Blood & Rhetoric

From PR-Canada.net

Written by Editor Choice
Wednesday, 25 June 2008
Tesseracts Thirteen Looking for Dark Fantasy and Horror Submissions

Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing announces Tesseracts Thirteen, a Dark Fantasy and Horror edition, is now open for submissions.

The 2009 anthology asks for Dark Fantasy and Horror genre short fiction or poetry, 5000 words or less. Submissions are accepted commencing immediately and received post-marked as no later than October 31, 2008. The anthology will arrive on shelves in trade paperback form, in August 2009. And as always, the anthology is open to Canadians, landed immigrants, long-time residents, and expatriates.

Nancy Kilpatrick, a dark fantasy, horror, mystery, erotic horror author and editor has published 18 novels, including The Goth Bible: A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined and nearly 200 short stories. The vampire writer penned the series Power of the Blood World and under the pseudonym Amarantha Knight, the Darker Passions. She’s won the Arthur Ellis Award for best mystery story, and has been a finalist for three Bram Stoker and five Aurora awards.

Co-Editor David Morrell is best known for his debut novel First Blood, the novel in which Rambo was created, and has published more than 20 novels over a wide range of genres, with eighteen million copies printed in twenty-six languages to his name. Morrell is the co-president of the International Thriller Writers Organization. The action and thriller author has training in firearms, hostage negotiation, assuming identities, executive protection, and anti-terrorist driving — among many feats enlivening his novels.

Deadline: Post-Marked October 31 2008.

EDGE and Tesseract Books main site.

Submission Guidelines for Chilling Tales of The Great White North Anthology

Note: The anthology is open to Canadians, landed immigrants, long-time residents, and expatriates only. English and French.

Margaret Atwood wins Spain’s top literary prize: The Prince of Asturias Prize for literature.

Hamish Hamilton has launched a new online literary magazine, Five Dials, designed to promote and distribute quality writing which is unlikely to be printed elsewhere.

Annual program offering $1,000 stipend and 8-month fellowship to writers in the early stages of their literary careers. Program includes one-on-one sessions with mentors, seminars on topics such as editing or working with agents, courses in the Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension, and literary readings.

The Gaurdian Asks: Why writers can’t go it alone. We love independent filmmakers and musicians, and celebrate their maverick spirit, so why don’t we want independent writers?

To which I ask, have you attempted to actually read that much self-published work? It’s a scary, scary world.

Disney’s “Enchanted” was the dominant film player Tuesday night at the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror’s 34th annual Saturn Awards, held at the Universal Hilton Hotel in Universal City.

Gary Gygax’s final Novel, Infernal Sorceress, to be released this July.

An interview with Rachel Smith, founder of Bitten by Books, a new book review site focusing on paranormal fiction, urban fantasy and horror.

I’m excited to find a review site focused solely on paranormal and horror; currently 18 reviewers are reviewing (I’m saying the word “review” alot) 100 books per month, and they’re looking for more people to um…. review.

And, according to The Telegraph: The 50 Best Summer Holiday Books.

New York Magazine asks: So why didn’t anyone at a big publishing house recognize the best-selling genius of The Shack, William P. Young’s million-selling Christian-publishing sensation profiled today in the Times?

Apparantly William P. Young submitted his manuscript for The Shack to several secular and Christian publishers only to be rejected and forced into self-publishing.

Personally, I wouldn’t pick up a novel touted as Christian (or Buddhist, or Muslim, or Atheist) for the same reason I wouldn’t pick up the Bible or insert-religious-text-here: I’m not in the market to have The Message shoved down my throat.

Now, a novel with Christian themes (or Buddhist, or Muslim, or Atheist, or whatever) is a different story, but I’m weary of things that would proclaim themselves into any religious category as I’d instantly suspect the work in question to less about the story and more about The Dreaded Message.

Anyways, good for William P. Young. A self-publishing success story? That is impressive.

In other news: The Motley Fool has an interesting article about Making Books Interesting Again.

And two 21-year-old women pen a 400 page fantasy novel, Havemercy, in just 18 days — and sell it!

Danielle Bennett, from Victoria, and Jaida Jones, from New York, managed to attract the attention of a major publishing house with a fantasy novel featuring flying metal dragons, magicians and an all-out battle between warring rivals.

You’re not alone Ian McEwan!

Dr. Andrew Bostom is speaking tonight at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills about anti-semitism in the Muslim world.

Author of “The Legacy of Anti-Semitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History,” a book that argues anti-Semitism is a problem in Islam’s history and present, Bostom is also the author of “The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the fate of non-Muslims.”

And so the circle of hatred, misunderstanding, and intolerence continues unabated on all sides.

Because after all, Hitler liked Islam.

Quote from the New York Times:

“I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance towards homosexuality and so on — we know it well.” He called fundamentalist Christians with similar views “equally absurd,” though at least they are not trying to kill people.”

Well, killing abortion doctors does kinda count as “killing people,” but only in the technical sense of the term.

And we all know what this means: Breaking News! Author Ian McEwan Murdered by Islamic Extremist Group Over Racist Comments!

Lisa Jewell wins top prize at Melissa Nathan Award for comedy romance. The novel in question is 31 Dream Street, the author’s sixth, and the article does a very un-patrionizing job of covering “chick-lit” and the misconceptions surrounding the genre which is a welcome change.

Over in Australia, Steven Carroll’s novel ‘The Time We Have Taken’, won this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award for his tale of a suburban family living in a run-of-the-mill part of Melbourne.

And next time you go dumpster-diving, children, you may just find a literary gem; like what happened to Lily Koppel, who while rooting through her Manhatten dumspter — for reasons hillariously left unexplained in this article — and came up with a 1930’s era personal diary who she tracked down as belonging to Florence Wolfson, who is now 90 and living in Florida. Koppel has crafted The Red Leather Diary (Harper, 336 pages, $23.95), a story of a curious, creative Upper East Side young woman in Depression-era Manhattan

There’s also a broadcasted interview with Koppel linked in this article that I have not listened too because the idea of someone randomly rooting through dumspters is fprobably funnier than the reality of why she was doing it.

Baltimore hosts it’s first-ever Lesbian Literary Festival.

Author and illustrator Tasha Tudor dies at age 92 She was best known for her 1944 edition of ‘Mother Goose’.

One of the Eastern Cape’s most celebrated authors, Noni Jabavu, has died.She was 88.

Calgary novelist Jaspreet Singh is no longer on the no-fly list at Air Canada Poor guy had to cancel promoional events for his book ‘Chef’ after having difficulties boarding a flight. Why? His name matched the name of a terrorist. Jesus Christ, I feel bad for brown people around the world, this is not the first time, and I’m sure, not the last time this will happen to some innocent person.

Model Tara Moss writes book. Article discusses how pretty she is. No one wins.

Then again, maybe sex can sell books.

And I seriously doubt that anyone picking up a novel in the store will put it back down for the mere fact that it was written by a model. Get over yourself.

A debut novel by Montreal author Rawi Hage won the world’s largest money prize for a single work of fiction yesterday.

Damn. Good for him.

And another great author, a Canadian at that, dies.

James Reaney, O.C. PhD, FRSC, was born near Stratford, Ont., on Sept. 1, 1926. He died at Marian Villa, Mount Hope Centre in London, Ont., on June 11, 2008. He was 81, and had been suffering from kidney disease and dementia. He is survived by Colleen Thibaudeau, his wife of more than 50 years, his children James and Susan, two granddaughters, his two step-siblings and his extended family. A celebration of his life will be held at Robinson Memorial United Church in London on Sat. June 14.

He really was one of the greatest writers Canada has ever produced: poet, playwright, short-story writer, painter, pianist. A completely creative person, and someone I’ve looked up too. He will be missed.

And in other death news, science fiction writer Algis Budrys died on June 9th at the age of 77.

I’ve never read anything by him, but I’ve certainly heard of him, and Michaelmas is one of those novels I keep meaning to get around too.

Less tragic, but still unfortunate: Madonna’s brother,Christopher Ciccone to write tell-all book about sister.

Madonna is not involved in the project. I’m not one to care about celebrity news and exploits, but hate hearing about family members exploiting each other in such a public manner. Not to mention the tackiness factor.

And here you can find the recently announced Trillium Book Award winners.

And an example of a blog hitting the big time, the creators of Stuff White People like have gotten a reported 6 figure book deal with Random House. The book is set for release on July 1st.

Author Charles Stross sounds off on on fiction and science and how integral science is to fiction. Did that make sense? Well it’s an interesting point and worth reading.

Also a team of more than 50 international academics have named Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey as the science fiction film with the most realistic vision of the future of mankind.

I love reading about “experts” sounding off on such stupid and rendundant topics.

In good news, director Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner) returns to science fiction film-making!

And finally, Food for thought: top writers’ eating habits.

According to V S Naipaul there are no more great writers, and according to Derek Walcott, Naipaul is a sneering snob full of self-abhorence who hates black men but loves black cunt.

Ouch.

Here in Canada, Harper’s government is tightening the strings (not surprising) by turning Understanding Canada a 4.6 million dollar program that has for decades helped foster the understanding of Canadian authors around the world and on campus into a government war-writing machine.

It should be noted, that by “priority,” they really mean “the only real consideration and funding.” Also noted that “environment and energy” should be taken in a “friendly to big-business” manner. So anything about wind-mills is a no-no.

Nice work, Harper. Now get back into bed with Bush so he can pat your head and tell you what a good boy you are.

In death, Scots literary ‘renaissance man’ Angus Calder dies of lung cancer.

And although I find that horrifying, I’m having a smoke as I write this

Down under (that’s America for me) U.S. publishers plan wave of Obama books this summer and fall. Hmm. Children’s books? Really? The most interesting title though, set for release in August is Mathew Honan’s “Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle: 366 Ways He Really Cares.”

Mathew Honan clearly has no idea what describing someone as a “bicycle” really means.

The Economist sounds off on Amazon and the state of publishing in America.

Personally, I’m sick of articles about the new-wave of publishing and how e-books are changing everything and blah blah blah. It’s not the end-times yet, people

Ray Bradbury and I also agree completely on the future success of e-books. Though apparently we’re both wrong.

Ray, buddy, I’m just as upset as you are.

Over in the U.K, a plan to print suggested reading ages directly on books has many authors understanably upset. I’m against this. It makes no sense. It sounds kinda like the publishing industry version of television ratings that let parents know what may or may not be acceptable for their precious little darlings.

At The Independant, Katy Guest asks The Big Question: Has the time come to close the book on women-only literary prizes?

Yes. Yes it has. I find is insulting to be placed into some “special needs” group. Like women authors are the Special Olympics group in the literary world

And finally, Canadian NewsWire asks the question Can Canadian books portray the sex lives of Canadian seniors fairly, if they leave out the juicy bits?

Look, I think it’s great that the very old are sucking and fucking like the rest of us — I hope to be here myself in a few decades — but for the love of Zeus yes, please leave out the juicy bits!