Guest Blogging With Joanna Fay

My fellow Egoboo WA member and writing and critiquing mate, Joanna Fay, has invited me to guest blog on her website about a favourite character. If you would like to have a look at how Seri, a character in my as yet unfinished novel, working title The Hidden People, came into being, you can find the blog post here.

Joanna has the first two fantasy novels of The Siaris Quartet, Daughter of Heart and Reunion, available as e-books from Musa Publishing.

Tin Ducks Awards

Yet another award list. The Tin Ducks are annual Western Australian awards for achievements in SF presented at the annual Perth SwanCon . It's always good to see those in the SF field being acknowledged and all the more when it's friends and people whose work I personally admire as it is this year.

The link to the award winners and the short list is here and I'm delighted that it includes three of my fellow Egoboo WA members - Joanna Fay, Satima Flavell and Sarah Parker.

Congratulations to all winners and finalists.

Interview with Glenda Larke

It occurs to me that you might have missed this. Over at Egoboo WA we've been interviewing people involved in the writing business. Among those we've interviewed is Glenda Larke. She was kind enough to drop by and answer a few questions for me. She has some interesting things to say so why not have a look.

What I've Been Learning From Other Writers

I've blogged about things I've learned from other writers - in particular, Rosanne Dingli, Neil Gaiman and Bill O'Hanlon - over on the Egoboo WA blog. Come by and have a look. We've some interesting interviews coming up there too.

Egobooing Questions

I have a post up on the Egoboo WA blog answering some of the questions we've been asked about how the Egoboo group went about critiquing on the Eagle Bay retreat.

Why don't you drop in and have a look and while you're there have check out some of the other posts including Joanna Fay's exquisite translation from the French of To Paint a Bird's Portrait, a poem by 20th century French surrealist poet, Jacques Prevert. Highly recommended as reading for any artist or creative person. As well there are posts about a whole range of writing related matters and what the group members are doing in their writing lives.

Aus Spec Fic Carnival

Egoboo WA is hosting January's Aus Spec Fic Carnival. Go here to catch up on the latest happenings in the Australian Speculative Fiction World with news from blogs and LJs as well as about forthcoming events.

Egoboo WA Post

My introductory post on the Egoboo WA blog is up. Why don't you drop in and have a look. While you're there have a look at the other posts by Joanna Fay, Sarah Parker, Satima Flavel and Carol Ryles. We'd like your comments too.

November

You'd be forgiven for thinking not much happened in my world in November if you've been looking at this blog. Not true. Actually I've been emulating the swan - gliding effortlessly over the water while paddling madly beneath the surface.

There were health issues, family issues, a computer that crashed and died and all the other things that make up life, of course, but the big thing was the Egoboo WA retreat. Egoboo WA is a group of five writers, who have made the commitment - the enormous commitment - to read and critique each other's novels culminating in a three day face to face critiquing marathon at Eagle Bay. This involved providing a completed draft of our own novel as well as reading well over 500,000 words - the combined total of the other four novels - and providing detailed comment on each novel. Novels had to be up by October 22 and critiques ready by November 25.

The group is of necessity a closed one because once you get more than five members the volume of reading is too much but it is working for us. We had good advice from the ROR - wRiters on the Rise - group who have a similar very successful set up.You can read their blog - Ripping Ozzie Reads - here.

So now you know why there have been few posts. I've been lost in four amazing worlds and, since I came back, tweaking and playing in my own as I profit from the critiquing skills of the others.

If you want to know more about Egoboo WA have a look at our blog here. We'd love to see you.