Farspace 2 Now Available!

Finally, the long-awaited Farspace 2 anthology is available. I just received the proof today and it looks great. This is the longest Utility Fog Press anthology to date. In addition to the great cover by Carla Ralston and Lisa Cobb, it has stories and poetry from 19 authors, and b&w interior artwork from 3 artists as a bonus.

Here's a copy of the cover to whet your appetite.


Check out Farspace 2 and our other great anthologies at UtilityFogPress.com.

successful Novacon 40

I'm just back from Novacon 40 at the Park Inn, Nottingham. This is my second Novacon and, as with the last, it was a relaxing conference with a comfortable schedule almost completely opposite of the hectic Eastercons. Even more surprising, due to the relatively small scale, this year there were close to a dozen top-level authors in attendance. This lead, inevitably, to some very interesting and often humourous panel sessions. Arguably one of the most enlightening sessions discussed realistic apocalypse scenarios and included two con members who work in emergence response planning.

The conference was also successful for me. Last year at Novacon 39 was the first time I had publicly exhibited artwork and I managed to sell 2 pieces (Alien Seashore and Alone). Eastercon 2010, despite having more people, was less successful for me. So I went into Novacon 40 trying to learn from my past experience and was cautiously optimistic. I brought with me eight pieces and managed to sell four (Showdown, Aliens, Looking In, Full Steam Ahead), surpassing my total previous sales! All of these images will be posted on my Deviant Art (edwinhrydberg.daportfolio.com) and Artwanted (www.artwanted.com/ehrydberg) portfolios shortly and will be available for purchase from the Artwanted site.

Recovering from the writing group

Got a grilling today at my writing group (York Novelists Society) over my first six chapters of Mindform Ascension (wt). Not bad, just...detailed. It lasted over an hour and I felt like I'd been through another thesis defense!

Still, it's all good. That's how you know you have a good group. They're not afraid to ask the hard questions and you're not afraid of them asking the hard questions because we're all there to make our novels the best they can be.

Now to finish-up revisions on chapters 7-12.

It's been a while...

...but now I'm back from the temporary oblivion of distraction, revision, and fixing up the house.

Summer is always...well...summer, full of its own set of distractions. Still, YNS (the York Novelists Society) marched on and, with their helpful comments, I've completed the revision of chapters 1-6 in Mindform Ascension and I've recently begun chapters 7-12. I'm revising in blocks because that seems to be the way the story works, with each 6 chapters (was 4--consequences of revision) being a unofficial segment of the story.

I've thought about sending a package out now to agents, but I see enough significant changes in the story coming that I want to finish the complete revision before passing it around to the big boys (and girls). Really want to get this done, though (hopefully by year's end) because I'm itching to start up again on something new--either the Gateway series or Poisonous Garden.

As for what else is happening--I'm planning to start an Open University course on web design shortly, and I'm going to try and get involved in the Creative Networks West Yorkshire group that meets monthly in Leeds--I hope to find someone to work on a fantasy graphic novel project featuring the unlikely hero Strepcard Zork (I'll post more teasers if/when it takes off).

And still debating whether to go to Novacon in Nottingham or SFContario in Toronto this November. Toronto wins, hands down, on location and I'm curious to hear toastmaster Robert J. Sawyer, but I find I'm getting more into the UK SF writing scene and Novacon is going to have a s**t-load of authors attending. Oh well, more when I decide.

My York Writers' Festival Experience

I was at the York Writers' Festival on Saturday. It's a three day event by I was only interested in the seminars on Saturday (and couldn't afford the entire event anyway).

Saturday was organized as 3 talks and 3 workshops (alternating) and I had my 2 one-on-one agent sessions amidst those.

The opening address by Katie Fford (distant relation of Jasper Fforde) was entertaining and added more data to my theory that 8-10 years seems to be about the modal time span for a hard-working, talented writer to get their first novel published (it took her 8 years). She also presented her ten tips to follow that would guarantee publication--summarized here as: write, write what you love, write in a fashion that works for you and don't get discouraged by any one opinion.

I was fortunate to hear a 'state of the sf/f/h market' presentation by well-repsected UK SF/F/H agent John Jarrold. It's his opinion that the sci-fi market is recovering fastest in the UK, with the US still lagging a bit under the 'only fantasy sells' mentality. Australia is somewhere between the two. And I managed a brief introduction, card grab after the session.

The other workshops I attended were on 'what writers should know about rights' and a kind of day-in-the-life-of-an-editor type talk with Oliver Munson from Blake Friedmann, and Zoe King from Darley Anderson. Both were interesting, but not a lot of new information. However, I did manage to catch Zoe King after her presentation and gave a crude pitch for a science anthology that she was tentatively interested in. I got the go-ahead to send her more details.

My two one-on-one sessions went as well as could be expected. Signing up late meant that anyone with any interest in sci-fi was already booked, but John Elek and Jo Unwin were both friendly and helpful none-the-less. As a great help, Jo gave me the author of a well respected book on editing/revision of novels, something I've been looking for for a while. For anyone interested, check Amazon under Sol Stein (apparently the book titles differ on either side of the ocean).

I also met Isabella White, an independent agent (again, non-sci-fi). Interestingly, both her and John Elek, the first two agents I met, are Canadian (from Toronto). It seemed a little strange going through the last ten years of world travels to come full circle and meet two Canadians at this event.

Anyway, overall I felt the event was worthwhile for me. It almost feels like the official marking of the next phase of my writing career--namely, properly finishing the work and getting it out there. And it taught me that agents are not ogres, most of them are quite friendly and helpful.