News and Events

Book View Café

On March 11th, Chaz officially became a member of Book View Café, a consortium of authors in all genres who have come together to promote their work, using internet technology to offer both free and paid-for content. He says:

"It is of course really truly true that the world is changing, fasterbthan may be entirely comfortable and not always for the better. For writers, there have been seismic shifts in career-path and access both ways, to the industry and to the reader. We're all still exploring what this means, and what the implications are.

"Some aspects, though, are just unequivocally good. When I was a teenager exploring science fiction, the classic stories were still regularly reprinted in collections and anthologies; I could listen to older fans talk about the roots of the genre, recognise most of the work they discussed and know that a little diligent searching would turn up anything new to me.

"No longer. Partly that's just a function of size - there is so much more SF these days, both backlist and new, nobody can keep on top of it all - but it's also a marker for how the market has changed. Only bestsellers stay in print, older work is seldom reprinted at all; what's true for novels is doubly true for short fiction. We are in danger of losing the heart of the genre, the stories that brought us to this place.

"Or we would be, if it weren't for the internet. Unequivocal good: we can recover, we can rediscover, we can share. Writers can bring lost work directly to their readers. Which is why I love sites like Book View Cafe, and why I'm thrilled to be invited to sit at a table in the corner and lay out some stories of my own. Just look at the company I'm keeping...!"

BVC seem as pleased to have Chaz on board as he is to be there: "We're very excited to have Chaz joining Book View Cafe," said Sarah Zettel, Book View Café's Managing Director. "He is a unique voice in both the fantasy and YA fields, and we feel he'll bring a fantastic new energy to the Cafe."

ChazCon California

You don't have to be in California to drop in to the Book View Café - but if you are, perhaps there's a ChazCon event coming to a bookshop near you:

Saturday 13th March, 3.00pm: reading/signing at Borderlands, San Francisco
Saturday 13th March, 7.00pm: reading/signing with Malinda Lo at SF in SF, San Francisco
Monday 15th March, 8.00pm: Attending the regular meeting of the Bay Area Science Fiction Association in Sunnyvale - not reading or signing or anything in particular, just hangin' out.
Saturday 20th March, 3.00pm: signing at Dark Carnival bookstore, 3086 Claremont Ave, Berkeley

Coming Out

With the permission of Del Rey, Chaz'z US publisher, we are now able to reveal what Chaz has been doing for the past three years - in addition, that is, to writing some wonderful short stories. He has been winning rave reviews for his fantasy sequence, Moshui: the Books of Stone and Water published under the name of Daniel Fox.

Dragon in Chains was published in January 2009; fantasy author Kate Elliott described it as "a compelling blend of high-stakes action, well drawn characters who I really cared about, and a gorgeously painted landscape," and said "This is the kind of fantasy I love to read." Order Dragon in Chains from Amazon.UK or from Amazon.com.

Volume two, Jade Man's Skin was published on February 16th; order your copy now from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk.

Or visit Daniel Fox's web site to learn more.

A Fantastic Birthday

It seems like no time at all since I was announcing here that Chaz was involved with a new initiative called The Write Fantastic, an alliance of fantasy writers to promote their profession and their books. But it was five years ago, and the Write Fantastic have continued to grow and to thrive, taking on new members and new ideas. And now they are celebrating their fifth birthday with two exciting firsts:

The Write Fantastic's First Day Event: at the Jacqueline Du Pré Building, St Hilda's College, Oxford on May 8th 2010.
Chaz will be there, and so will a star-studded cast of TWF members old and new, plus guests: see The Write Fantastic's web site for up to date list.
The Write Fantastic's First Anthology: of original stories will be launched at the event.

Thereafter, watch out for other Write Fantastic events through the year: they will, for example, be turning out en masse for Alt.Fiction in Derby on 12th June.

New stories in print

Not only is Chaz currently nearing the end of a very long story (he is now working on the final draft of the third and last volume of Moshui: the Books of Stone and Water), he has also been writing a number of short - and short-short - stories. Not counting The Ferry, the Chain and the Black Black Water, since this has been published only in the sense that Chaz read it at Phantoms at the Phil on Twelfth Night, January 6th 2010, the newest of these are:

Hothouse Flowers: or, The Discreet Boys of Dr Barnabas will appear in The Bitten Word, an anthology of vampire stories from NewCon Press, which will be launched at the World Horror Convention in March 2010.
Quinquereme of Nineveh, a short-short SF story was published in Nature on 28th January 2010
The December 2009 issue of Icarus magazine publishes Walking at the Speed of Light, More Slowly, praised by one reviewer as "Thoughtful and engaging" (available from Lethe Press)
White Skies is Chaz'z contribution to When It Changed, a new Science Fiction anthology from Comma Press, edited by Geoff Ryman, which brings together writers with professional scientists. Other stories in the anthology are by Justina Robson, Paul Cornell, Sara Maitland, Ken MacLeod, Gwyneth Jones, Liz Williams and others. When It Changed was reviewed in The Guardian, December 2009, and Chaz'z story was picked out as one of the outstanding stories in an enjoyable collection (another contribution, Sara Maitland's Moss Witch, was runner up for the BBC Short Story Award). It is available from Comma Press, or from Amazon.
Chaz has also contributed a story to a recent Horror anthology, Hellbound Hearts, published by Simon and Schuster, in tribute to another master of the horror genre: Clive Barker's iconic masterpiece The Hellbound Heart, the novella adapted into the film Hellraiser, unleashed a new mythology of horror, brilliantly conceived and born of the darkest imagination. In addition to Chaz'z story 'Tis Pity He's Ashore, the book has a Foreword (and a cover) by Clive Barker, and a great list of contributors - not least a new collaboration between Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. Order Hellbound Hearts from Amazon UK now.

And in 2011, PS Publishing will publish his SF novella, Rotten Row, accompanied by the short story Terminal, set in the same universe, which was short-listed for the 2008 BSFA Award for best short story.

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