Showing posts with label Speculative Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Speculative Fiction. Show all posts

Call for nominations for the SFFANZ Sir Julius Vogel Awards.

Nominations are now being accepted for the SFFANZ 2015 Sir Julius Vogel Awards (see below for link/details) and I have two books that are eligible for the ballot this year: Dreams of Thanatos: Collected Macabre Tales and Corpus Delicti: Selected Poetry.




The nomination period will close at 8.00pm on 31st January 2015. The awards recognize excellence in science fiction, fantasy, or horror works created by New Zealanders and New Zealand residents, and first published or released in the 2014 calendar year.

Anyone can make a nomination and it is free! To make a nomination please email sjv_awards@sffanz.org.nz

Just copy and paste the following info (for one or both) into the body of your email:

WHAT to Put On the Nomination

For Dreams of Thanatos: Collected Macabre Tales

ESSENTIAL Information
This is to enable SFFANZ to verify and process the nomination.
  1. Name / Title of work - Dreams of Thanatos: Collected Macabre Tales
  2. Name of Producer / Author / Creator - William Cook
  3. What the work is i.e. - Collection (Short Fiction)
  4. Year of First Release - 2014
  5. What category you think the nomination belongs to - Professional Awards - Best Collected Work
  6. GENRE - Horror
  7. Contact details of the person making the nomination e.g. email or/and phone number
NOTE : If the only contact details you have are the publisher's contact information on the book you are nominating, that should be sufficient.

HELPFUL Information But NOT Essential
  1. Publisher / Production company name - King Billy Publications
  2. How to contact the producer / author - williamcookauthor@gmail.com, 64 4 385 2456
  3. Other details about the work, that might be relevant - Print, Mobi, Epub
  4. Where to get a copy of the work - Amazon, Kobo, Author
  5. Any other comments you wish to add
 ****************************************************************

For Corpus Delicti: Selected Poetry

ESSENTIAL Information
This is to enable SFFANZ to verify and process the nomination.
  1. Name / Title of work - Corpus Delicti: Selected Poetry
  2. Name of Producer / Author / Creator - William Cook
  3. What the work is i.e. - Collection (Poetry)
  4. Year of First Release - 2014
  5. What category you think the nomination belongs to - Professional Awards - Best Collected Work
  6. GENRE - Horror
  7. Contact details of the person making the nomination e.g. email or/and phone number
NOTE : If the only contact details you have are the publisher's contact information on the book you are nominating, that should be sufficient.

HELPFUL Information But NOT Essential
  1. Publisher / Production company name - James Ward Kirk Fiction (U.S.)
  2. How to contact the producer / author - williamcookauthor@gmail.com, 64 4 385 2456
  3. Other details about the work, that might be relevant - Print, Mobi, Epub
  4. Where to get a copy of the work - Amazon, Kobo, Author
  5. Any other comments you wish to add
 ********************************************************************************

HOW Many Times May You Nominate?


  1. You may nominate as many works as you feel is appropriate.
  2. You may nominate more than one eligible work in the same category. This would suit people who are major fans of one media in particular e.g. people who read a lot of books or short stories.
  3. You may nominate the same work in multiple categories if it fits the criteria of those categories.
  4. You MAY NOT nominate a work more than once in any given category.

The rules, criteria and categories for the awards can be found by clicking this link. Guidelines for nominations can be found by clicking this link.

*Remember - You don’t need to be a member of any group or organization to vote/nominate, so if you've read my eligible work, why not show your appreciation and support by taking a moment to cast a nomination? I'd really appreciate a nomination as it would be a massive boost to my career as a writer if I won an award like this, or even if my work reached the final ballot.

The categories are (my *books are eligible in the underlined categories):

Professional Categories:
Best Novel
Best Youth Novel
Best Novella or Novelette
Best Short Story
 

*Best Collected Work
Best Artwork
Dramatic Presentation
Best Production/Publication

*Best New Talent 
Fan Categories:
Best Fan Writing
Best Fan Artwork
Best Fan Production/Publication 

Special Awards:
Services to Fandom
Services to Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror

 
Once again, the two books I have that are eligible this year are:
Dreams of Thanatos: Collected Macabre Tales and Corpus Delicti: Selected Poetry

Of course, these two titles are just a few of the works eligible for nominations, so have a read, take a look and cast away, me hearties.

Thanks for reading and voting (hopefully).



Story acceptance for upcoming Bizarro Anthology.



I have been venturing beyond the realms of Horror lately. My latest excursion into other-worldly genres has resulted in an acceptance in Bizarro Pulp Press's anthology: Bizarro Bizarro



I wrote my story 'The Colony' many years ago under the influence of a low-strain LSD trip, with a few revisions and the tightening of prose it extended itself into quite a poetic work of short fiction. In the guise of a 'manifesto,' it tells the tale of a deluded literary hack who imagines a colony of versifiers that will revolutionize the canon of western literary tradition. 

You'll have to wait until the official release of the anthology to read it but, suffice to say, I think I like the Bizarro genre - it is so open-ended that anything qualifies as long as it is so whacked-out that it can't fit into any other genre classifications. 

That's my understanding of it, however, if you'd like a more in-depth definition, I stole the following from the home of Bizarro Fiction - Bizarro Central:



"About Bizarro


“The Bizarro literary movement is the ultimate in outsider lit.”
- 3AM Magazine


“The literary equivalent of a David Lynch or Tim Burton film … A rising genre that functions like the cult movie section in your local video store.”
- Horror World


“[Bizarro is] universally intriguing, thoughtful, intelligent and, most importantly, a hell of a lot of fun.”
- The Pedestal Magazine


“Sometimes comic, sometimes violent, sometimes sexually graphic (if not all of the above) and adolescently fearless to offend.”
- Details Magazine


“Bizarro fiction is by turns repulsive, stupid, and crude. But at its best, it is also compelling, intelligent, and well-written. Any literary genre that can be both bad and good at the same time is worth reading.”
- The Guardian

What Is Bizarro?


  1. Bizarro, simply put, is the genre of the weird.
  2. Bizarro is literature’s equivalent to the cult section at the video store.
  3. Like cult movies, Bizarro is sometimes surreal, sometimes avant-garde, sometimes goofy, sometimes bloody, sometimes borderline pornographic, and almost always completely out there.
  4. Bizarro strives not only to be strange, but fascinating, thought-provoking, and, above all, fun to read.
  5. Bizarro often contains a certain cartoon logic that, when applied to the real world, creates an unstable universe where the bizarre becomes the norm and absurdities are made flesh.
  6. Bizarro was created by a group of small press publishers in response to the increasing demand for (good) weird fiction and the increasing number of authors who specialize in it.
  7. Bizarro is like:
    • Franz Kafka meets John Waters
    • Dr. Suess of the post-apocalypse
    • Takashi Miike meets William S. Burroughs
    • Alice in Wonderland for adults
    • Japanese animation directed by David Lynch
Even though the Bizarros are underground cult outsiders they still have gained an incredible amount of respect in the publishing industry, having been praised by the likes of Chuck Palahniuk, Christopher Moore, William Gibson, Jonathan Lethem, Piers Anthony, Cory Doctorow, Poppy Z. Brite, Michael Moorcock, and Charles de Lint, to name a few, as well as the publications Asimov’s Science-fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science-fiction, Fangoria, Cemetery Dance, Publishers Weekly, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Details Magazine, Gothic Magazine, and The Face, among many others. They have also been finalists for the Philip K Dick Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Rhysling Award, the Wonderland Book Award, and the Pushcart Prize."


Here is the announcement/post from the good folks at Bizarro Pulp Press:


Here it is, guys! This list is subject to slight change between now and when the book actually releases. This is also what we are thinking of for the order of the stories that will be featured in this book! I am Very excited about this thing. We have a lot of great names and great stories. If you will notice, we have a super secret story to complete the anthology.

1.Wol-Vriey Lucy in Brain Ceiling World
2. Jeff Burk The Satanic Little Toaster
3. Robert Harris A Smashed Up Salmon
4. Dustin Reade Night Butterfly
5. Marcin Kiszela Dreamsource
6. James Dorr Mr. Happy Head
7. Alan M. Clark and Kevin Ward Ugly Shirt's Quest
8. Edmund Colell Fuck
Your Death, Keep Working
9. Robert Harris Pixelated Nostalgia
10. Sean Leonard Dope-elganger
11. Emily Hundrwadel Body Snatcher’s Remorse
12. Bruce Taylor Four Dreams in Miniature
13. Alan M. Clark and Randy Fox Not About Mrs. Maridu
14. Daniel Gonzales Sitcom Hell
15. Aaron French Shoes
16. Max Booth III A Prescription for Shut the Fuck Up
17. Vincenzo Bilof The Swamp of Girders and Chains
18. P. A. Douglas Pussy Apocalypse
19. Danger_Slater The Monster, the Man, the Building, the Bomb
20. MP Johnson Vagalyn’s Flying Head
21. Todd Nelsen Moon Love
22. Ethan C. Evans and Daniel J. Pendergraft Wildberry Christ
23. Jan Maszczycsn Toy Soldiers
24. G. Arthur Brown The Pitfalls of Modern Gardening
25. Craig Saunders Sleep and the End
26. Meghan Arcuri Plaything
27. Michael A. Rose Civics of Consequence
28. Christopher T. Dabrowski Big Bang
29. Andrew Adams Forget Me Not, Filet Mignon
30 William Cook The Colony
31. Robert Harris Schluck!
32. Alan M. Clark and David Conover All His First Born
33. Tony Rauch Refugees from the Future
34. James Reith As One
35. Gabino Iglesias Looking for Gloria
36. Nick Cato A Path for the New Bride
37. ????




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