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For the last couple of years, the USC School of Cinematic Arts World Building Media Lab has been working on a project based on my Leviathan series, in partnership with Intel. I visited the lab last July, and took lots of cool pictures, but have been waiting for them to reveal their work publicly before jumping in. They have, and I am.
What the lab is doing is a combination of high technology and storytelling, or what some of them call “extreme Leviathan fan fiction.” They’ve created a 3-d virtual model of the airship, both inside and out, backstories for all the crew members, and a host of ancillary material, like diaries and historical timelines (more detailed than any in the novels).
This expanded world can be experienced in a lot of ways. As print:
Or by walking around in the 3-D models of the airship using VR helmets and interact with the characters, which is what I’m doing here:
Or in a large group of people, interacting in 3-D with the story-stuff using tablet tech, like here at CES:
Obviously, this is pretty cool. (Note: The whale in that footage can only be seen through a phone or tablet, so many of the people there couldn’t see it. But a lot could, as you can hear from the cheers.) And it’s pretty overwhelming to walk into the labs at SCA and see all these smart people working in my world. It’s not unlike encountering fan-fiction archives based on my work, except this one has a multi-million-dollar budget for multimedia. In terms of material detail, this kind of world expansion takes Leviathan well past where Keith and I did.
And really, this is “future of entertainment” that people blather about. Not any specific technology, like tablet-3D or VR helmets, but this cooperative, expansive world-building. Whether it’s created by corporations who command massive resources and a stage at CES or a few thousand fan-ficcers typing quietly in the night, the thing that’s cool is the same: Someone gets inspired by my text (and Keith’s illustrations, of course) and deciding that this world MUST GET BIGGER, and, by jove, they’re the person to do it.
Of course, this is also the past of entertainment, when nobody “owned” stories, and everyone added to whatever was being told around the campfire. But new technologies do expand the ways we can make stories bigger, both in the objects we can create (3-D models!) and the ways we share them (Deviant Art!). So yeah, it’s not just the campfire anymore. It’s more like a campfire that’s linked to all the other campfire, and we can control the flames.
By the way, I love SCA’s redesign for the Leviathan itself, even though it’s not the bowhead whale of Keith’s (still canonical!) illustrations:
Anyway, I have more of this stuff to share with you (Click here for more from their press kit), but I have the rewrites for Afterworlds due on Monday, so I really should stop procrastiblogging and end here.
Hope you’re having a lovely new year.
(Bonus Info: That Uglies news that I’ve been promising you almost fell through, but then it didn’t. And it will be released for public consumption sooner or later.)
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Dalek Week 2013, the Deviant Art celebration of all things Deryn and Alek, is about halfway over (depend ending on one’s timezone), and there are some lovely pieces up.
This work by Thisoneofmarvels is for the “Scotland” theme, and uses the Scottish and Austrian flags as motifs:
Click on image to embiggen.
Very beautiful! I love how serious Deryn is.
There are many more to see, so head over to the Dalek Week 2013 folder to feast your eyes and leave your praise.
0 Comments on Dalek Week Halfway Done! as of 1/1/1900
Just received the new Japanese cover for Leviathan, the paperback version!
(Actually, the previous edition was also a paperback, but a larger format. For my future bibliographers: the old one was 184mm x 106mm, and this new one is 148mm x 105mm.)
In any case, here’s the new Japanese cover!
I like how this cover is a bit darker, and steampunkier, than the old one. Alek looks a bit less young, and his goggles are better too. Also, it has a blurb from Hideaki Sena, novelist, microbiologist, and president of the SF&F Writers of Japan. Thanks for that!
For comparison, here’s the old one:
Can’t wait to see the rest of the series come out with this new look.
Click here to see my collected covers, for editions foreign and domestic.
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And for Uglies on Kobo, click here. (Leviathan isn’t on sale on Kobo. Sorry!)
If the internets somehow brought you here with no knowledge of what these books are about, you can check them out here and here.
What the hell. I’m just going to throw in some laudatory quotes:
Leviathan
“Full of nonstop action, this steampunk adventure is sure to become a classic.”
—School Library Journal
“When a book pursues you into your dreams, you can’t ignore it.”
—Sunday Telegraph
“Wouldn’t it be cool if the First World War had been fought with genetically engineered mutant animals, against steam-powered walking machines? And the answer is, Yes, it would.”
—The New York Times
Uglies
“A superb piece of popular art.”
—New York Times
“This book, the first in a trilogy, asks engaging questions about the meaning of beauty, individuality, and betrayal. Highly recommended for SF fans or anyone who likes a good, thoughtful adventure.” Kliatt (starred)
“With a beginning and ending that pack hefty punches, this introduction to a dystopic future promises an exciting series.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
0 Comments on $1.99 Sale of Uglies and Leviathan Ebooks as of 1/1/1900
This is pretty cool. It’s a table restoration by Fiona S. and her grandma, featuring monoplanes, the Emperor’s airyacht, and a kraken on the top.
Here’s a close up of the air yacht Stamboul:
But wait, there’s more!
The side panels feature a flechette bat . . .
a strafing hawk . . .
a message lizard . . .
and the ever-popular perspicacious loris!
Truly a magnificent piece. And it’s great to see everything in such vibrant colors. May you have many fine tea parties on this table, Fiona.
Just a wee headsup: There may be some Uglies news before the end of the year, or in early 2014. Look for it right here, or in the pages of your favorite industry rag.
UPDATE: Ebooks of both Uglies and Leviathan are on sale for all of December in the USA. Click here for details.
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Please enjoy the Russian cover of Goliath. The book comes out in December in Russia!
And here are the others, for your referencing pleasure:
The lovely Leviathan:
And the possibly even more awesome Behemoth:
Things I like about this series of covers:
Book 1 has Deryn, Book 2 has Alek, and Book 3 has them both. Like the US paperbacks, but with Deryn first.
The clothes are great (especially Alek’s leather trousers). Painter can paint.
Love the Leviathan itself. True to the book, but it glows in a way that only this color medium can produce.
The person in front with the Big Object in the background is kind of a theme of the books. That is, the struggles of the characters are foregrounded, but the scale of background events (and creatures and machines) is always huge and within view. Keith was very careful that the illustrations always alternated between close-ups to pulled-out images, from faces to Big Stuff. It’s nice to see both scales represented here on all three covers.
Well done, Eksmo.
ALSO: If you’ve never read this book I wrote called Uglies before, you can do so now for free on PulseIt, but you have to join up to do so.
The Blue Mountains have been on fire the last couple of days, which is definitely not a good thing for Sydney. Bushfires are a natural part of the cycle of nature in Australia, but it doesn’t usually start up before the first day of summer. (It’s the middle of spring down here.)
This bodes ill for the next few months (and for the next few centuries of climatic uncertainty).
Here’s what Sydney looked like from my terrace yesterday at four in the afternoon. Note that the sun was high:
Click that image for the bigger, scarier version.
Justine and I are safe in the concrete jungle, of course, many kilometers away from the fire. But we’re still breathing it, and we’ve got friends whose homes are at risk.
On a lighter note, here’s an interview I did with Amy Stevenson of 4ZZZ Radio here in Australia. I talk about the Leviathan series a lot, but also about my next novel, Afterworlds.
0 Comments on Smoky Days, Interview as of 10/18/2013 2:58:00 AM
I AM BACK. Yes, it’s been a while. But I’ve been writing, and a week ago I finished the first draft of my NEXT NOVEL. It is 135,000 words long, almost as long as Uglies and Pretties put together!
At the moment, this draft is with my agent and editor, and various novelist friends of mine. They’ll all have a gander and get back to me with comments and suggestions, and then there will be rewrites, copyedits, page proofs, sales meetings, cover designs, advanced reader copies, etc. Getting through all these stages means that Afterworlds will come out on October 28, 2014.
Yep. A year from now.
As always when I finish a book, I made a word cloud of Afterworlds. Word clouds take the most commonly occurring words in the text (omitting obvious ones like “the” and “was”) and size them by how often they appear.
I make these clouds partly to amuse and titillate you guys, and partly to make sure that there aren’t any overused words stinking up the joint. Check it out:
Okay, so what do we have here?
Darcy is the main character, so she’s the biggest word, naturally. Imogen is also key, as are Yamaraj and Lizzie. (Lizzie looks small to me, but her sections are in first person, so her name doesn’t appear as much!) Mindy, Kiralee, and Nisha are the other characters to appear, and they all seem about the right size. And yes, there is an important character that shows up as “mother”/”mom”.
Of the Dreaded Overused Words I look for, most aren’t there. No “eyebrows” or “frowned,” thank heavens. No “smiled” or “laughed.” But I will probably take a look at “looked” and “stared” when I do the rewrites. Looking ain’t a verb you need too much of.
What I mostly notice from this is how plain the words are. There’s very little sign of the genre of book I’ve written. To see what I mean, check out the word cloud of my last novel, Goliath:
Along with all the character names, his cloud has lots of words from the Leviathan milieu: “airship,” “Clanker,” “captain,” “cargo,” and “engines.” But you don’t have any of those in my new cloud. This is partly because Afterworlds is contemporary, and half of the book has no fantastic elements at all.
Indeed, this is a story told in relatively simple words. Notice “bad” and “little” in there, which make perfect sense. (Gotta read it to see why.) This makes sense, now that I see it revealed in the cloud. Must contemplate what it means, though. Certainly there’s a bit less world-building in Afterworlds than there was in the Leviathan series, but that makes sense for a stand-alone novel.
For more on the story of the book, check out this podcast with Sarah Wendell of SBTB. It’s her interviewing me and Justine in Brisbane, and we discuss both our next-year books. Click here, then go to the bottom of that page and click the player controls to listen. Lots of me talking about the plot, which some might find a bit spoilery!
Enjoy. And be seeing you here more.
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First of all, thanks to everyone who came to the Mortal Instruments viewing last night here in Sydney. It was a gas, and the screams were many. So. Many. Screams. Also, I got to sign someone’s Chicken McNuggets box, because global capitalism is global.
I have some cool Leviathan VR pictures to show you, but first here’s a post about my next two weeks. I’ll be at the Melbourne and Brisbane Writers Festivals, and hope that some of you will be too.
Tuesday, 27 August
12:30 PM – 1:15 PM
ACMI Cinema 2
Federation Square
Corner Flinders and Swanston Streets Science/Fiction
Participants: Scott Westerfeld
Chairperson: Rob James Scott Westerfeld grew up surrounded by science and technology. It’s no wonder that his books – including Uglies, Leviathan, Midnighters and Peeps – are shaped by science. Find out what makes his stories tick, and how science can be a novelist’s best friend.
Wednesday, 28 August 2013
10:00 AM – 10:45 AM
Deakin Edge, Fed Square Federation Square
Corner Flinders and Swanston Streets The Steampunk World of Leviathan
Participants: Scott Westerfeld, Naomi O’Brien-D’Ambra The Leviathan trilogy is set in a steampunk World War I. The books even look like they were published in 1914, when almost all books were illustrated, even books for adults. Tour this extraordinarily rich world with the perfect guide, author Scott Westerfeld.
Wednesday, 28 August 2013
12:30 PM – 1:15 PM
ACMI Cinema 2
Federation Square
Corner Flinders and Swanston Streets Science Fiction, Science Fact
Participants: Scott Westerfeld, Michael Pryor
Chairperson: Andrew McDonald Scott Westerfeld and Michael Pryor talk about the inventions and ideas first put forward in fiction, later proved to be fact – or wildly off the mark. Who is the better guide: scientist or novelist? Or does the future rely on both?
I’m also teaching a YA Writing masterclass, but that is sold out.
Friday Sept 6th
8–11PM
Maiwar Green, State Library of Queensland
‘Juvenilia’ Featuring Kevin Kwan, Clementine Ford, Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier, Kimberley Freeman (Kim Wilkins), Stuart MacBride and Benjamin Law reading work they scribbled in their youth. A special ‘Juvenilia’ mixed tape set by Simon Reynolds will wrap up the night.
No ticket required.
Saturday Sept 7th
Sat 11:30AM–12:30PM
State Library of Queensland
‘Dystopias’ Scott Westerfeld and Max Barry talk with Marianne de Pierres about dystopias, being a teenager in a world that wants to kill you and our fascination with broken futures.
TICKETS $12-$16
Justine and I are teaching a YA class here too. Also sold out.
And I’m also doing two sessions in the kids section, but I think those are limited to schools. If I’m wrong about that, go here and check them out.
I’ll be blogging more about my trip soon, but first a note about the opening of the City of Bones movie next week. Justine and I will be hosting a first-night screening here in Sydney, which is put together by Kinokuniya Bookstore. There will also be a special greeting from Cassie herself, using some sort of magic. (Or possibly recording devices.)
So if you live in Sydney, and enjoy seeing movies on the first night with a screaming, rambunctious, has-read-the-book-several-times crowd, I suggest coming along.
Also, there’s a costume contest!
Here’s the event page on FB, so you can do all that FaceBooky stuff with it. And here are the details for non-FB types:
Tickets are on sale now and are strictly limited. Purchases can be made in-store (at the cashier counter) or over the phone: 02 9262-7996.
Be there or be truant.
UPDATE
There’s an iTunes sale on the Levithan series audiobooks. From now until August 27, you can buy any of the three for $5.95. (I assume this is US iTunes store only.)
Justine and I have spent the last six weeks traveling in the US, which is why there have been zero postings here. Apologies! I realize that this hasn’t been a very bloggy year for me, but it has been a writey year, and which would you rather have, really?
Let me take you on a slideshow of various things I did while in the States:
Shortly after I first arrived, I was greeted by the sight of my latest publication on bookstore shelves. It’s an essay in a collection called Breakfast on Mars, edited by Rebecca Stern and Brad Wolfe. Basically, it’s a bunch of YA writers taking on the dreaded essay, many teen’s least favorite form of writing.
My essay, for reasons you might guess, is all about illustrations in books.
If you’re a teacher or librarian, or anyone interested in non-fiction writing, you should check it out. If you ask me, Stern (a former fifth-grade English teacher) and Wolfe have helped fill a huge gap in the world of YA and middle-grade letters.
The next cool thing to happen on my trip was Manhattan Henge, a twice yearly astronomical event in which sundown lines up with the crosstown streets of Manhattan. It looks like this:
What were the ancient peoples who built Manhattan trying to tell us about May 28 and July 12? We may never know.
The third thing I did was have an amazing dinner with respected private citizen Maureen Johnson and her English offsider, Oscar Gingersnort. This was at 11 Madison, and included crazy-ass dishes like this one:
The courses were many and wondrous, and gave us the opportunity to plot the destruction of all other YA authors what to do at Leaky Con next year.
Nextly, I had a meeting with my excellent publishers about how to market my next book, Afterworlds. The ideas were many and wondrous, and will be revealed in due time. I can’t wait to see what you guys think of this book, which has been three years in the writing. (Because it’s really two books in one.)
Afterworlds will come out late next year, probably on October 28. (This date is a clue to the book’s subject matter! Spin on that one, fannish brains!)
One of my other projects for this trip was to start gathering my “papers,” all the editorial, artistic, and business flotsam that I’ve collected over the last two decades. I’ll be donating them to an as-yet-undetermined institute of higher learning as a huge tax dodge boon to future scholars.
The first step was to collect exactly one first printing of each of my foreign editions, a project which, even in its opening stages, ate my living room floor:
I also found my very first (incomplete) novel, the least embarrassing page of which looks like this:
And that’s all you will ever see of that novel, unless you travel to the as-yet-undetermined institute of higher learning personally. (It’ll be in the box with the big padlock encrusted with contact poison.)
I just realized that this piece of juvenilia is called Keeps, only one letter away from a somewhat more recent (and less appalling) novel of mine. I wonder what the ancient peoples who made me become a writer were trying to tell us about the letters “-eeps.”
In mid-July, Justine and I also had the great pleasure of teaching at Alpha, a residential sf, fantasy, and horror writing workshop for teenagers (basically, a week-and-a-half-long genre writing camp). The young writers and the staff there were smart, committed, and tremendously stylish, as you can see here:
We had a great time. The awesomeness of the students makes me think we’ll do more teaching of this kind in the future. Watch this space for details.
Also, there was a waffle tower. I haz proof:
From there, I traveled onward to San Diego Comic Con, the premier geekfest of our time. There I had many and wondrous business meetings, which you will see the fruits of soon right here. Also many costumes were witnessed. The best of which was Sharknado Hat:
I also enjoyed this shirtless steampunk dinosaur hunter (based on a Greg Broadmoor comic, I think):
Also witnessed were a cavalcade of capitalism aimed directly at the geek dollar, like these bathrobes:
And these leggings:
So let me get this straight. These are Dr Who-themed leggings in the style of van Gogh. In the words of Tally Youngblood, isn’t that one thing too many? (Nah. It’s probably one thing too few. And, yes, I know the reference from the show.)
After SDCC, Justine and I spent a week in LA, where various meetings were had. Some of these shall be the subject of my next blog post. But no, there is no fresh movie news of consequence. The usual movie options are afoot, but the feet in question are slow moving. Sorry to disappoint you. The wheel of Hollywood turns slowly, but it grinds exceedingly fine. (Not really. It usually grinds pretty crappily. But it does grind onward in the case of Uglies and Leviathan. We shall see.)
______
Okay, more about the trip in a week or so. I’ll be blogging here more often, because I’m almost done with Afterworlds. Thanks to all of you who’ve stuck around and enlivened the comments section while I’ve been writing.
I have three appearances at MWF this August. If you’re in Melbourne, now might be a good time to book them. (The first appears to be sold out already.)
NOTE: The MWF brochure says that adults can only come to school events if they are accompanying a child. On the website, however, you can just buy an “Extra Adult” ticket alone. Or, you can just rent a kid. I’m not sure anyone will actually kick you out either way.
Tuesday 27 Aug 2013 at 12.30 pm
SCIENCE/FICTION
Scott Westerfeld grew up surrounded by science and technology. It’s no wonder that his books – including Uglies, Leviathan, Midnighters and Peeps – are shaped by science. Find out what makes his stories tick, and how science can be a novelist’s best friend.
Wednesday 28 Aug 2013 at 10.00 am
THE STEAMPUNK WORLD OF LEVIATHAN
The Leviathan trilogy is set in a steampunk World War I. The books even look like they were published in 1914, when almost all books were illustrated, even books for adults. Tour this extraordinarily rich world with the perfect guide, author Scott Westerfeld.
Venue: Deakin Edge
Code: 1701; Age: Year 5-8
Price: $7
Wednesday 28 Aug 2013 at 12.30 pm
SCIENCE FICTION SCIENCE FACT
Scott Westerfeld and Michael Pryor talk about the inventions and ideas first put forward in fiction, later proved to be fact – or wildly off the mark. Who is the better guide: scientist or novelist? Or does the future rely on both?
For those of you not in western PA, here’s another cool Uglies trailer (or really, a title sequence) by Kate Warinsky. It’s not the real thing, even though it looks like it.
Back in the sepia-toned days of early 2005—before Twitter, T-Pain, or even Twilight—I published a book called Uglies. Of course, back in those days, we didn’t call them books. We called them codexes, but it was much the same object: a quantity of papyrus that told a story.
Anyway, back then, book trailers weren’t really a thing. Trailers were for movies (which we called flicker-shows) or sometimes for videogames (which were collectively known as Pong). So Uglies was unleashed into the world with only the whispers of a few score Simon & Schuster sales reps (or bookmongers, as we knew them) to guide its passage.
By the time my next big series, Leviathan, hit bookstores in 2009, trailers were all the rage. So this beautiful example was created, and has since been viewed over half a million times. And yet Uglies remained untrailered.
Many of you sought to correct this imbalance by creating your own Uglies trailers, like this one, this one, this one, or this one. All of which are pretty (heh) cool.
But the time has come for Uglies to have its own official trailer!
So here it is at last: Uglies, the trailer!
If you know any other unofficial Uglies trailers, please link to them in the comments!
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As the guy who wrote Uglies, there are certain kinds of news stories that are forwarded to me by everyone. Hi-tech tattoos, bizarre plastic surgery, stuff that hovers, and of course anything having to do with beauty. So it was no surprise that a recent story about the Miss Korea contest flooded my inbox.
The basic story went like this: Plastic surgery is so prevalent in South Korea that all the contestants in their national beauty contest look freakishly alike. Look, we haz proof!
And yes, I will admit that this is a somewhat chilling image. With a few exceptions, it looks like twenty photos of the same woman dressed and styled a bit differently. And yes, the South Korean appetite for plastic surgery is large. According to this NY Times article, about 20% of women there have had some sort of cosmetic procedure. These are true facts.
But whenever you run into a story like this one, that depends so heavily on a telling photographic image, please remember one simple rule: photographs aren’t real.
Photographs are artifacts of technology, records of specific combinations of light, lens, and angle. Photographs are easily manipulated. Photographs are two-dimensional representations of a 3-D world. Photographs can be more or less accurate, but they are never the whole story.
Take the worst photo ever taken of you and compare it to the best ever taken. Do they look even remotely like the same person?
For that matter, pick up your phone and take a photo of yourself right now. Then walk to a different part of your room and take another. Same place, same hair, same clothes, but often these two photos will look completely different. Not because you photoshopped them or cheated in some other way, but simply because the living, breathing, moving reality of you got sliced into two different tiny moments of time.
The forces of light, shadow, and expression morphed you into two different versions of yourself. Neither of which was real, because photographs aren’t real! Using a single image to reflect a real human being is like describing a lush, complex novel in a sentence. Sometimes you can tell which which book someone’s talking about, but a whole lot goes missing.
Back to our Korean beauty queens. Here are two of them before and after hair, make-up, and photoshopping got involved:
I say again: photographs aren’t real.
Korea doesn’t have some mass convergence of facial phenotypes caused by cosmetic surgery. Maybe they will one day, and maybe in certain social circles there one can spot noticeable similarities. But all we have proof of here is a particular aesthetic of hair, make-up, and photoshoppery associated with a particular beauty contest.
There is no emergency. Return to your homes, Crims.
(The before-and-after images first appeared on Ilbe, and as far as I can tell, reached the English-speaking infosphere on koreaBANG. Thanks to both for this valuable service.)
So whenever you read about a scientific study on beauty that relied on people rating photographs (as I did while writing Uglies), or see a story about how bloated or haggard some poor celebrity has become, or come across at photos that make you feel bad about yourself, just remember . . .
Photographs aren’t real. But you are.
___________
On a COMPLETELY UNRELATED NOTE, here is my new author photo! I haven’t done one in ten years, and given that I just turned fifty, I figured it was time.
In the interest of full disclosure, I offer you the image before and after it was slightly retouched by my sister-in-law, noted visual effects artist Niki Bern, and include my notes to her.
Please do not actually USE that one as my author’s photo.
Instead, go with this version:
photo by Niki Bern, 2013
Everyone has permission to use this in all media forever. A bigger one can be found here.
0 Comments on Photographs Aren’t Real as of 1/1/1900
As a reminder, here’s one of my interviews with Alan about the books:
Also, on Monday morning, US time, there will be another low-price offer for another of my books, which I’ll announce right here. I’m not allowed to tell you till then, so come back Monday!
UPDATE:
The first book of the Midnighters series is on sale to Kindle readers for $1.99 (US only.) Click here to buy it. Monday, May 20 ONLY. So act fast.
Last night I had a great time at the Aurealis Awards in Sydney. And I’ll be appearing at the Sydney Writer’s Festival next week. On Saturday, May 25, at 11:30AM, I’ll be on a panel with Lauren Beukes, David M. Henley, and James Bradley.
What is speculative fiction, and where do the boundaries start to blur between genres and sub-genres? Have the classic genres changed now that we live in a world where technology has caught up?
When I was at Adelaide Writers Week last month, I did an extended interview with Sean Williams, who writes the Trouble Twisters series with Garth Nix. The ABC was kind enough to film the talk and put it online.
I talk about Uglies, Leviathan and the history of illustrations, living with another writer, from whence inspiration comes, my other books, and pretty much everything else writerly. It’s a whole hour long!
Hope you enjoy it. Thanks to Adelaide Writers Week for having me, to everyone who asked questions, to the ABC, and to Sean for being a great interviewer.
Here is the ABC page where you can download this as audio or video. Click here for the other talks from Adelaide Writers Week.
A few notes:
1) For you USians, note that “the ABC” (Australian Broadcasting Company) is not the same as “ABC” (American Broadcasting Company).
2) At 13:15, I meant to say “Book 2″ instead of “Book 3.”
3) Justine, in the audience, is caught tweeting at 26:45.
4) My pronunciation of “manga” is weird sometimes. I’m from Texas.
5) At 36:00 I briefly confuse Miyake with Miyazaki, because I was wearing the former. #humblebrag
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I don’t have a book out this year, so I won’t be on any sort of tour. But I will be traveling around a bit and doing a few live appearances (mostly in Australia) so it makes sense to list everything in one place for easy linkage. And this is that place.
Here are all my known appearances in 2013. I will update this page as things change. Note that Justine will be at many of these things.
Conflux
Canberra, Australia
April 26-28
I’ll be doing a presentation about Leviathan and the history of illustrated novels on Friday (April 26) at 5:00PM, Event Room One. (And otherwise hanging out, so come say hi.) Conference site.
INTERNET DEAD ZONE
May 3-10
I am turning off my internet for this whole week. Get off my lawn!
Aurealis Awards
Sydney, Australia
May 18, 7PM
I’ll be hosting the ceremony for these yearly awards for Australian fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Hopefully I will be funny. Click here for details.
Sydney Writer’s Festival
Saturday, May 25, 11:30AM
I’ll be on a panel with Lauren Beukes, David M. Henley, and James Bradley. What is speculative fiction, and where do the boundaries start to blur between genres and sub-genres? Have the classic genres changed now that we live in a world where technology has caught up?
This is free and no bookings required. Event details.
Alpha Teen Workshop
Pittsburgh, PA
July 13-16
I’ll be teaching at this week-long writing seminar for teenagers. Admissions for the workshop are closed, but there will probably be a bookstore appearance in Pittsburgh. Check back here for details about that, or at the Alpha site.
San Diego Comic-Con
July 18-12
I’ll be hanging out here and getting into trouble. They might make me do a panel or two. Check back here for details, or at the con site.
Melbourne Writer’s Festival
August 22-30
I’ll be here and doing stuff. Details not set yet, but you can always check back here or on the festival site.
Brisbane Writers Festival
September 4-8
I’ll be here too! Details following. Festival site
All in all that’s a fair amount of travel, but nothing like when I go on tour. I’m kind of glad to be mostly hanging out at home and writing.
But next year i’m planning to have a book out, so who knows . . .
MONDAY MARCH 4, 5PM
EAST STAGE Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden Highways to a War: A Reading
War stories are among our oldest narratives and this session of readings will explore some of our more recent wars. Christopher Koch has taken us to Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia. Peter Robb has introduced us to the mean streets of Italy and Brazil. Tom Keneally has chronicled both the World Wars. Scott Westerfeld explores an alternative First World War and Ross McMullin chronicles the letters home.
It looks like I’ll be doing a reading for this second one, and with Tom Keneally! (AKA the guy who wrote Schindler’s Ark.) Click here for more.
Writing boot camps are workshops where you live for a week (or several) and focus completely on the written word. It’s a very intense experience, one that can change your writing style, your relationship to books, and even your life. Some famous camps like Clarion list many famous writers as their alums.
The most well-known SF and fantasy writing camp for teenagers is called Alpha, and takes place every July in Pittsburgh. It’s ten days altogether, including eight days of workshops and two days of attending Confluence a literary sf convention nearby.
I’ve blogged about Alpha before, but this year, I willl be teaching there, along with Tamora Pierce and Theodora Goss. If you want to apply, submissions are open now.
To quote Alpha:
We’re looking for enthusiastic, talented young writers who have a strong interest in science fiction, fantasy and/or horror and a passion for writing. Students from anywhere in the world are welcome. In the past, students have attended Alpha from Canada, the United Kingdom, all over the United States, and even as far away as New Zealand.
Learn about writing and publishing. Meet other teens who share your interest in writing speculative fiction. Talk about short stories, novels, and films. Have your submission story critiqued. Brainstorm new story ideas, write a first draft, receive feedback, and rewrite. Attend readings by the authors. Do a public reading. Learn about submitting for publication, and send off your story at our manuscript mailing party.
2013 will be Alpha’s twelfth year. Previous attendees have placed in the Dell Magazines Award and Writers of the Future contests, and have sold stories to Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, Cicada, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Nature Futures, Pseudopod and more.
Workshop tuition is $1100 and includes all workshop-related costs, but does not include transportation to and from Pittsburgh, or hotel/meals at the Confluence Convention. A limited pool of scholarship funding is available for students in need of financial aid.
Here are some testimonials from previous students.
Hey, I’ve been lazy again (in all things, not just blogging) but fortunately, I have lots of lovely photos from my travels to show you. Posting photos is a bit easier than writing actual words, after all.
First, however, here’s some cool Russian cosplay for you.
These folks are doing Leviathan, complete with a plush hydrogen sniffer!
Update:
This first set are from Hungary, in fact. Got these emails while I was in Brazil and didn’t keep track. They’re from the Hungarian Steampunk and Anachronist Society, and you can see more pics on my Hungarian publisher’s FB page here, here, and here. (Thank you, Lorant in the comments! And thanks to Ad Astra, my publisher in Hungary.)
I like Deryn’s and Alek’s many leather accessories. Great boots, too.
They did this shoot in a cool old steampunk-ish warehouse, which you can see some of here:
I don’t know if there’s something going on in Russia, but around the same time, I also got some Russian Midnighters cosplay. Here’s Melissa:
And Dess:
And all three of the girls:
And a different Jessica (from a different group? This all came in on the same day. What’s going on in Russia? Some sort of Westerfeldian cosplay convention?):
Anyway, I love all these character interpretations. Well done, Ruskies. [And HUngarians!]
More photos soon. (See, Scott? That wasn’t so hard. You can DO this.)
0 Comments on Russian (and Hungarian!) Cosplay Alert as of 1/1/1900
Turns out I didn’t post for our whole six weeks away in St Louis, Las Vegas, New York and South America. It was a very awesome and exhausting trip. But sorry to leave you hanging.
Luckily, good times were had by all, and were well documented, so there are a ton of cool pictures and videos to share with you. Spoiler alert: Brazilian fans are very awesome.
At this exact moment, however, I’m jetlagged to buggery, and will share with you just this one amazing thing.
On our flight from Rio, Brazil to Santiago, Chile, Justine tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out the window. (She is a window sitter and I am an aisle-ist. Is there any more perfect marriage?) Outside, somewhere over Argentina, was a huge anvil of clouds, its structure revealed by the lightning flickering and flailing within.
It was a very big and violent thing to witness, especially from the fragile vantage of a flying machine. But any nerviness was totally outweighed by old-fashioned awe.
My iPad camera I managed to capture a fraction of what it looked like:
