Author Archives: Marty Young

HWA Roundtable 14 – Audiobooks

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The HWA’s 14th Horror Roundtable is coming up later this week over on the HWA website, and it will focus on Audiobooks. Here are the details.

When: 18 December, 2013
Time: 9pm EST (use the Time Zone Converter to find your local time: for those on Sydney time, this is 19 Dec at 1pm)
Special Guests: David Niall Wilson, Jeffrey Kafer, Scott Jacobi, and Kevin Pierce

Audiobooks: The digital age has seen the popularity of audiobooks skyrocket; it is now a billion dollar industry, with a >30% growth rate in past few years and no signs of slowing. In a busy world, audiobooks are providing a way for us to get in our reading time even when we can’t sit down with an actual book; now we can ‘read’ while driving to work, working out at the gym, cooking dinner, or even doing the housework. And cooler still, you can synch from your ebook to the audio-version seamlessly. But how do authors and publishers get quality audiobooks made? What’s involved? And what are some of the pitfalls to look out for? Our guests for this roundtable have been involved in all aspects of audiobook creation, from narration, production studio engineering, to publishing, so come along and find out what they have to say.

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Here’s how the HWA’s Horror Roundtable works:

1. The Horror Roundtable will run every month on the HWA blog. You do not need to register to follow the discussion, or to post comments/questions.

2. For each Roundtable, a group of special guests will be invited to participate in a discussion on a selected topic. The guests’ profiles will be posted on the website prior to each Roundtable, along with the topic of discussion.

3. The Horror Roundtable will begin with our guests discussing the topic.

4. After the first half hour, the Roundtable will be opened for the general public to comment/ask questions, while our guests continue their discussion.

5. After one hour, our Guests will leave, unless there are lots of comments and questions from the audience, in which case they will remain for a further half hour. After that, our Guests will check back in from time to time during the week to provide further comments on anything posted in that time.

6. At the end of the week, the Roundtable will be closed, but it will remain online so people can go back and read it at their own leisure. No further comments will be allowed.

7. An announcement about the next Horror Roundtable, including the next set of guest profiles, will be posted towards the end of each month.

The HWA Horror Roundtable was the brainchild of Weston Ochse and is managed by Marty Young. If you would like to take part or have a topic that would make for an interesting discussion, please contact Marty at martyyoung2002@yahoo.com.

Past Roundtables can be viewed here.

ill at ease 2 now available

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Following on from the critical success of “ill at ease” comes volume 2, featuring seven original horror short stories, all of them guaranteed to give you the chills. The anthology is published by PenMan Press and available from  Amazon in both print and digital editions.

Joining the original trio of Stephen Bacon, Mark West and Neil Williams this time are Shaun Hamilton, Robert Mammone, Val Walmsley and Sheri White.

You will descend into an underground train station to uncover a dreadful secret and watch in horror as a paradise holiday turns sour. You will see a bullied boy who’s helped by local history and share the anguish of a father, losing his child in a shopping centre. You will take a trip with a cancer sufferer and share the pain of a couple, desperate for a child. You will discover that history needs to be kept somewhere.

Seven stories, seven writers and you.

Prepare to feel “ill at ease” all over again.

The New Look Carnies

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The new cover for the re-release of Carnies, by Martin Livings, has just been revealed, and it looks fantastic. Coming in 2014 from Cohesion Press.

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The small town of Tillbrook has a secret. One that has been kept for over a hundred years.

Journalist David Hampden needs a good story to resurrect his flagging career. His damaged brother, Paul, just needs to find some meaning for his life.When David is alerted to a century-old carnival, the idea of a feature story is too good to pass up, so he drags Paul along to Tillbrook to act as his photographer. What they find is darker than they could ever imagine.Paul becomes part of the exotic world of the Dervish Carnival, est. 1899, and David must risk everything to save his brother. Even though Paul might not want to be saved.

Come on in, and enjoy the show. No photos allowed.

More details soon…

Warren wins 2013 ACT Writers’ and Publishers’ Fiction Award

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Through Splintered Walls, the short story collection by Bram Stoker Award nominated author Kaaron Warren, has won the 2013 ACT Writers’ and Publishers’ Fiction Award.

The 2013 ACT Writers Centre Award winners were announced at the end-of-year Christmas celebrations, held on 12 December at the Bogong Theatre in Gorman House Arts Centre, Braddon.

About Through Splintered Walls (Twelfth Planet Press, 2012):

Country road, city street, mountain, creek.

These are stories inspired by the beauty, the danger, the cruelty, emptiness, loneliness and perfection of the Australian landscape.

Paperback: $18.00 + postage
Ebook: $5.95

‘Every Warren story is a trip with no map.’ – Gemma Files

‘Her fiction shifts across genres smoothly and intelligently, never settling for the easy path… she doesn’t flinch.’ – Andrew Hook

‘As with most of the best horror writing … the power of Warren’s strongest stories comes from the mirror they hold up to our everyday practices and prejudices.’ – Ian McHugh

Shirley Jackson Award winning author Kaaron Warren has lived in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Fiji, She’s sold many short stories, three novels (the multi-award-winning Slights, Walking the Tree and Mistification) and four short story collections. Two of her collections have won the ACT Publishers’ and Writers’ Award for fiction, and her most recent collection, Through Splintered Walls, won a Canberra Critic’s Circle Award for Fiction, two Ditmar Awards, two Australian Shadows Awards, an Aurealis Award and a Shirley Jackson Award. Her stories have appeared in Australia, the US, the UK and elsewhere in Europe, and have been selected for both Ellen Datlow’s and Paula Guran’s Year’s Best Anthologies.

She was shortlisted for a Bram Stoker Award for “All You Can Do is Breathe”, and was Special Guest at the Australian National Science Fiction Convention in Canberra 2013. Kaaron will teach a workshop at next year’s Aradale Creative Writing Retreat in February. You can find her at http://kaaronwarren.wordpress.com/ and she Tweets @KaaronWarren

About the Awards:

The ACT Writers’ and Publishers’ Awards are an Australian literary award presented by the ACT Writers Centre for the best books in the categories of non-fiction, fiction, poetry and children’s literature written in the Canberra region.

The full list of winners and highly commended for 2013 can be found here.

Insert Title Here open to submissions

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Submissions are now open for the new unthemed speculative fiction anthology, Insert Title Here, from FableCroft Publishing.

Guidelines are as follows (taken from FableCroft’s website):

Stories should be between 2,000 and 12,000 words and contain speculative elements – science fiction, fantasy and horror and their sub-genres are all welcome, but we recommend researching FableCroft’s past projects for an idea of the sort of stories we publish. Generally, no erotica or splatterpunk is desirable. Please query the editor before sending stories outside those limits.

We are seeking original stories only, for first and exclusive world rights (for a period of twelve months, excluding any subsequent Year’s Best reprint request) – no reprint submissions please.

No simultaneous submissions please.

For multiple submissions, please query first.

Submissions open: December 1, 2013

Submissions close: February 28, 2014

Anticipated publication date: August 2014

Electronic submissions only. Please send story as an rtf or doc attachment to fablecroft [at] gmail [dot] com, with the subject line: SUBMISSION: Title of Story

Please be cautious to only submit final, proofread copy – ensure you have checked all your edits and removed all track changes in your document.

The editor will respond with a submission received email within 48 hours, but story selection may not occur until up to one month after the deadline. This anthology is open worldwide.

Payment will be AUD$75.00 and one contributor copy of the print book. Further royalties will apply for e-book revenue – information about royalties will be provided in contract negotiations with successful authors and is dependent on final book details.

Thanks to Jonathan Strahan for the title idea, from his Aurealis Awards acceptance speech in May this year.

Desolation Game: Wolf Creek Book 2

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Coming soon from Penguin Books Australia – DESOLATION GAME: WOLF CREEK BOOK 2. An original prequel novel co-written by WOLF CREEK writer/director Greg McLean and horror writer Brett McBean.

Book Cover: Desolation Game: Wolf Creek Book 2

Mick’s learning, and his schoolroom is a war.

When sharpshooter and killer Mick Taylor searches for a place to keep a low profile, he finds somewhere where his peculiar talents are appreciated: a war. And in Vietnam, an out-of-control sergeant takes the amateur murderer and turns him into a pro.

Back home, Mick makes use of the sick lessons the army taught him, when hapless tour operators bring a Kombi-load of sightseers out his way into the Western Australian desert. Two suspicious flat tyres deliver an engaged Japanese couple, a father and son, a US army vet and his girlfriend, and a couple of cute girls to Mick’s lair. Middle of nowhere, population one. The group finds themselves in hell, as Mick makes sure their once-in-a-lifetime tour stays that way. And though one of the drivers escapes and goes for help, Mick sees no reason to stop the killing spree.

In the second Wolf Creek prequel novel, the cult film’s writer/director Greg McLean and horror writer Brett McBean get to the heart of Australian horror’s most terrifying psycho killer. Is Mick Taylor possessed by some dark power in the landscape itself? Something ancient? Does the Red Centre demand blood?

Focus 2012: highlights of Australian short fiction

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FableCroft Publishing is pleased to announce that Focus 2012: highlights of Australian short fiction is now available from all ebook retailers.

This ebook-only special anthology is the first of a series of yearly collections which will collect the previous year’s acclaimed Australian works. Containing only the most recognised speculative work of the year, Focus 2012 packs a big punch, for just $4.99USD.

Focus2012-Cover2

Focus 2012: highlights of Australian short fiction features work by:

Joanne Anderton – “Sanaa’s Army”
Thoraiya Dyer – “The Wisdom of Ants”
Robert Hood – “Escena de un Asesinato”
Kathleen Jennings – illustrations and cover art
Margo Lanagan – “Significant Dust”
Martin Livings – “Birthday Suit”
Jason Nahrung – “The Mornington Ride”
Kaaron Warren – “Sky”