Anna Caro

As the launch date for A Foreign Country gets progressively nearer (eeep?) I wanted to give you a taste of what to look forward to. So over the next few weeks I'll be sharing some thoughts on the included stories. Part review, part a brief insight into editorial decisions (though I emphasise these views are not necessarily shared by my co-editor) I hope these will whet your appetite, and also let you know a little more about the authors.

For now I'm going to focus on the stories which were entered in the competition (which is most of them). Here are the first three:

No Hidden Costs by Matt Cowens

It should be no suprise that a number of entries centred on environmental destruction; worst case scenarios where the sea levels are ever rising and the very existence of humanity is under threat or futures that imply that a level of disaster was inevitable, but the survivors have learned to adapt, but 'No Hidden Costs' takes a different perspective, examining the consequences of the increasingly desperate measures we may have to take to avoid such a scenario. This is, however, no tirade against environmentalism (I read it as very much the opposite), but a carefully considered exploration of a situation which has no easy answers, infused with glimmers of dark humour. In less than 2000 words, Cowens manages to pack in all that and not skimp on the characterisation either.

Matt Cowens is a writer and high school English and Media Studies teacher living on the Kapiti Coast of New Zealand. He has taught English in Japan, designed and produced card games, written and illustrated comics, and is an enthusiastic podcaster and amateur video maker. His writing blog can be found at http://mattcowens.livejournal.com

The God Gene by Marama Salsano

As soon as I read this one, I got on the phone to my co-editor and announced that we were accepting it. It was relatively early on and whilst we had recieved several excellent stories, some of which made it into the final collection, 'The God Gene' was the first to really hit the nail on the head for me. It's also one of the stories we most heavily edited, in consultation with the author; there were a few parts of the backstory that didn't quite add up, and sometimes the phrasing was a little raw, but those could all be fixed. What caught my eye was the ability to tell a captivating story, the classic alien invasion and enslavement story told with a very strong sense of its Gisborne setting (and all kinds of potential for historical parallels) and strong characters with a deep sense of family and history.

Marama Salsano completed a business degree in 2004, then turned her hand to writing. In 2010 she graduated from Massey University with a Graduate Diploma in Arts with Distinction in English, and is currently enrolled in the MA in Creative Writing programme at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University. She was a finalist in the 2009 Pikihuia Awards, and subsequently had her first piece of fiction published in Huia Short Stories 8.
Marama is of Te-Aitanga-a-Mahaki and Tuhoe descent, and lives in Gisborne where she is working on her first novel.

Cry of a Distress Rocket by Brian Priestly

This is really a story where the words speak for themselves. Another short one, it is a portrait of solitude, rich in its description not just of the far reaches of the universe where it is set, but of a world left behind and a mind left alone.

Brian Priestley was born Birmingham, England in 1926. He was reared on Jules Verne, HG Wells, and Astounding and other US pulps. After serving in the Army and obtaining a BA History Hons, he became a reporter. In 1968 he was named UK reporter of the year in the Granada Awards. From 1974-86 he was senior lecturer and later reader in journalism and head of the journalism department at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Over the same period, he was commentator and front man for TV programmes on the media, including News Stand and Fourth Estate. He was awarded an MBE “for services to NZ journalism” on retirement from the university. From 1987-2006 he was a columnist for The Christchurch Star and The Press. Priestley has been married for more than 50 years with two daughters and five grandchildren.

Hope that's whetted your apetite :). Watch this space because I'll be posting some more shortly.

I've given up on writing any more Creative Workshop stories, sadly. I knew I wouldn't be able to give it full attention when I signed up, and I'm actually glad that I kept going as long as I did.

But I'm still partially hanging in there, reading the posts, and hoping to come back to them and pay a bit more attention once August is over. And in that vein, I'm going to try some of the exercises that have been posted recently, starting with some thoughts on theme, inspired by this post

I probably have the opposite problems to most people in this regard; rather than difficulty pinning down a theme it's one of the first things I think of. Not necessarily a message - if that exists it comes later - but certainly some central idea. Quite often characters, setting, plot are built up around that theme.

To take an example, I'm going back to the story I wrote a few weeks ago about a woman visiting her former homestay student in Japan. The central theme here is that everyone's playing a role, pretending to be someone else - but it is more subtle and less problematic here than that description might otherwise suggest.

Looking broader, there are certainly some themes I keep returning to (as there are motifs). Finding a home or place to belong is a big one, as is realising a new way of doing something, particularly of fighting for something important.

Moving on now, to this post about real people.

Example: there's a woman who takes my bus, probably in her early to mid twenties, dressed for work. She looks the typical nerd (takes one to know one, I guess); thick rimmed glasses, head always deep in a book. But when we get off (which is where a lot of people change buses) she hangs out with a bunch of college kids, laughing and hugging them. Is she younger than she looks, perhaps been accelerated? Is she making up for lost time? Is one of them a sibling? Are these the only people she feels comfortable with? She seems to be in two world already, so rather than playing fish out of water in a strict sense, I'm imagining what if one of those disappeared? One to come back to.

The last one, this excellent post on turning disappointment into ideas, is not one I'm going to write on right now - my brain is too foggy to tease apart my pet hates (and believe me there are many) but it's definitely one I'm coming back to.

I think I'm just going to have to accept that for me this is a workshop of unfinished stories. I suppose unfinished are better than non-existent, and it means I'll be able to have some distance and work out which ones I most want to come back to after the workshop's over. Would be nice if I had twelve complete stories, but somehow that was never going to happen.

This week I got about a thousand words down about a Malaysian PhD student and time travel. She's a bit of a composite character, but I think it's getting there.

This coming week it's a character of a race other than myself, in a situation where she is part of the majority race where she lives. Once again, no ideas. Oh well.

We're also very close to having the editing for A Foreign Country done, so that's definitely on the cards for this week, and the draft template for the layout is getting there, so we'll also be starting to get proofs out. And I need to get on to that press release sharpish... I also really want to edit 'Ethie' to the point I can take it to Readstrange on Tuesday - my attendance has been much improved, but actually bringing anything... not so much.

Wow, that was a busy week! Of course, the biggest thing was the A Foreign Country announcement - so good to have that cover loose in the world - which has spurred me on to finish up some bits of editing and make a serious start when it comes to publicity.

Oh, and I also got this:

Isn't it shiny? And blue! And a much nicer keyboard than my last one, though the downside is it comes with Windows, which I'll want to take off and put a linux OS on (I'm thinking EasyPeasy. Any recs?). A bit of a reward to myself for getting an A in my last paper, though mostly a much needed replacement.

And somewhere I managed to get a story in there too. It's some lighthearted flash about a radio presenter - not something I'm likely to return to, but it's something done just the same.

Looking forward, this coming week is the start of the last block of stories, and the one I've been most worried about: Writing Characters from Different Racial/Cultural Backgrounds to Myself. I'm going to start with a character who is an active participant in a mainstream religion other than Christianity or Paganism, and see where that takes me.

The future is here! A Foreign Country, Random Static's new anthology of New Zealand Speculative Fiction, is now available for pre-order. Featuring work by best-selling author Juliet Marillier, poet, musician, and writer Bill Direen, several Sir Julius Vogel Award winners, prominent writers, and talented newcomers, this is an unmissable volume of imaginative and compelling short stories.

Strange creatures are loose in Miramar, desperate survivors cling to the remains of a submerged country, humanity’s descendants seek to regain what they’ve lost, and the residents of Gisborne reluctantly serve alien masters. The visions of New Zealand - and beyond - painted in this collection of short stories are both instantly recognisable, and nothing like the place we know.

A Foreign Country brings together the work of established authors and fresh voices to showcase the range of stories produced by New Zealand's growing community of speculative fiction writers. Humorous, disturbing, intriguing, cautionary, and ultimately hopeful, these tales tell of worlds where the boundaries between human and animal are blurred, babies are not what they seem, desperate measures are in place to ward off disaster, and flying standby can be a big mistake.

The anthology includes stories by: Philip Armstrong, Richard Barnes, Claire Brunette, Anna Caro, Matt Cowens, Bill Direen, Dale Elvy, J.C. Hart, Paul Haines, Miriam Hurst, Tim Jones, Susan Kornfeld, Juliet Marillier, Lee Murray, James Norcliffe, Ripley Patton, Simon Petrie, Brian Priestley, Marama Salsano, Lee Sentes, Janine Sowerby, and Douglas A. Van Belle.

A Foreign Country can be pre-ordered here, and will be launched at 6pm on Friday 27 August at Au Contraire, the 31st National Science Fiction Convention.

Aaaand breathe! I am, of course, very excited about this, if a little overwhelmed. But seeing my name on the cover makes it all seem real. Pre-orders are really important to small presses, both for having the liquidity to market more effectively, and for determining the print run size, so here's that link again. And if you're in Wellington, why not come along to the launch? You don't have to be an Au Contraire member to attend, but I'm sure you'll find plenty to interest you if you do stay for the weekend.

Another mixed week as far as workshop is concerned; I did write part of a story, but it was kind of last minute and very incomplete. Something I feel I can come back to though.

In other areas, things have gone a bit better. I've edited a bunch of stories for A Foreign Country, including my own which needed a major subplot change, and I've been putting up for weeks. We're just about ready to make it available for pre-order - the only thing standing in our way is the lack of suitable weather for photographing the cover art. I love Wellington, but sometimes... So very excited in that department, as well as starting to get some ideas for my next big project, which brings together some of the more creative possibilities of web fiction and both autobiographical and fictional elements. It's big and crazy and I have no idea if I can pull it off...

So hard to believe we're half way there already! I knew at the outset I wouldn't be able to put in the amount of time and commitment the workshop deserved, and that's certainly been the case, but I've still managed to get into a better pattern of writing than I have been in since moving house, which destroyed so many of my routines.

To bring you up to speed with the past week, first: as well as working weekends I had an exam on Friday (and no, I don't speculate on how these things went until I have the result back) so it was not my most productive writing week, but I decided I wanted to produce something so came up with a 200 word piece of flash about a pregnant woman on the Devonport ferry remembering an incident from her childhood. Not my best work, but good to have something.

Looking back over the workshop, there are really two pieces I want to put serious work into; one is a fantasy story, based in a far future Wellington where some humans have evolved to the point where they can leave their corporeal bodies and exist only as light, and what happens when refugees from the old world turn up. The second is my first story of the middle block, about a woman visiting her former homestay student in Japan. That's not to say that I won't edit any of the others, but those are the ones grabbing me at the moment, and I hope there will be more.

This week I'm working on a (sort of) coming of age story centered round a fountain in Berlin. Another place I can easily visualise, which is helping the description but I'm still struggling with my main issue with non-genre fiction, formulating a clear plot. Then there's just one more story after this and I'm on to the last block, which will probably be the hardest.

Probably the main things I have gained from the workshop have been getting a sense of routine back, and connecting with a bunch more people - though the latter has been something of a mixed blessing as I've been struggling to keep up with blogs, and all my good intentions about regular commenting have gone to the wind. The end of the workshop will be a good chance to narrow down the blogs I follow, and then make a concerted effort to interact with those bloggers. I also want to move out of the rut I'm stuck in with my own blog; my obsessions with preserving my privacy and not injecting too much of myself into a public place have resulted in my blogging being rather stilted, and I need to find a happy medium.

As to the main point of the workshop, finding new ideas, they haven't been coming as well as I'd hoped, which I think is more to do with me being overwhelmed by life stuff and finding it hard to break out and take a fresh look at things, but having the themed goals has certainly helped. My life is a little quieter (though there is the small matter of that anthology... watch this space for an announcement very soon...) so maybe I'll steam ahead with all kinds of new ideas.