Other Worlds and New Projects

Afternoon all,

Apologies for a rather quiet week on the blogging front - have been hopping from meeting to meeting in the main, with a lot of good stuff in the offing at the moment...

Last Saturday was our first Alt.Fiction branded event, Other Worlds, and a very successful day it was all in all. We kicked off the day with two busy workshops - a fantasy session with Mark Charan Newton, and Tony Ballantyne running a science fiction slot. These were both really popular, and offered people an insight into the writing process - from what I saw there was some very good stuff coming out.

After a short lunch breah (which ironically was the busiest part of the day for me) it was on to the main part of the Other Worlds day. The opening panel, 'The Landscape of Science Fiction and Fantasy', produced some really good, articulate points on writing and the genre as well as some fantastic cross-genre 'trash talk'. All meant and taken in good heart, of course, and great stuff from all four participants - Adrian Tchaikovsky, Mark Charan Newton, Peter F Hamilton and Tony Ballantyne.

With so much SF v Fantasy tension, it felt like a good idea to break everyone up and have a session devoted to each. This brought a much more intimate atmosphere, and a lot of audience interaction with the authors, which was a nice counterpoint to our opening slot.

Finally it was on to the signing, with everyone present having the chance to buy themselves a book and get it scrawled upon by their favourite author. This was also a good social time for everyone, catching up with old friends and meeting new ones as well. We concluded the day with the drawing of the raffle, with some awesome prizes won - including one lucky recipient of a year's supply of Tor books!

For me it was fantastic fun to be back in the events fold, and it's always great to see your long-term plans come together on the day. It was a good crowd, with some excellent authors talking all things genre with each other and the audience.

I also have to add my thanks to Tor for all their amazing support in making the event possible, QUAD for all their work and for hosting us on the day, and Waterstones and Murky Depths for their sterling work in the book room.

We also had some great reviews on the web - check them out at:
http://stevesfantasybookreviews.blogspot.com/2010/11/alt-fiction-other-worlds.html
http://speculativehorizons.blogspot.com/

This week I've been talking about all manner of things with all manner of people. My main job for next week is to plot up our three writing weekends, which are close to coming to fruition. I'll be posting news of those here before anywhere else, so keep your eyes peeled...

I'm also hoping to have our first authors confirmed for the main event in June pretty soon, so again watch this space!

I'll be away all weekend, but should be back with more news in the early part of next week.

Cheers!

Alex

Business is about to pick up...

...as they say. I'm in the final stages of preparation for Saturday's Other Worlds event, which means getting flyers and book sales ready, printing up signage, sending last emails to everyone involved and so on. A good event is all about getting the little details right, and that's something I've always tried to do at events I've run. It'll be good to get back 'in the game' - barring things like Black Library Live and Games Day I've been pretty much out of the events circuit, so it'll be good to get the old buzz going again!

In other news, I've just had a story accepted for a new Pill Hill Press publication, entitled 'Daily Bites of Flesh'. It's a collection of flash fiction, and my 500 word story 'The Hunt' will be part of it, which is great.

I've also been squirelling away at the Alt.Fiction writing weekends, and have definitely found some really promising venues now, so that's pretty exciting stuff. I think it's a huge gap in the market, and people are so keen to come on these kinds of weekends and devote some real time and space to writing. I'm hoping to have some real solid news on that front soon.

That's it from me until the weekend - I'll be back on Sunday with a full report on Saturday's Other Worlds event.

And here's my song of the moment, one I'd totally forgotten about... this used to play all the time in rock clubs when I was a little younger...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9COTgWZ9f44&feature=channel

Cheers!

Alex

Back to reality...

Afternoon all,

It's been back to the daily grind today after a fantastic weekend away for Hallowe'en. Good friends, good food and an awful lot of singing made for a great time. The costumes weren't half bad either - amazing amount of effort from everyone for the party on Saturday! You know who you are :-)

Today has been back to the grindstone, and the search for work as a freelancer goes on. Nothing surprising in that - I knew I had Alt.Fiction as my one big project, and I knew the early days were going to involve a good amount of meetings, emails, phone calls and so on. Still, there's a lot of stuff looking pretty promising, which can only be a good thing. I've also got Other Worlds to occupy me this week, as well as some rehearsal for Christmas Spirits, so plenty of stuff to do on all fronts really...

So just that brief update for today really - more as the week goes on and more meetings take place :-)

Thanks a lot!

Alex