantasy and horror stories direct to your inbox every week day. The stories are also published on the website to be read for free.
My latest story there is called “Mephisto” – a little yarn about small town vaudeville. Or is it?
You can read it here – please take a moment to give it a Rocket Dragon rating when you get to the end, it’s just a single click. I recommend signing up for the subscriber emails while you’re there. If you take the time to read, you have my thanks and I hope you enjoy it.
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Booktopia SF & Fantasy Buzz
If you don’t already subscribe to this newsletter, I suggest you do. Mark Timmony edits it and it’s jam-packed full of great reviews and interviews and more. This month I’m very excited to say that Bound is the SFF Buzz Book of the Month. Excuse me while I Happy Dance. Mark reviews Bound and there’s an interview with me at the end. The review says things like:
Baxter takes us on a roller-coaster ride…
This is a page-turning dark fantasy that doesn’t shy away from sex, violence and the underbelly of society. Filled with guts, passion, and the will to survive Baxter has delivered a great romp of a novel and I’m looking forward to see where he takes Alex Caine next.
That’s a seriously great review. Mark asked me Ten Terrifying Questions, including things like, What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why? What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you do not have now? Whom do you most admire and why? What advice do you give aspiring writers?
You can find all the answers to those questions and more here.
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