You can sponsor me – hint hint, nudge nudge.

Maia Blue is Going Home, one of my favourite short stories has found a place to call its own. She’ll be finding print in the Anywhere But Earth Anthology, by Coeur du Lion in late 2011.

Seed Dreams, a short comic magnificently brought to life by Matt Hyunh, will be republished in Sprawl Anthology by 12th Planet Press.

Moving and Traveling

M and I are moving to Seattle! This weekend! Work takes us there and while we are sad to be leaving Portland it’s good to know that I work (working with fabulous people like PlayWrite and Blue Mouse Monkey Design) will take me back to Stumptown regularly. On the down side I have a bit of a crazy travel schedule, popping up and down like a cork. We hope to have a farewell of some sort in Portland soon.

I will also be attending Readercon this year, and fully intend to go to World Fantasy Con (I just need to sort out the logistics). Sadly I shall have to turn in my badge for Comicon in San Diego this year and will not be attending. Living in St Johns in Portland without a car has taught me ‘lite working on public transport skills that I plan to use to their full extent as my travel schedule heats up.

Happy travels all!

Liz

_____

Join us for a magical night of innovative theater and song.

Original work written and directed by young writers in the Portland region and performed by some of our finest actors and musicians.

One day only, 25 May and due to popular demand now with two shows, 5pm or 8pm.

Tickets are free… register now to guarantee a seat

Photography by Stage
Right Performance Photography

You can see my talk here

and you can see the full list of talks here.

All these videos are brought to you by the fabulous folks at Blaze Streaming Media who do cool things like livestream and then archive Roller Derby Bouts for Portland’s Rose City Rollers. If you’ve ever been curious about roller derby I think these are the best videos of it I’ve seen around and every bout they work to make it better.

Mike has been helping out as a camera man (so you’ll see some of his camera work on some of the videos) and he is now an Assistant Coach for Portland’s roller gals. It’s nice to see him skating around (he was speed skater) and I am very proud of him.

2.5 days after owie

I stood up, noticed how absent my feet felt and thought ‘oh dear, I must be very careful as asleep limbs are not supported by muscles and I could do myself an injury. Then I stumbled, my left big toe, freed from the constraints of awkward muscles folded forward under my left foot and then I sort of trod on it. Yes, a new level of clumsiness, I managed to step on my own toe with it’s own foot! There are always new levels to everything. I guess I’m being all I can be whether I like it or not. I felt a distinctly unpleasant sort of twangy feeling and thrashed on the ground for a little while and made little whimpering sounds.

When I got up my toe was still very much attached to my foot and I imagined I would have been thrashing around for a lot longer if I’d ripped some ligament off, so I went to breakfast. In retrospect I should have iced it and strapped it up, but I think it was just grateful everything was still attached. I had a small interlude where I had to sit down so I wouldn’t pass out, but other than that the pain was manageable.

I can curl my toe upwards, but bending it downwards is painful and it’s probably a bit premature to try given the owie it’s recovering from. Walking on it doesn’t hurt so much now that the bruising has come to the surface.

So there you go, for those of you curious, it is possible to step on your own foot with the very same foot. I offer up the photograph of evidence. I strongly suggest you do not repeat my experiment.

I’ve enjoyed thinking about how in 2010 and 2011 would be my years to chase the Campbell dream, to prove myself worthy, to aim high. In a strange twist of fate my first Campbell Award eligible work came out in December 2009, starting the clock a year earlier than I had dreamed (my Campbell bio is now up). I am delighted that Cracked Leather found a place to be published and has been so warmly received. I wouldn’t change it for the world (well maybe the world). It just means my tidy little fantasy of 2010 and 2011 to prove my worthiness for voting in 2012 has been truncated by a year.

The challenge is significant and I am not sure if I will prove my worthiness in time, but it is still worth striving for. I will throw myself as much as I can. This is a challenge to myself and not in competition. I plan to soar with my fellow nominees – we are in this crazy dream together. I will write, I will edit, I will send work to publishers, I will read, I will learn from my peers – as I do every year. But this year I will have an extra spur to my sides that I plan to use. This year will never come again.

2010 is my Campbell year. I’m going to enjoy the challenge.

Someone found my website searching Liz Argall a funny thing. A funny thing is the name of a song I performed once or twice in the folk scene back in Australia. It was perky and poignant, the chorus was twee and yet I liked it; so I always had to get over a sense of awkwardness when performing (and it was no Telephone Song or Snowing Time). It was also the name of an angry poem I performed a few times (even today I have earned more cashes as a poet than a SF writer, though that is about to end).

It feels like such a crazy blast from the past to see “a funny thing” next to my name. Thankyou whoever you were. The poem, written at age 19 seems to be lost to the sands of time. The song, written at the grand old age of 20, had lyrics that included:

Isn’t life a funny thing
Wounds your heart then lets you sing
A thousand songs, oh yeah
Isn’t life a funny thing
Breaks you out then breaks you in
Around and around

And it’s funny how
the sweetest songs come from
Those who say they cannot sing
And do they know the sacred stories hid inside them
Waiting to be revealed?

… man I miss my guitar.<- not lyrics, post lyrics reflection.

Ciao Lovelies.

L

Every time I model for her I learn more about the craft  and it gets more fun. Being a photographer’s model is quite different to life modeling. When I life model (or artists’ model) I am generally visualising how I appear in three dimensional space in a way that is interesting from any angle (or as many as possible), so everyone in the room has something interesting to draw. As a photography model I’m doing everything I can to provide the perfect two dimensional image from a single viewpoint that is fully captured in an instant. The differences are huge! While the differences are huge it’s been nice to see what has transferred over. It’s been especially nice to feel valued for the skills I have from many years life modeling.

So, the henna was applied Wednesday. It took a while, henna on my hands and back and legs. After the henna was applied we took some photos that I can’t show you just yet. Into the evening bandages and straps were applied to protect the henna all over me.

From the belt up

henna bandaged hands

I didn’t take photos of my bandaged legs, one on each calf. My body, convinced it must have been in a horrific accident, insisted that I needed to sleep and recover from whatever strange injury I had. I slept deeply, surrounded by earthy lemon and henna scents.

Then in the morning we peeled back each layer and revealed wonderfully dark henna underneath. I can’t show you most of it yet, delicious things are afoot. Here’s a tiny teaser that doesn’t give anything away…

After several days protecting the henna with home made cocoa butter (my hands feel so good) we girled up and did the photoshoot. I can’t reveal too many details, but I feel soooo pretty. I feel like a real girl girl and a rockstar and a moviestar (no small thanks to having excellent people to model for). I’ll share pretty pics as soon as I can, I promise.

Happy Liz after the photoshoot

]]> http://lizargall.com/2010/01/home-from-a-photoshoot/feed/ 1 http://lizargall.com/2010/01/the-glasses-made-whole/ http://lizargall.com/2010/01/the-glasses-made-whole/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 23:25:51 +0000 Liz http://lizargall.com/?p=477 I hiked out to Asterix Eyewear (though the sign says All American Eyewear) in NE Portland to see if my glasses could be repaired… my ocular vision a little strained from seeing the world through a sagging bandaid repair and a little bit afraid to move my head. Every time I tilted my head down my glasses would fall off and I ended up tucking the arms of my glasses into my hair for greater security.

Once at Asterix Eyewear (there may be buses everywhere in Portland, but oh my they can take a long time to get anywhere) I was told it would be $50 and an overnight job to weld my glasses back together. I looked very sad indeed and said I was willing to wait, wait a long time, but I needed my eyes to get home. The nice guy took pity on this poor Australian with no spare glasses and set to work.

I was told where convenient cafes were, but all felt a bit too far to go without my eyes on, so I waited, listened to The ComicsSpot, watched TED talks, read and tried to get some work done.

And hurrah hooray, an hour and a half later I had whole glasses. Normally he would take longer to test the weld, do a proper paintjob etc, but normally he would have a whole lot more time. The repair comes with a 3 month warranty, so if the weld does not hold I’ll be right. It was a very fiddly job to get all the things to align and I’m very glad to have my eyes back.

It feels mighty nice to have glasses that stay on my face.

Bearskull and glasses

Thanks for all the glasses tips everyone – it looks like it will all come in handy. I have some gorgeous french frames from a friend that I plan to put new lenses into and am seriously tempted by some online cheapo shopping.

So here it is short and sweet:

• They only accept reprints
• Reading period is December 15, 2009, and February 15, 2010
• Their definition of Steampunk is broad (if in doubt send it in)
• Go to Jeff VanderMeer’s website for further info
• Payment will be on publication as an advance against royalties
• Publication in fall 2010 by Tachyon Publication

Please pass it on to other comic creators. Lets put on a good showing and get our comics to exciting new audiences (and in… bookstores!)