The stuff of dreams – the 2011 NSWWC’s Speculative Fiction Festival #specfic11

Creating dreams, and pursuing them…

Last Saturday at the 2011 NSW Writers’ Centre Speculative Fiction Festival, Pamela Freeman (Blood Ties, Deep Water and Full Circle) said that speculative fiction was:

the kind of story that my mother would say weakens your hold on reality

Pamela Freeman & me.

For me, this summarised the entire festival, with its dreamy ambiance and otherworldly talk, its fantastical array of stellar authors and my unreal presence… You see, I wasn’t supposed to be there!

This coming weekend, my little family and I are moving house. So last Saturday I was supposed to be packing. Having just bought a house and given a huge stash of cash to the government (why, oh why is stamp duty so expensive?), I was also supposed to be cutting back financially. So I figured I’d have to give this year’s NSWWC spec fic festival a miss 🙁

Tweetpitchers: Darren Stephenson, Ciara Ballintyne, me, Lucy Stone, Monique Kowalczyk

Or so I thought…

Luckily for me, the NSW Writers’ Centre decided to run a competition for the best speculative fiction tweetpitch. I entered… and won a free ticket to the festival! Yay! There were so many fantastic entrants, I couldn’t believe my luck, and this set the tone for my whole day-that-shouldn’t-have-been.

Kate Forsyth & Pamela Freeman

After a heart-felt opening by the fabulous Kate Forsyth (The Starkin Crown, Bitter Greens), who used to attend the centre as an aspiring author…

Pamela Freeman and her audience, including: Patty Jansen & Russell B Farr

…Pamela Freeman, a Doctor of Fantasy no less (well, okay, Creative Arts), talked us through the development of speculative fiction, from the biblical tale of Aaron’s rod, through the rise of gritty realism, and into the vibrant genre we know and love today. As the most dangerous animals now on the planet, Pamela suspects that humans continue to create stories about imagined monsters because we need to fulfil our innate desire to have both love and fear in our lives. Well, speculative fiction certainly does that!

Next, a panel of highly accomplished publishers revealed their top tips on how to get published:

Raise your hand if you're NOT an aspiring author. Oh...

• create a voice that yanks readers out of their reality, plus a fully realised world (Clare Craig, Pan Macmillan; Keith Stevenson, Coeur de Lion Publishing)
• offer something different, something original (Zoe Walton, Random House)
• push the boundaries of your creativity and have a gripping story (Stephanie Smith, Voyager)
• don’t worry about trends, concentrate on telling the story you want to tell (everyone!)

"Publishers Talk": Russell B Farr, Keith Stevenson, Claire Craig, Zoe Walton, Stephanie Smith

A plethora of panels then flowed seamlessly one into the other, creating a menagerie of advice from authors (on how to become a publisher author) and publishers (on how they select and develop stories for publication). Here’s what they said, condensed:

"Versatile Artists": Margo Lanagan, D M Cornish, Richard Harland, Pamela Freeman, Kate Forsyth

1. If your mind doesn’t constantly stray to a story, it’s not the right time for you to write that story (Pamela Freeman, Kate Forsyth).

2. Don’t worry about trends, as genre relabelling and genre diversification merely reflects forward movement / progression and prevents the book market from going stale (Richard Harland), really everything is very similar to how it always was, it’s just being marketed differently (Leigh Blackmore).

"Spearheading New Directions in Speculative Fiction": Stuart Mayne, Keith Stevenson, David Henley, Russell B Farr, Alan Baxter

3. Manuscript assessment services can be useful if you need outside opinion, but it may also send you in the wrong direction (Clare Craig, Pan Macmillan), plus publishers will want to make up their own minds about your work (Zoe Walton, Random House; Stephanie Smith, Voyager).

4. Word of mouth is still the most powerful tool (Russell B Farr, Ticonderoga Press)…

5. …but don’t worry about establishing a social media presence in advance, as a good online platform doesn’t always translate into sales (Zoe Walton, Random House).

"Many-Headed Monsters": Kaaron Warren, Karen Miller, Richard Harland, Jack Heath, Leigh Blackmore

6. Getting your work published by a gateway (such as through a publishing house) lends yours work a level of credibility (Keith Stevenson, Coeur de Lion Publishing; Alan Baxter); although reader reviews can do this also (David Henley, Seizure Magazine).

7. Standalone novels are just as publishable in the genre as trilogies (Zoe Walton, Random House).

8. Maximise your income by obtaining multiple sales for each short story (Stuart Mayne, The Mayne Press).

Q&A: D M Cornish, Belinda Murrell, Karen Miller, Richard Harland, Pamela Freeman, Margo Lanagan, Kate Forsyth

9. It’s a good idea to have a side-job that pays the bills, as not many writers earn enough from their writing to do this (Pamela Freeman, Kate Forsyth).

10. If at all possible, marry someone with a proper job who can pay the bills (Pamela Freeman)!

Clockwise from top left: Keith Stevenson, Richard Harland, Alan Baxter, Margo Lanagan, P M Newton, Alice Grundy

Topping off the day with readings of their delicious writing, Richard Harland, Alan Baxter and Margo Lanagan launched the new speculative fiction anthology Anywhere But Earth (Coeur de Lion Publishing, 2011), and P M Newton helped Seizure Magazine’s editor-in-chief, Alice Grundy, launch their Sci-Fi issue.

Me catching up with (clockwise from top left): Richard Harland, Steve Cameron, Kate Forsyth, Steve Cameron (again!), Alan Baxter, Tania Crivellenti, Saul Garnell, Dawn Meredith, Patty Jansen, Margo Lanagan

The beautiful setting and glorious weather made the day almost too good to be true. And, for me, it almost wasn’t.

So, thank you NSW Writers’ Centre – for saving me from a dreary day of packing up house, and instead giving me a dreamy day of story-creation talk and catching up with inspirational friends.

Right… now I’d better get back to those boxes!