Supanova Adelaide and Brisbane in November

It’s officially announced – in December I’ll be in Adelaide for the first time since 2016 and Brisbane for the first time since 2018! I love the Supanova tour and it’s real thrill and a privilege to be involved again. I’ll have heaps of stuff with me, so come and say hi if you’re around either city. All the details at: https://www.supanova.com.au/

The Death of Twitter and Why I’m No Longer There

This just went out via my Substack newsletter.

Back in the dark ages of 2009 I joined the new-ish social media site called Twitter. “Ha!” I scoffed. “Microblogging is such a stupid concept. It’ll never take over actual blogging. And tweet is such a stupid word, no one will ever use that.”

Well, I was wrong. I quickly came to find that Twitter was a great site with genuinely powerful engagement and a real sense of community. It quickly became the go-to site, particularly for writers and readers. Through simple and enjoyable engagement with other users I slowly built a significant following there. It became a true engine for awareness of my work and drove book sales. For a non-famous writer like me, that kind of reach makes a massive difference. Plus, there was the simple fun of sharing time with other tweeps. I made real friends on Twitter, people I’ve come to see as close and important to my life. Some of them I’ve never met in real life yet, but still hold them dear.

I’ve always maintained a website, as I still think the most important thing for any creative professional is to have your own online base where people can find you and your work, that’s not subject to vagaries of rich man-children. But beyond that, even though I have accounts on Facebook and Instagram and other places, Twitter was always the main focus of my attention. When people asked what the most important social media for writers was, or for me personally, I would always, without hesitation, name Twitter.

Beyond the benefit promotionally for me and the friendships I made there, it became my go to source of cross-referencing news. It became the default emergency channel whenever any major global event was going down. So many people there were just fucking funny. It was instrumental and of enormous benefit in so many ways, in so many people’s lives.

Then Musk.

Elon fucking Musk, the right wing, parasitic shitstain emerald heir came along and fucked it all up. Musk is a person who thinks he’s way smarter than he is. Allegedly, he buys his way into things and claims to be the brains behind them while the real brains behind those things quickly set up departments to manage him and keep him away from the real running of the place. Space-X, Tesla, they all managed Musk and let him crow about his smarts while they got on with the job.

But when the utter fuckwit bought Twitter, there was no one to rein him in and his absolutely braindead ideas have crashed that site more quickly than anyone thought possible. He gave back access to people who had been banned for literal fascism and Nazism. He destroyed the verification process that made the site so valuable in so many ways. He turned a powerful engine of social good into a cesspit of fuckwits and fascists and laughed about it all the way.

Sure, Twitter had its problems before he took over. There were ongoing issues that people continuously tried to address. Everywhere in life has problems, but the good on Twitter far outweighed the bad. Musk reversed that in less than a year. (He initiated the acquisition on April 14, 2022, panicked and tried to back out soon after, but couldn’t and the acquisition concluded on October 27, 2022. We’re only in September 2023 now and the place is a bin fire.)

But that’s not why I’m no longer there.

Despite all the above, people like me stuck it out. We’d been there a long time. I wasn’t about to give ground to fascists, although it did become harder and harder to justify staying somewhere that enabled the literal worst of society. I struggled with the ethics of it but always hoped it might somehow rise from the ashes. I hoped Musk would throw in the towel, find a way to take his losses and fuck off, and perhaps the Twitter of old might rise again. I’d spent nearly 15 years building a following of over 17,000 people there. It was my home. Fuck this guy for coming in and shitting all over it.

And then I said a bad thing about another rich dude.

I mean, it’s not like I haven’t said stuff just like it a hundred times over the years, but apparently this time I broke the camel’s back. Multi-millionaire Tim Gurner went on record, on video, saying that employees had become too arrogant and he wanted to see unemployment rise by 30 to 40% to put pain into the economy and remind workers of their place. I mean, what an utter cunt. This guy who’s made millions off the backs of poorly paid workers. So I quote tweeted that video and said, “This fucking scumbag. We really need the guillotines.”

And I stand by that. As Van Badham says in her excellent piece on this in The Guardian, “workers in Australia have never been more productive while capitalists have never swallowed up so much of that gain for themselves, taking more in profit than they give back in wages”. You can read the whole thing here, and that will also give you the video in question: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/14/tim-gurner-ceo-comments-more-unemployment-millionaire-property-developer-workers-neoliberals

Record-breaking profits should mean record-breaking wages for everyone from the ground up, not just these parasitic fucks sitting on top, suggesting the people they need for those profits are somehow arrogant. We have never needed the threat of revolution more. Something has to change. Capitalism is killing everything, from the worker to the planet itself, and people like Gurner and Musk are sitting on piles of cash like dragons sitting on hoards of gold, and they’re fucking laughing at us.

So I stand by it. Except someone reported that tweet and Musk and his minions subsequently suspended my Twitter account indefinitely. Someone suggested Musk has set bots to crawl Twitter looking for any tweets with the word “guillotine” and they’re suspending those accounts en masse. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s the sort of fragile knee-jerk response we’ve come to expect. From the guy who bought Twitter because he wanted a return of free speech. Sorry, just rolled my eyes so hard I saw my heels. When Musk claims he’s returning free speech to the people he means all the hateful shit people like him say while shutting down any dissenting voice. Speech is only free for the arseholes.

I appealed the decision and was told (within an hour so almost certainly by a bot), “Our support team has determined that a violation did take place, and therefore we will not overturn our decision. Your account has been suspended and will not be restored due to violations of the X [because they call Twitter X now, but I never will] Rules, specifically our rules around: Violating our rules against violent speech.”

People need to unionise. People need to support strikes like the current WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike. It’s awesome to see the auto industry in the US finally saying enough is enough and striking too. It feels like a general strike is on the way. We need to empower workers again because people like Musk and Gurner will just use us up as grist in their money-making mills. They’re not even pretending any more, like Gurner saying publicly and clearly that he needs to actually hurt people to smash them back into line. To teach them their place. Fuck. That. Guy.

The cost of living crisis isn’t due to rising prices. It’s due to rising profits. That’s got to change.

Meanwhile, perhaps the Twitter team did me a favour, as now I don’t have to agonise any more about the ethics of staying there. They made the decision for me. Fuck ‘em. I hope they drown in their own cesspool.

I’m furious with Musk for destroying something as good and powerful as Twitter used to be. Who knows what the next thing might be, but there’s no replacement. There won’t be another Twitter any more than there was another MySpace. It’ll be something different. At this point in time, it seems most people are moving over to bluesky, and you can find me there – https://bsky.app/profile/alanbaxter.bsky.social

And I’ll always have my website at www.alanbaxter.com.au

Meanwhile, let’s hope the unions and strikes start to take some power back, into the hands of the workers, because if they don’t it can’t long until guillotines really do become a reality.

Anyway, in the meantime, my new novella launched through Absinthe Books, an imprint of PS Publishing, this weekend and I’d love it if you checked it out. And if you’re still on Twitter, I’d appreciate you letting people know that I got bounced and maybe still spread the word over there about my books? And perhaps this newsletter too.

Huge thanks, fiends, and I’ll see you… around!

Al

The strange condition of being a writer – latest newsletter

My latest newsletter just went out via Substack, reposted here.

Being a writer is bloody weird. In some ways, it’s entirely natural to me because I’ve never really known anything different. I’ve always loved telling stories. But the longer I do this as a job and the more often I’m interviewed about it and asked about it, the more I have to interrogate what it actually means to be a writer.

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you’ll know how I feel about writing rules. Spoiler: I fucking hate the prescriptive bullshit. All this “you must write every day” and “only write what you know” stuff makes my teeth curl. Who the hell knows dragons? Or demons? Or even the reality of a crime scene? Eh, don’t get me started. The one and only “rule” of writing is that you must write. How often, how much, when, what about, whether you’re published or not – all that is variable and irrelevant. If you write, you’re a writer. That’s it.

But despite all those variables, I think writers exist as writers all the time, however much or little they actually write. The strange condition of being a writer means always living in a certain, subconscious way.

For one, we notice things. We see the inconsistencies in existence, the little snagged edges where life gets caught. And while lots of other folks may or may not notice those things too, we as writers remember them. They get filed away in the weird writer cupboard in our brain and there they fester and germinate and eventually burst forth anew as stories.

But do we notice and remember these things because we write or do we write because we notice and remember these things? Are those even separate considerations? This is something I ruminate on occasionally in the dark quietude of the night. I have no answers, of course. I just find it interesting.

You know what else is interesting? (Pro segue there, Al – you see, I’m a writer!) I’ve got a new agent. I recently signed with Becky LeJeune of the Bond Literary Agency and I’m super excited for the future with her support. I knew it would be a good relationship when she wore a Camp Crystal Lake t-shirt on our first Zoom meeting. I am enormously indebted to Alex Adsett, who has been my agent until now and will still represent my interests in several ongoing areas. I’m hopeful that Becky will be able to get my work out to bigger audiences and this new arrangement will be of massive benefit to us all. We’re starting off with a brand new novel, so watch out for news on that sometime in the future. Cross your everythings for me.

A couple of other things are current.

PS Publishing (who own Absinthe Books) have announced The Leaves Forget in their newsletter. There will be a hardcover and a signed and numbered limited edition hardcover (only 100 copies!) both with that sweet Ben Baldwin art you see at the top of this post as a full wraparound cover, and there’ll be an ebook, of course. If you’re keen for one of the physical copies, you can order now. I haven’t actually had the signing sheets yet for the limited edition but I’m told it’s selling fast in pre-orders, so if you’re keen for one of those, best to jump in quick. You can order directly from PS Publishing here: https://www.pspublishing.co.uk/the-leaves-forget-hardcover-by-alan-baxter-6107-p.asp

Here’s the blurb for the book:

Olivia has been missing for months. Her family have tried to accept that perhaps she’ll never be found, and they’ll never know what happened.

So when her brother Craig unexpectedly receives a stack of letters from Liv, all written not long after her disappearance, he’s both excited and frightened. Reading through her correspondence, Craig begins to get a sense of where she was, but he still doesn’t know where she is now, or if she’s even still alive.

Using what clues he can from the old letters, Craig sets off with his partner and his father to find Olivia, hoping for the best, fearing the worst.

I hope you’ll give this one a go.

And that brings me to the Ditmar Awards. I’m absolutely thrilled to be shortlisted four times this year. Four! I’ve been nominated for Sallow Bend in Best Novel; “Gulpepper Curios” from The Fall in Best Novella or Novelette, The Fall itself in Best Collected Work AND Damnation Games (which I edited and have a story in) also in Best Collected Work. Wild. I’ve never won a Ditmar before, so fingers crossed.

Voting is now open, and all Conflux 2023 members (full or supporting) and members of the last 5 Natcons (Continuum 2017, Swancon 2018, Continuum 2019, Swancon 2020 and Conflux 2022) are eligible to vote. All votes must be in by 22/9/23 and you can vote online here: http://ditmars.sf.org.au/voting/ If you’re eligible to vote, please do! The more votes that go in, the better the awards reflect the views of the reading public.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

I’ve been flat out lately and haven’t had much reading or watching time, but I have finished bingeing Better Call Saul, the sequel series to Breaking Bad. It was really good and I enjoyed it all, but I think Breaking Bad is better. I was left a little sour with the final few episodes of Better Call Saul. On the one hand, I get it. On the other hand, I would have done it differently. I can’t say more without spoilers, but hit me up if you want a chat about it.

I’ve been to the movies twice recently. I saw Dracula: Voyage of the Demeter which is a great horror movie. Monster on a boat: it does exactly what it says on the tin. And I saw Talk To Me which is simply one of the best horror movies I’ve ever seen. An Australian film, no less. It’s truly brilliant and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Try to know as little as possible going in, if you can.

Reading-wise I’ve just started the third volume of C S Humble’s horror western trilogy, so I’ll report back about that soon. So far, it’s excellent. I also read the new Chuck Tingle horror novel, Camp Damascus. It’s an original and clever take on some old horror tropes and while I felt like it skipped parts and made some strange leaps in narrative, I enjoyed it a lot.

Okay, I think that’s all from me for now. If you’re anywhere near Sydney, I’ll be a guest at Oz Comic-Con on September 23rd and 24th. It would be awesome to see you there. I’ll have lots of books to sign, stickers, badges and general bonhomie. All you need to know is here: https://ozcomiccon.com/

Big love from me, feel free to get in touch and I’ll see you next time.

Al

The Leaves Forget is here

Hi fiends! PS Publishing (who own Absinthe Books) have announced The Leaves Forget in their newsletter. There will be a hardcover and a signed and numbered limited edition hardcover (only 100 copies!) both with that sweet Ben Baldwin art as a full wraparound cover, and an ebook of course. If you’re keen for one of the physical copies, you can order now. I haven’t actually had the signing sheets yet, so the limited edition books won’t ship any time soon, but you can order them.

The page is live here on the PS Publishing website:

https://www.pspublishing.co.uk/the-leaves-forget-hardcover-by-alan-baxter-6107-p.asp

Here’s the blurb:

Olivia has been missing for months. Her family have tried to accept that perhaps she’ll never be found, and they’ll never know what happened.

So when her brother Craig unexpectedly receives a stack of letters from Liv, all written not long after her disappearance, he’s both excited and frightened. Reading through her correspondence, Craig begins to get a sense of where she was, but he still doesn’t know where she is now, or if she’s even still alive.

Using what clues he can from the old letters, Craig sets off with his partner and his father to find Olivia, hoping for the best, fearing the worst.

Also, the book has a Goodreads page here and I would love it if you could add it to your shelves if you do Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/197859712-the-leaves-forget

Huge thanks to editor Marie O’Regan for picking this one up and the awesome folks at PS/Absinthe. I really hope you’ll give it a go.

Four Ditmar Award nominations!

The preliminary ballot for the 2023 Ditmar Awards has just been released and I’m blown away to be on it four times. Four! What the actual hell?

I’ve been nominated for Sallow Bend in Best Novel; “Gulpepper Curios” from The Fall in Best Novella or Novelette, The Fall itself in Best Collected Work AND Damnation Games (which I edited and have a story in) also in Best Collected Work.

I mean, holy shit! Holy. Shit. Huge congrats to all the nominees! The full ballot is here:

Best Novel
—————————————————————–
36 Streets, T.R. Napper, Titan Books.
Sallow Bend, Alan Baxter, Cemetery Dance Publications.
Scavengers, Robert Hood, Clan Destine Press.
The Stone Road, Trent Jamieson, Erewhon Books.
X-Dimensional Assassin Zai Through the Unfolded Earth, Jason Franks, IFWG Publishing.
Best Novella or Novelette
—————————————————————–
“Bluebells”, Leanbh Pearson, in Bluebells, Black Hare Press.
“The Dark Matter of Natasha”, Matthew R. Davis, in The Dark Matter of Natasha, Grey Matter Press.
“Gulpepper Curios”, Alan Baxter, in The Fall, 13th Dragon Books.
“Remnants and Bad Water”, Kaaron Warren, in Damnation Games, Clan Destine Press.
“The Smell of Waiting”, Kaaron Warren, in Screams from the Dark, Tom Doherty Associates.
Best Short Story
—————————————————————–
“Everything so slow and quiet”, Kaaron Warren, in The Art of Being Human, FableCroft Publishing.
“Greatheart”, Juliet Marillier, in The Art of Being Human, FableCroft Publishing.
“The Quick Study”, C.H. Pearce, in Etherea Magazine 10.
“Songs We Sing at Sea are the Lies We Tell Ourselves”, Kaaron Warren, in Looming Low 2, Dim Shores.
Best Collected Work
—————————————————————–
The Art of Being Human, Tehani Croft and Stephanie Lai, FableCroft Publishing.
Cut to Care: A collection of little hurts, Aaron Dries, IFWG Publishing International.
Damnation Games, Alan Baxter, Clan Destine Press.
The Fall, Alan Baxter, 13th Dragon Books.
Midnight Echo 17, Greg Chapman, Australasian Horror Writers Association.
Phase Change, Matthew Chrulew, Twelfth Planet Press.
Best Fan Publication in Any Medium
—————————————————————–
Ethel the Aardvark, LynC, Melbourne Science Fiction Club.
Pratchat Podcast, Ben McKenzie, Elizabeth Flux.
Best Fan Writer
—————————————————————–
Bruce Gillespie
David Grigg
Kat Clay
Perry Middlemiss
Best Fan Artist
—————————————————————–
C.H. Pearce
David L Russell
Erin-Claire Barrow
Best Artwork
—————————————————————–
INSUFFICIENT NOMINATIONS
Best New Talent
—————————————————————–
Aaron Dries
Leanbh Pearson
C.H. Pearce
C.Z. Tacks
Matt Tighe
Zachary Ashford
William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review
—————————————————————–
Angharad Lodwick, Tinted Edges (book review blog)
Eugen Bacon, for An Earnest Blackness, Anti-Oedipus Press.
Gillian Polack, for Story Matrices: Cultural Encoding and Cultural Baggage in Science Fiction and Fantasy, Luna (UK).
Ian Mond, for reviews, in Locus.

Beware the Blood Covenant

My latest newsletter just went out via Substack, but here it is:

Hello fiends

How the fuck are ya? I thought it was time to drop you a line again and let you know what’s up. First of all, that image above shows some stellar news.

I’ve really enjoyed working with Cemetery Dance on Sallow Bend and it’s so cool to be published by an outfit with such a great history of producing amazing horror. So I was excited when they were keen to read my next novel and even more excited when they agreed to publish it. As you can see from the Deal Report above, it’ll be out in May next year.

This book was hard going. You might remember some time ago I was posting about it. (September 2019, in fact!) Here’s the blog post where I admitted the problem: https://www.alanbaxter.com.au/when-you-realise-your-book-is-broken/ .

So it turns out that I wrote (and had published!) Sallow Bend in the time between starting and finishing Blood Covenant. This is a really fucking weird business. I shelved the book and then came back to it twice and in the long run that was the right thing to do. I’m super proud of how this one finally came out and can’t wait for people to read it. It’s loosely pitched as HEAT meets THE SHINING, and I think it also has vibes of Paul Tremblay’s “The Cabin at the End of the World” and Adam Nevil’s “The Ritual”, all set in a remote Australian mountain wilderness. I hope that sounds appealing. Let me know what you think. I’ll post more about it as news comes along.

Meanwhile, there is a new book coming out this year, I think around September. It’s a novella and I can’t say anything more about it right now, but watch this space for more news on that one.

So what else is going on?

The Ditmar Awards are open for nominations and if you’re an Aussie fan you’re eligible to nominate. So please do nominate all the good stuff you enjoyed in 2022. If you think anything of mine is worthy of a nomination, thank you! All the details you need, including an online form for nominations, can be found here: https://conflux.org.au/blog/ and everything of mine that’s eligible is listed in this blog post. I’m especially keen to see Sallow Bend get some more attention, so if you thought that was worthy of a nomination in the Novel category, bless your black and pulsing heart.

I’m sure any of you who follow me on any social media will have seen the latest member of the BaxCave. Maximo came to live with us recently and he’s absolutely wonderful. Like any baby, he’s hard work right now but he’s a sweet, lovable, smart little guy and settling in really well. The old dog, Rufus, is having a harder time adjusting, but he’s getting there. The cats… not so much. That might take a little longer!

My social media is just full of Maximo at the moment, so apologies or you’re welcome, depending on which side of that you fall. Normal service will resume shortly.

I was asked by the Horror Writers Association to help with a new series they’re running, interviewing international (i.e. not American) horror writers, and that’s been great fun. I’ve enjoyed working with Meghan Arcuri, Sumiko Saulson, Shawna Hampton, Rosemary Thorne, John Lawson and Naching Kassa on this and you can read my introduction to the series here: https://horror.org/world-of-horror-introduction-to-international-horror-month-2023-by-alan-baxter/

What I’ve Been Enjoying

I’ve been reading more Charlie Parker thrillers by John Connolly. There’s 20 (I think) and I just read number 10, The Burning Soul. Honestly, it wasn’t nearly as good as the previous one and there was one plot device that really didn’t work for me, but these are great books nonetheless. I also got to read an early copy of Michael David Wilson’s new novel, House of Bad Memories, which was thoroughly wild. He asked if I’d give him a blurb for it (hence the early reading) and this is what I sent over:

“If Ira Levin and Guy Ritchie had a drug-fuelled weekend binge with the Kray twins in a Kidderminster council flat, they wouldn’t come close to House of Bad Memories. Darkly funny, brutally violent and strangely touching, Michael David Wilson has created something truly bonkers and I’m here for it.”

With TV, I mentioned before that I was binging Breaking Bad. I finished all of that and it was genuinely outstanding television. Just so good. And then I went directly on to Better Call Saul (at Brian Keene’s urging). Better Call Saul is a prequel/sequel series surrounding Breaking Bad and it’s equally good. I’m loving it and up to Season 4 of 6 so far. I’m hoping to get to the movies with my 9yo to see Barbie soon too, that looks like so much fun.

Meanwhile, this weekend I’ll be a guest at Oz Comic-Con in Canberra (and in Sydney next month) so if you can get anywhere near the nation’s capital, it would be awesome to see you there. All you need to know is here: https://ozcomiccon.com/

Okay, I think that’s all from me for now. Big love to you all, keep in touch and I’ll see you next time.

Al

South Coast Writers Festival, August 19th and 20th

I’m excited to be part of the South Coast Writers Festival on August 19th and 20th. I’ll be in conversation with the great John Birmingham on Saturday and chatting speculative fiction on Sunday.

Author John Birmingham’s novels run the gamut from history to science fiction, from military thrillers to time-hop adventures, but they are all peppered with a rollicking humour and an interest in the politic of resistance and survival. In conversation with award-winning horror author, Alan Baxter, John Birmingham discusses the third book in his Cruel Stars space opera trilogy and guides us on how to tackle fascists in space.

From haunted familiar worlds to unrecognisable futures, speculative fiction summons us to enter the uncanny. Mykela Saunders, editor of This All Come Back Now, the Aurealis Award-winning, world-first collection of blackfella speculative fiction, and Alan Baxter, multi-award-winning author of horror, supernatural thrillers, and dark fantasy, talk speculative writing with the University of Wollongong’s Chrissy Howe.

All the details here: https://southcoastwriters.org/festival2023

Ditmar Awards open for nominations!

The Ditmar Awards are open for nominations and if you’re an Aussie fan you’re eligible to nominate. So please do nominate all the good stuff you enjoyed in 2022. If you think anything of mine is worthy of a nomination, thank you! All the details you need, including an online form for nominations, can be found here: https://conflux.org.au/blog/

Here’s my eligible stuff:

SALLOW BEND – Eligible in Novel

THE FALL: Tales From The Gulp 2 – Eligible in Collected Work

All five stories in The Fall are original too, so they each qualify in Novelette/Novella:
“Gulpepper Curios” (19,340 words)
“Cathedral Stack” (13,160 words)
“That Damn Woman” (18,230 words)
“Excursion Troop” (16,500 words)
“The Fall” (19,850 words)

DAMNATION GAMES – Eligible in Collected Work, edited by me.

Short fiction:

“Counting Tunnels To Berry” – The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors anthology, ed. Doug Murano (Bad Hand Books)

“The Fiends of Turner’s Creek” – SNAFU: Dead or Alive, ed. A J Spedding (Cohesion Press)

“The Question” – Damnation Games, ed. Alan Baxter (Clan Destine Press)

“The Novak Roadhouse Massacre” – Found, ed. Andrew Cull and Gabino Iglesias

The Strange Dichotomy of SNAFU

It’s no lie to say that the SNAFU anthologies from Cohesion Press have been a significant presence in my career. When Cohesion heads Geoff Brown and Dawn Roach first came up with the idea – an anthology of military horror where the remit was simple: blistering military or paramilitary action and monsters – and produced the original volume, Geoff asked me to write the Foreword. I was happy to, as it was a great book.

It did really well, so Geoff decided to publish more and make it a series of anthologies and brought A J Spedding in as editor. The second volume was SNAFU: Wolves at the Door, focusing on were-beasts. I was keen, but busy, and didn’t get a chance to submit for it. Then came SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest, and Geoff approached me again, asked if I would write a story for it. Of course, I was super keen. And the story I wrote for that has been a hell of a career highlight. That story is “In Vaulted Halls Entombed”, which did indeed make it into that book, and it won me an Australian Shadows Award, was reprinted in German, and then adapted for Netflix in LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS, which is without a doubt a significant career milestone. That story has worked harder for me than pretty much anything else I’ve written to date.

And the other thing I discovered in the process of writing that story was that I fucking loved writing that story. This is why I’ve titled this article a “strange dichotomy”. Because I don’t actually write action-led, military horror. I write weird, creepy, supernatural horror. I write urban horror and small town horror. I write supernatural thrillers and crime horror. The Eli Carver books are perhaps the closest, packed with intense fight and action scenes, but nothing military. I don’t write military horror in any other capacity, except for the SNAFU books. And I freaking love it when I do. And it turns out I’m pretty good at it. After that first one for Survival of the Fittest, I’ve had stories published in SNAFU anthologies six more times. With the release of the latest one, Punk’d, I have stories in 7 out the 13 SNAFU books. So I’m in more than half of them. That’s amazing.

Here’s a full list of SNAFUs, with my contributions listed beside the volumes I’m in:

SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror – Foreword by me

SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest – “In Vaulted Halls Entombed”

SNAFU: Hunters

SNAFU: Future Warfare – “Under Calliope’s Skin”

SNAFU: Unnatural Selection

SNAFU: Black Ops – “Raven’s First Flight”

SNAFU: Resurrection

SNAFU: Last Stand – “The Throat”

SNAFU: Medevac – “The Demon Locke”

SNAFU: Holy War

SNAFU: Dead or Alive – “The Fiends of Turner’s Creek”

SNAFU: Punk’d – “Clean-up Crew”

I keep thinking that maybe I ought to write something a bit longer form with the military horror angle, but in truth, I think it works best in short story format. None of my SNAFU stories are longer than 10,000 words. And all the time Cohesion Press keep publishing these books, I’ll keep scratching that itch by writing for them. Meanwhile, I’ll keep writing all the other stuff I usually do. I’m no one-trick pony, I contain multitudes.

But I will always be extremely grateful to the SNAFU anthologies and the team behind them, because I’ve had so much back from writing those stories, beyond the joy of the writing itself.

I urge people to check them out, even if you don’t think you like the idea of military horror. Believe me, it’s a broad strokes description and the variety and depth of stories found in these books is remarkable. If you’re on the fence about it, consider this – to make some movie comparisons, Aliens is military horror, as is Starship Troopers, and Predator, and Dog Soldiers, The Lair, Jacob’s Ladder… there are so many more. And surely you’ve enjoyed at least some of those movies, right? So imagine short story versions of those. My Future Warfare story, “Under Calliope’s Skin”, is a shameless homage to Aliens and Predator. I guarantee you’ll find at least a few stories you love in every volume of SNAFU.

If you want a taste of my contributions and haven’t read them yet, you can find my Netflix story, “In Vaulted Halls Entombed” in my second collection, Served Cold, and I’ve collected it along with four other SNAFU stories plus one original, previously unpublished yarn, in a book called And Fire Poured Forth, which is the name of the original story in the set. So you can get a taste of my contributions by picking those up.

And keep an eye out for past and future SNAFU anthologies. They are heaps of fun, jam-packed with amazing stories by fantastic authors. Vive le SNAFU!

 

Sometimes we have to make hard choices

(My latest newsletter just went out – here it is)

This business, man, I tell you…

I know I’m in a position many would murder their granny for. I’ve worked my arse off at this gig but I recognise I’ve been lucky too. Anyone who denies the role of luck in publishing is ignorant or lying to you. Even then, it’s so hard to make a living doing this that turning anything down seems ridiculous. But I had to do just that recently. I got a query from a big Russian publisher asking after foreign rights for one of my books. Translation is a great passive income usually – the book’s already written and out there, you just get paid for it again. Brilliant! But I need to keep my ethics intact. I had to say to the publisher that while I recognise it’s utterly beyond their control, I can’t in good conscience do business with Russia while the war with Ukraine is still happening. We have to draw lines. We have to stand up for what we believe it, or we’re just paying it lip service. It’s easy to be ethical in word, but often much harder in deed.

This publisher and all its staff may well completely disagree with the war too, and there’s certainly nothing they can do about it. (Or they may agree with it and I’ve blown my chances of ever working with that publisher. Who knows?) I tried to be as polite as possible and said I really hope we can pick up the conversation again when the war is over, but who knows if that’ll ever happen? Anyway, I’m sore about it because I needed to do the right thing, but turning down money is brutal when I’ve got the bills stacking up.

Ho hum, ever onwards!

You may have noticed that I recently lost a couple of Aurealis Awards. I bet you’re glad you opened this rainbows and fucking unicorns newsletter, right? I think it’s important to make people aware that it’s not all successes in this gig. It’s mostly misses and disappointments with the occasional success. BUT! While I would have loved to win one or both of those awards, and I’m a bit gutted that I didn’t, I was still shortlisted. That’s no small achievement and I’m stoked to have been a finalist. I’ve actually only ever won once at the Aurealis Awards (for The Gulp) but I’ve been a finalist 13 times now. That’s fucking epic!

You know what else is epic? The book you see below! Twisted Retreat are a book box company who make these amazing limited edition hardcovers and they picked Sallow Bend for May. You see, there’s a serious win right there. The photos are stills grabbed from ohitsme doing a YouTube unboxing. There are still a few copies of the book available (no boxes left) and you can grab one right here. I don’t think there’s many, so be quick if you want one. I can’t wait to see it for real, I’m still waiting on my copy.

What else is new? Well, I’m directing the WritingNSW Speculative Fiction Festival which is happening on June 24th, so if you’re anywhere near Sydney that would be an awesome thing to get along to. You can get tickets here. And the next day, a whole bunch of amazing authors will be gathered at Galaxy Bookshop in the Sydney CBD for a big old group chat and signing. Seriously, look at these names! (And apparently I’m charming! *preens*)

I don’t have much else to talk about this time around, so let’s get to

What I’ve Been Enjoying

On the reading front, Cemetery Dance Publications asked me to blurb the forthcoming A Red Winter in the West by C S Humble. This is book two of The Survivors Trilogy. Book one is The Massacre at Yellow Hill. As I hadn’t read that one yet, I asked CD to send me both and I’ve recently read them. I mentioned last time that I’d read and enjoyed the first one. Book two is even better. They’re superb horror westerns mixing up cosmic horror and monster hunters and stuff. Humble is a great writer, so I recommend getting these. Book three, The Light of a Black Star, is out in November, I think.

When it comes to watching stuff, I mentioned before that I’ve been bingeing Breaking Bad. (I know, I’m like a decade behind, they’re all using flip phones and shit.) But holy hell, is this good television. I’m just the first couple of episodes in to season 5 now, so no spoilers, please. I’m still bloody loving it. The end of season 4 was wild.

We’re also watching Wednesday on Netflix. I’ve already watched it and really enjoyed it, but my 9yo was keen to see it as apparently everyone at school is talking about it. I wondered if 9 was maybe a bit too young, but all seems to be going well so far!

On the work front, last time I was talking about stepping back and taking a rest, which I did and felt much better for. I also mentioned that next on my agenda was a short story commission. Well, that’s written now and sent to the editor, so I really hope they enjoy that. And now I’m back to work on the small town horror novel I put aside last year. It’s about one third written at this point and I read over it yesterday and I really like it. I also have a much better idea now about where I’m going with it. It’ll fun to see where that leads. Once I get this newsletter sent off, I’ll grab a bite to eat then get right onto that. So I’d better stop fucking around.

Keep in touch with comments here or elsewhere on social media, I enjoy hearing from folks.

Hot respect, my good fiends.

Al