Time?

My time is officially at a PREMIUM. There simply aren't enough hours in the day or night.

If you need to contact me, be patient. Very, very patient.

I did catch some time away with family birthdays and whatnot recently, but now, definitely, back to the grind.

Some quick news:
Mark and Amanda at Morrigan Books have bought my story "A Picture of Death" for the Voices anthology (hotel horror - awesome). This brings my forthcoming story tally to:

• 8 originals (including one novella) - in magazines and anthos.
• 7 reprints (including Spanish & French translations and a podcast).
• 11 originals in Shards. (Not to mention the 28 reprints!)

The trade off: I haven't written a word of fiction in months.

Now, back to critting, HorrorScope stuff, and painting the world black.

Contracts and subs

I've been off the short story subs roundabout for much of last year, but in the last few months, I've been determined to rectify this.

I've had two subs rejected for fair reasons (off target subject and a rights issue), and another yesterday rejected (in part) because it was a little offensive. Not bad for a 200 word story! The slush readers reactions varied, but I think the brevity and the possible offensiveness were the culprits. It's actually a fairly innocuous piece (it's not even horror!) - unless you're a devout Catholic. Not to worry, you'll catch that story, "Virgin in the Mist" in the early pages of Shards.

The last few days have brought some welcome good news on the short story front:

1. "The Cutting Room" has been sold to horror podcaster Pseudopod. This story is available in print form in the truly outstanding Apex anthology Gratia Placenti, and is also due to appear in the Spanish horror anthology Paura 4. Pseudopod described it in the acceptance email as "delightfully filthy". As far as compliments go, you can't get much better than that!

I subbed to Pseudopod after Trent Jamieson's success there with his excellent story "Tumble" (which also appeared in Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror 2006 edition and was my favourite story from 2005). It's always been a dream of mine to have one of my stories podcast, so receiving the acceptance news was brilliant!

2. I received the contract for my involvement in an upcoming anthology from Morrigan Books. Editor and publisher Mark S. Deniz is like a man possessed with the number of book projects he has on the go. I'm really looking forward to stretching my writing muscles on this story.

3. Dark Wisdom magazine has changed format into a proposed anthology series and online magazine. After querying about my four (!) stories in the 'accepted' pile there, editor William Jones very promptly let me know (tentatively) that three stories will likely go in the anthologies and one ("On Dark Clouds Borne" - flash fiction) will go online. Some might think the end of Dark Wisdom is a bad thing, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what the Elder Signs Press team come up with in the new formats. Books are their forte, so seeing more anthologies come from ESP should be a good thing!


Aside from the subs stuff, I'm having a great time with the AHWA mentor program. Clint, the writer I'm working with, has a bucketload of talent and great potential with horror fiction. Now, I just have to finish off some critiquing and everything will be zen.



Listening to: Home by The God Machine

Damn you all to hell!

He was widely acknowledged as one of the greatest actors of all time. Clearly a man of extremes, he was also a gun advocate, a civil rights activist, and a stoic sufferer of Alzheimer's Disease. At age 84, Charlton Heston has died.

Although his presence was commanding in Ben-Hur and similar biblical efforts, I think this scene from Planet of the Apes (with Heston as astronaut Taylor) best sums up the man's exit from this mortal coil:

[brandishing a rifle]
Taylor (Heston): Don't try to follow me. I'm pretty handy with this.

Somewhere up there in the Christian Heaven, Moses is racing around in a chariot chasing filthy apes with his boomstick. RIP.

HorrorScope stuff

HorrorScope has been going great guns in 2008! We may not be the darlings of the awards set (the tremendously overworked Rob Hood the deserving exception in that regard), but it's tremendously satisfying to be doing the hard yards and putting the runs on the board (to mix my sporting metaphors).

The big milestone is HorrorScope reaching its first 100,000 readers. I never thought we'd reach so many people in such a relatively short time! As I said on HorrorScope, thanks for the loyal readers - and especially thanks to the hard-working editors who form the backbone of HorrorScope. HorrorScope is not a one-man show, it is a co-op based on consensus and a spirit of camraderie. I feel the team have a shared desire to promote Australian dark fiction that is infectious, and I'm proud to be a part of it.

For writers and fans of horror from the 90s, I've conducted an informative and entertaining interview on HorrorScope featuring Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond. This dynamic duo is the first team at the helm of the Australian Horror Writers Association's Midnight Echo e-zine and are a wealth of info on horror over the last two decades. You can read the interview here.

The new additions to the HorrorScope team are really adding to the output, too! In March, we set a new record of 73 posts. It all bodes very well for Aussie horror, in my book.

Keep an eye on HorrorScope over the next week or so for some more intriguing bits and bobs.

PS. Congratulations to Terry Dowling for winning this year's Australian Shadows Award! Congratulations also to the nominees and honourable mentions - I very much enjoyed reading your work as one of the judges. I'll be continuing on as an Australian Shadows judge again this year, and it should be fun!

Amazon author page

In some great news, Chaosium has announced in a recent update that Cthulhu's Dark Cults, edited by David Conyers, is due for an August or September release. It's great (at least for me) because my novella "Requiem for the Burning God", a rip-snorter of a 1930s Lovecraftian Peruvian adventure (with zeppelins and pseudopods!), is filling up a significant portion of the anthology.

The anthology also features stories from Aussies Penelope Love, David Witteveen, and Conyers himself. The whole package looks to be a corker of a read, and it's now available for pre-order on Amazon for a ridiculously good price!

In related news, David has convinced me to set up a fledgling Amazon author page. On Smoke and Mirrors, you'll see a link on the right. All Smoke and Mirrors posts will be syndicated on the Amazon page, so that's exceptionally cool.

Positivity

On re-reading my Swancon post, I think I was running the risk of being a whiner (sleep deprivation definitely plays tricks on the mind), so it's time to dwell on some very positive things that have happened lately.

1. A number of my stories, along with those from a few other members of the Australian Horror Writers Association, have been short-listed for development into a horror-themed television series being considered for the ABC. It's very early days, and I'm being realistic about it all (chances of this getting off the ground are relatively slim), but the exciting thing is at least an Australian horror series is being considered for mainstream Australian TV. It's fantastic to be on the periphery of something like this, with a chance my work and that of guys I respect could be actual make onto the small screen being a real motivator. Aussie horror rocks! Aussie horror writers rock!

2. New HorrorScoper Brenton Tomlinson (BT to his mates) has written a tremendously positive review of Apex Publication's Gratia Placenti anthology. All bias aside, Gratia Placenti is a small press gem - it follows in the steps of Apex's Stoker Award-nominated antho Aegri Somnia, and in my opinion is a far superior book. It was only published in December, and if you're looking for an excellent slice of the horror genre, pick yourself up a copy!

My story in Gratia Placenti - "The Cutting Room" - is probably my best horror story published to date. Here's what BT had to say about the story:

"The Cutting Room" by our own Shane Jiraiya Cummings is an amazing tale that many of you will already be aware of. This was the first time I’d had the pleasure of reading it. Shane easily translates the cold and clinical world of the morgue onto the pages and then adds a good measure of dark to disturb the reader. Then he twists, repulsing and yet drawing in the viewer so in the end, the tale will linger in the minds of the anthology reader for some time to come.

3. Speaking of HorrorScope, I couldn't be happier with how the 'dark little zine that could' is progressing. The six new 'Scopers are just freakin' awesome, and have provided some timely new blood to augment the phenomenal work done by the founding editors. This month, we have broken the record for the number of posts in a month (65, with 2 days to go) and we're soon to reach 100,000 visitors to the site. I've also just added the ability to do run polls on the site, with the first poll (on reading preferences) live on HorrorScope tonight. Go and vote!

I should also add that Robert Hood's winning of the Ditmar Award for Best Fan Writer was incredibly well-deserved. Rob's reviews on HorrorScope, his website, and his blog (plus various other venues) are amazingly insightful and staggering in volume. Nice one, Rob!

On a more thoughtful note, it occurs to me that given there was no official announcement or media release issued, if the Ditmar and Tin Duck Award winners weren't posted on HorrorScope (and also ASif), there would not be a public record of them. It's a small point given the positivity and professionalism surrounding the Swancon awards ceremony, but one worth noting for future awards.