Liz Argall

Conflux 6 Virtual Mini-Con

Saturday, August 29th, 2009 | News update | No Comments

As I mentioned a very long time ago, I’m a guest panelist at the Conflux Virtual Mini-Con. Conflux is a wonderful Speculative Fiction Convention held in Canberra, Australia every year in October. I’ve had a wonderful time every time, with top notch panels, interesting workshops and lovely people.

The panel will be starting in a few hours (Sunday 30 August for folks in Australia, Saturday 29 August for folks in the US) and will be archived. I’ve ‘been’ to a few virtual festivals (although this is the first time I will be guesting) and have been surprised at how much I have learned either during the festival or after the festival has officially ended. So check it out, either soonish, participate in real time and ask squirly questions, or check it out later and see what gems of knowledge have been casually dropped. Conflux Virtual Mini-Con coming to the interwebs near you, wherever you are.

Because it is hard (and because spaces are important)

Monday, August 24th, 2009 | News update | 8 Comments

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

John F. Kennedy – September 12, 1962.

Words on our wall. My sweetheart just put them at the entrance to our room – next to bible thick books in leather, a papier mache chicken and stands above library books, new books and old books from Powells and a few precious tomes from Australia.

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Clarion reading list

Friday, August 14th, 2009 | clarion | 3 Comments

Updated 5 September – as I go through my notes and find more recommendations.

One of the many joys of Clarion was to get recommendations for good reads from wise teachers and co-clarionerds. This is an incomplete list, I forgot to jot down the list on the fridge and I’m sure there are ones mentioned in passing that I neglected. My dear co-clarionitics, if you read this and see absences and would like to recommend… or indeed other wise minds who read this and want to add to my enormous reading list please make some suggestions. It’s delightful to have such a rich and diverse list.

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Tags: reading, workshops

Clarion by the numbers

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 | News update, Technology and design | No Comments

Clarion Writers Workshop is over for 2009. Wow.

Going by the numbers:

• 6 stories critiqued, 5 stories written (my first story was on day 1 and was a submission story)
• One novel proposal, outline and first chapter written and critiqued
• 30 pounds of paper brought home containing those critiques
• Critiquing many many stories, I want to get a full count of stories, pages and words, I shall ask
• Including naps in the afternoon I averaged 5 hours sleep a night/day over 6 weeks
• Living with 17 other people intensely creating for 6 weeks
• 6 amazing teachers
• One incredible experience

People writing descriptively about it:

• Ken Schneyer’s collated posts
• Mishelle’s blog has posts
• So has Tiffani

Clarion is seriously good stuff for any writer, and given the close relationship between genre fiction and comics I particularly recommend that comics writers get their short story writing hats on and go for this experience as well. I’m excited by how this short story workshop can enrich comics as a form.

Goodnight all.