Last Drink Bird Head

Question What do Peter Straub, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Evenson, Henry Kaiser, Gene Wolfe, Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Rikki Ducornet, Holly Phillips, Stephen R. Donaldson, K.J. Bishop, Michael Swanwick, Ellen Kushner, Daniel Abraham, Jay Lake, Liz Williams, Tanith Lee, Sarah Monette, Conrad Williams,  Marly Youmans and sixty odd other contributors have in common?

Answer They were all asked the following question: What is Last Drink Bird Head?

Each of these writers considered this question in mandatory seclusion and, after literally many minutes of  thought, wrote down their answer in 500 words or less.

If you’re thinking: this sounds like the sort of crackpot scheme that Jeff and Ann Vandermeer would cook up, you’d be spot on. And you’d also be right in supposing that they’d enlist the talents of their regular artistic comrades – Scott Eagle, Eric Schaller and John Coulthart – to turn their crackpot scheme into a stunning looking artefact (that also functions as a flip book!). And while you’re riding the Supposition Express, let’s take it to the terminus of logical conlusion. Given only the tiny germ of those four words to work with, every single writer has come up with something unique. These stories are surprising and powerful and entertaining and funny and…well, yes, short. And best of all – it’s all been done in support of an excellent literacy charity.

Last Drink Bird Head is being launched at the World Fantasy Convention on October 29th, and I’ll be picking up my own copy of what is certain to become a hugely collectible item there. If you’re going, I’ll no doubt see you there, but if you can’t make it you can pre-order the book direct from the publishers at a $5 discount.

You want a sneaky peak to see what I’m talking about? Check out this Last Drink Bird Head action, right here for Astounding! Images! and Tantalising! Excerpts!

What’s that? What was my answer to the question? Well, I’m flattered you should ask, but all I can say is it surprised me as much as anyone. Here’s a taster, but you gotta buy the book to find out what it means.

Margueritte reties her cloak, clutches the flask, and climbs. The steps are slick, but the tread is deadened by gravel and ash, supplemented by ropes of wrack, screes of shells and delicate bird bones.

Her steps crunch only softly. Buoyed, she runs, reckless of the wind, but as she ascends she gains gravity. Wrack pops, shells crack, bones snap. A gust billows the cloak into a sail, but she’s still too heavy. Margueritte’s instinct is split: to control the cloak or to let it flap and drink from the flask. Safety wins, and only once she is secure does she heft the flask.

Just a drop and save what remains.

Catch up

A general newsy catchy-upy sorta thing (sorry, Jim):

Had a braw time at the Glasgow Cabaret Festival in June. Fabulous acts, great company, wonderful nights out.

Had a just-as-braw-but-in-a-different-way time holidaying in North Ireland a couple of weeks ago. First few days were spent in a charming converted station halt up on the North Coast. Lots of paths to be walked, scenery to be seen,  old shit to be ogled at. Then we followed that up with a slightly more interactive weekend visiting friends in Belfast. We had Craic, and it was, of course, good.

And suddenly, there’s stuff coming up too:

Music stuff – if you’re a fan of The Smiths you might be interested in this night coming up tomorrow at King Tuts. I’ll be joining San Fran And The Siscos once more for a few songs. Should be good fun.

Spoken word – if you’re spending more of your time in Edinburgh than Glasgow at the moment, I can recommend making your post-dinner entertainment pick Underword spoken word night. We were royally entertained by Andrew C Ferguson on our visit last week, and the remaining line-up looks awesome. Great change of pace from the “edgy” stand ups and manic musicals. Of special note, of course, are tomorrow’s show by the mighty WordDogs and Sunday’s double-header featuring Hal Duncan and Richard Mosses.

Gigs – really, really, REALLY looking forward to seeing Miss Amand F. Palmer in Edinburgh on Saturday.

Cabaret stuff - the Bongo Club Cabaret is an Edinburgh Fringe institution and next Friday the 28th will see the Fringe debut of Miss M. de Saw and Mr B. Finkle esq. Come along and be bewitched, but bring a hankie.

Book stuff – first new publication to announce for a wee while is my inclusion in the charity flash fiction anthology Last Drink Bird Head. Edited by the Famous Vandermeers, authors were instructed to come up with a story suggested by just those four words. An interesting exercise, resulting in a very strange story from me indeed. Really looking forward to reading what other authors made of the challenge – especially given some of the names on that list. Copies will be available from around the end of October, but I’m sure they can be ordered somewhere if you look hard enough.

That’s it for now (but isn’ that enough to be going on with?)

Subterfuge Review

Nice to see this very generous review of Subterfuge appearing in Strange Horizons today.

Sad news about Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror

Gavin Grant made an annoucement today to the effect that this year’s YBF&H won’t be published. It seems possible that the series will be revived at some point, but for the moment that’s the end of what I’ve always thought of as the best annual collection of fantastical stories out there.

I eulogise at length, but it should suffice to say that every volume if YBF&H I opened I discovered a writer that was new to me, and that I instantly loved. You really can’t ask for any more than that.

Many thanks to editors Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, Gavin Grant, and (previously) Terry Windling for going to such great extremes to provide such an eclectic, exciting range of fiction, and to everyone at St Martin’s press for making it happen every year.

Interzone and me

So, yes, officially, my story Spy Vs Spy will be appearing in the next issue of Interzone.

I talk about Interzone quite a lot on this blog: a/ because it’s personally important to me and fundamentally linked to my development as a writer and b/ because it remains a damned good read.

And it has REALLY pretty covers.

Get someone to get you a subscription for Christmas. You won’t regret it.

In fact, while we’re recommending gift ideas, you might like to consider NewCon Press’s Subterfuge. It’s selling well, and the early reviews are excellent.

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Various Variety

Being, in the main, a round-up of random stuff from the last week. It’s been one of those weeks.

• Life is so a Cabaret - spent the weekend in London watching various varieties of cabaret performance. Most especially lovely to see Miss Leggy Pee taking her unique brand of charming on the road to such exotic locations as Vauxhall and Stockwell, but other treats included the sharp-tongued talents of Dusty Limits and Myra DuBois and the rock and roll antics of Holy Ghost Revival. On the other hand, there was a woman with a dodgy French accent talking to a penguin puppet and attempting to play a teapot through a hose.
• For Art’s Sake – and squeezed into the interstices between the cabaret we enjoyed the weans’ cakefest and consumed more Bacon at the Tate than can possibly be healthy. Not sure about the Turner Prize though. The common reaction seemed to be: “pile of toss”, and who am I to disagree.
• Treat him well, he is your Brother (for a day) – Monday night was the annual Brother For A Day variety event in support of the Terence Higgins Trust. More cabaret, more variety, a new act from Miss Pee and a new look for the old fella, but he’s not fooling anyone. And I won a tarot reading in the raffle – which will be interesting.
• I’ve heard the word and the word is DOG – Wednesday was spent at the always entertaining WordDogs. Really nice to see new readers taking part, and some awesome stories being performed. Hopefully the next one will be soon.
• Pirate Music – my infamous pirate-musical story (What? It’s a pirate story written as a musical! What’s so hard to get?) is FREE to download from Keep To The Code – the official fan site for Pirates Of The Caribbean. It’s an exclusive tie-in taster for Fast Ships, Black Sails the stunning new anthology edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, and featuring  exciting piratey stories by Michael Moorcock, Naomi Novik, Garth Nix and many other great writers. The indefatigable Vandermeers have been giving us a sequence of genius anthologies over the last couple of years, and this one looks every bit as entertaining as the rest. Stick it on your Christmas list now – it’ll go nice with the parrot and the festive hamper of ships biscuits and grog.  (Ps. Drop me a comment here if you like the story – I’m genuinely interested in reader reaction to this one).

• Further extra pub news also – Last but not least, there’s a whisper that my story Spy Vs Spy will surface soon in Interzone. Shh! Tell no-one, you never know who’s watching on these internets.

Aftercon

So, Newcon went well. Three days of chat, drink, chat, drink, the occasional panel (I was on one, but wasn’t able to offer much of a contribution) and lovely books.

Top five moments:

• Meeting up with friends – Gary, Andrew, Michaela, Sam, Paul, Al, Heather, Debbie, Tiffany, Chaz, John (of course), Chris, Tony (but no Eric, sadly) and actually getting time to talk to them for a change as a result of the membership being so petite, and making many new ones too
• Understanding why Resurrection Cola is so named, and being glad to see the restorative effects of the convention experience taking effect too
• Getting that old inspiration rush once again, boosted by – rather than dampened – public humiliation by certain well kent faces in the business. I shall never watch Family Guy in the same way again.
• Holding the marvellous Subterfuge anthology in my sticky little hands
• Una McCormack’s story “The Great Gig In The Sky” in said book, read on the long journey homeward.

Newcon was well timed for me in a multitude of ways, and I’ve rolled out the other side of it in great creative shape. And that – as they say in the hokey-cokey – is what it’s all about.

Roll on Eastercon.

In with the New/Ain’t no lie

Conventions. I love them. They come at just the right times to wrench you out of the workaday and let you just hang out with your friends in a bar, for three or four days. Usually, I do two a year. Eastercon at, well, Easter, and Fantasycon in September. Occasionally, if I’m feeling flush I might fly over to World Fantasy, but those two are my routine. This year, for various and banal reasons, I had to miss Fcon, but I’m making up for it this coming weekend with Newcon in Northampton. Guests of honour are Iain M Banks, Ken McLeod and Storm Constantine, and there will be a whole bunch of other writery types in attendance too. So, if you’re in the area, I can recommend it.

Also, at Newcon, will be the launch of the Newcon Press anthology (yes, they’re related – there’s two incredibly hard working and enthusiastic men called Ian behind the whole thing).  The Newcon Press anthology series has now reached its 4th volume (5th if you count the BSFA 50th anniversary book, Celebration), and they have all carried a great mix of well known names and newcomers in the UK SF scene. The new volume, titled Subterfuge, looks like it will be no exception. There are new stories by John Meaney, Neal Asher, Pat Cadigan, Tanith Lee, Tony Ballantine, Juliet McKenna and Gary Couzens (and I was delighted to contribute a little something too).

So, if you make it to Northampton – see you at the launch.

AbFab Whitby

So, over the weekend the postman dropped a very welcome jiffy bag on my mat. It was something I’ve been looking forward to for a fair while now, and I’m delighted to announce the arrival of Fabulous Whitby.

This is the second in what looks hopefully like it might be a series of short story anthologies themed around places in Britain. Its highly entertaining predecessor was Fabulous Brighton, and from the couple of dips I’ve managed between the pages so far, Fabulous Whitby looks like being even better. Editors Sue Thomason and Liz Williams have drawn together seventeen intriguing tales set in the environs of that town that presides over East Yorkshire’s coastal crags and I’ll be impressed if there’s not one mention of Dracula in the whole volume. Particularly looking forward to reading the stories by the editors themselves, and also Chris Butler, Alastair Rennie and Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold.

Oh, and there’s one by me in there at the end too. Although The Codsman And His Willing Shag was written specifically for Fabulous Whitby, due to the vagaries of publishing schedules its inclusion here is technically a reprint.

There may be a launch event at the Whitby Gothic Weekend, but at this moment that’s unconfirmed, so if you fancy getting your hands on a copy you can get it direct from the publisher.

Who knows where the Fabulous Albion people will set their compass for next? I’m voting for Fabulous Ecclefechan, but am not sure if they could fit that on the cover.

Squidpunk!

In which the Vandermeers’ seeming boundless energy, creativity and inventiveness that has brought the world so many neat anthologies in recent times (Steampunk / The New Weird / FastShips, Black Sails) finally made them jump the shark…erm, squid.

I hear they’ve even got Margaret Atwood writing a squid-in-space piece.

Can’t wait!