Sean Williams

Here's my schedule for the rest of the year:

• SwanCon 36/Natcon 50 (April 21-25) 
• LA Times Festival of Books (April 30-May 1)
• Auckland Writers & Readers Festival (May 11-15)
• Sydney Writers' Festival (May 16-21)
• Aurealis Awards (May 21)
• Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts (May 26-June 5)
• World Fantasy Convention (October 27-30)

If you want to catch me at any of these events, check the sites for program details. I'm the Australian GOH of Swancon, an invited guest of LA, Auckland, Sydney and Hay, a possible presenter of an AA, and just hanging out at this stage at WFC. There will also be the odd signing and tour date outside those festivals, which I’ll try to update here.

Sadly, I won’t be at this year’s Writers of the Future bash because it clashes with both Sydney and Auckland. Congrats to all the winners--particularly, and rather parochially, the Australians (I’m told we have a couple this year). My apologies for not being able to be there to celebrate with you.

I'll also miss the Nebulas (clashes with Sydney), which is a shame as I was keen to attend at least one SFWA committee meeting while ORD. Can't be everywhere at once, I guess, but I still feel a little guilty about it.

If you're in Adelaide and want to catch up . . . July is looking good!

So I discovered last week that bits of roasted cacao beans taste really, really nice when mixed with Old Gold, and ever since then I've been making my own chocolates. But in the meantime, work goes on:

Stephen Baxter, Pamela Freeman, Pat Rothfuss and I compare notes on SF vs F over at The Second Bookgeeks SF and Fantasy Author Panel.

Voyager online has published some of my thoughts on Clarion (here and here) among a host of others, all thanks to the hard work of jasoni.

My LibraryThing page is up and running, but it needs some work. So many books, so little time!

I discovered a couple of short interviews on YouTube: here, where I talk about how the Writers of the Future contest changed my life for the better; and here, on the Force Unleashed experience.

Bookseller + Publisher liked The Scarecrow, months ahead of its release: "everything you would expect from a good YA book [but] also quite different from most of its contemporaries. ... There is something in this series for both reluctant and confident readers." The review talked about the positive relationship between characters ("sometimes confused, often frightened but never pathetic"), magic ("another positive point of difference") and landscape, which Black also touched on in its review of the previous book in the series: "A short novel that will appeal to a broad spectrum of readership, The Dust Devils is Sean Williams tapping into the naive youngling in all of us. The villains presented here are the stuff of nightmares, and hold up to the strangest dangers being presented in fiction, today. But more appealing is the landscape itself, a scarred wasteland where not only Dust Devils lay in wait for the hapless traveler. The book bristles with a faint gothic undertone reminiscent of his grandest Space Opera..."

Lastly, Ansible published a letter in which complained about the Gender Analyzer, which responded to my request to analyse this journal with the error message: "Sorry, we can only classify web pages written in english." I can't imagine what I've been writing in instead all these years. Klingon, perhaps?

Oh, and I started a new book.

We're gradually coming to the end of my list of ill-advised odes. Another recording soon. Today's is in "The Demesne of the Deaf (a Song Without Words)".

Gary Reynolds of the excellent Concept Sc-fi blog has just posted a conversation we had before I left for the US, in which we discuss (among other things) Star Wars, the process of writing a novel, and the worst thing I've ever written. As part of the interview, I posted a link to a never-before-released piece of music I wrote on my trusty old Amiga, way back in 1991. Check it out, and forgive that younger version of me his musical crimes!

Here is an excerpt from the text of the interview, just because:

"There's a giddy kind of joy that comes from cutting a page from a draft, consigning to the dustbin words that took so much effort to write, but I know that at [the point of editing] it's not really about the words: it's about the book as a whole, and words are just dots on the back of the leopard. You wouldn't have one without the other, but we all know which one has the teeth.

In other news, I'm still in the US, post-Worldcon and the Writers of the Future bash (at which Australia, for the first time ever, took home the gold--go Ian McHugh!). Tomorrow evening I'll be launching The Force Unleashed in Malibu and then heading straight home. It's been a wonderful trip, as these things always are. Not even the nasty strep infection I picked up in Denver could dent it. Thanks to everyone who talked to me, kept me company in bars or restaurants, organised underground adventures in NORAD, and put up with the occasional sleep-deprived rant. I love youse all.

Recently I've been slack when it comes to promoting upcoming appearances. My apologies. When I'm nose-down, it's easy to forget about the real world until it comes along and bites me on the arse. Here then, to avoid a nip on my nethers, are some events at which I'll be appearing in the coming weeks. Maybe I'll see you at one of them.

Gencon Australia: "The Best Four Days of Gaming" are almost upon us! I'm honoured to be on the program multiple times--and hoping to rub shoulders with Apollo and Baltar from BSG--from the 3rd to the 6th of July.

AATE/ALEA Literary Breakfast: The Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE) and the Australian Literacy Educators’ Association (ALEA) are holding a massive conference in Adelaide this July. Fiona McIntosh and I will be addressing the morning crowd very early on the 8th.

Port August Writers' Weekend: I'll be occupying a couple of slots on Sunday, July 13, babbling on about SF and publishing.

Denvention: I'll be reading at Worldcon, 5.30pm on Saturday August 9. And appearing regularly at the bar with pink drink in hand.

Writers of the Future: From Denver, I'll be zipping to Malibu for the 24th annual WOTF workshop and celebratory bash (with a number of Australian winners, I'm pleased to say).

The Force Unleashed launch: While in Malibu, just minutes before I get on the plane to come home on August 19, I'll be at Diesel, A Bookstore to help launch the latest chapter in the Star Wars saga. That will be an experience never to forget!

Terra-Nova: Hot and flustered from LA, I'll be speaking at this fun-looking function in Adelaide (guest-starring Aron Eisenberg from DS9) on August 23.

At some point early September there will also be an Australian launch of The Force Unleashed. Stay tuned for more info on that one.

Lastly, Malcolm Walker and I had a lovely chat at Blackwood Library Thursday night, but unless you have a time machine that knowledge won't do you any good. :-)

ETA: There was also the massive Meet the Writers Festival on Wednesday and a chat via eTeachers with kids all over SA last week. Fantastic to see so many kids digging books. Wish they'd had this kind of thing when I was a kid!

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Listening to: Altus - Falling

L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest had a huge effect on me, early in my career, and it continues to inspire and surprise me now, fifteen years later. I have to pinch myself, sometimes.

I returned from the most recent presentation a couple of weeks ago, at which Volume XXIII of the contest anthology was launched into the world. You can see the excellent trailer here. And here is Stephan Martinière's luscious cover. I may have whinged incessantly about the jetlag, despite promising myself again not to, but it was worth every second. (Although I did sleep through a speaking commitment, for which I still feel bad.) It's always a pleasure meeting and getting to know the winners, some of the hottest new writers and illustrators on the planet. Hanging out with my fellow judges is also a highlight. We're all there to work hard and build relationships, and that inevitably involves the odd late night in the hotel bar, or even a quick post-midnight dip (before security throws you out of the pool). Naturally, there are in-jokes. (Hi, Steve!)

Every year the presentation and workshop moves to a different locale, and every year there's something new to see. 2006 featured the beach at San Diego; 2005 was beautiful Seattle. This year it was LA, featuring the robots of JPL and deer on the Caltech grounds. Next year could be anywhere at all--but probably not Adelaide, despite my nagging. :-)

I'm firmly of the opinion now--as if ever had any doubt!--that the WOTF is one of the greatest opportunities new writers can pursue. For me, it started long before I reached the finals. Entering every quarter taught me to meet deadlines, and primed me for the endless lottery cycle of excitement and disappointment that comes with most kinds of story submission. When I did eventually win my third prize in 1992, I received a huge boost from both the workshop and the people I met through it: fellow winners and judges alike.

I came back to Australia with my biggest sale to date under my belt, and was swept up in a media machine that taught me lessons I still employ today. My first TV appearance, my first newspaper article, and my first Ditmar nomination all sprang from that story and the WOTF.

To be invited back ten years later, first as a guest and then as a judge, is an incredible honour. I may be seeing the contest from a slightly different angle now, but I've never stopped learning from it. Tim Powers, KD Wentworth, Kevin J Anderson, Rebecca Moesta and Charles Brown are excellent teachers and wonderful friends--from whom I'm learning an awful lot about passing on the collective wisdom to those coming up behind us. While I may know nothing about art, I do know that Stephen Hickman, Ron and Val Lindahn, and Judy Miller are great people whose company I anticipate more and more with every visit. I look forward to spending time with them. I miss them when it's time to go home. I am so unbelievably spoiled.

So if you fall under the contest's guidelines and have never entered, I say to you: just look at me. The WOTF has defined my career more than any other institution. It gave me early support and encouragement, and it continues to support and encourage me now. I am blessed with a place in a community I would never have encountered but for these annual celebrations. Every year, I return charged with the kind of pure energy you can normally only get from a good con.

Next year I really am determined not to complain about jetlag. It is, after all, a very small price to pay in order to be part of this event. And I hope to see some more Australian finalists too. We've had a lot of success so far (Shaun Tan, Cat Sparks, Lee Battersby, et al) and I know there are more to come.

In 1993, I swore I'd come back as a judge. In 2007, I'm looking forward to the day when we have sufficient local winners to fill a WOTF spin-off anthology. If it hasn't happened by 2017, I'll eat my signed copy of Volume IX. :-)

After my surprise second-place in the now-legendary Daikaiju limerick contest, I barely dreamed the day could get any better.

Then Amanda handed me this welcome home present, and my life was complete!



I know some readers and reviewers think that phrase maddening, but I find it as inoffensive and invisible as "but", "the" and "and". For me, it's become part of the punctuation. The strong, silent part, of course.

So, anyway, I'm home now. Email appears to be working again, kinda. I'll have something to say about Writers of the Future (which was a blast) once I get my head together...

On this bitterly cold Adelaide morning, my bones are uncharacteristically eager for some luscious Northern Hemisphere weather. As it happens, they're going to get exactly what they wish for.

Tomorrow, I'm heading off to the Writers of the Future 2007 Awards Ceremony in California. Highlights will include hanging out with an amazing bunch of people--including new and past winners, like Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Jay Lake and Steven Savile--plus a tour through legendary JPL.

I'm also filming an interview that will be used to promote The Force Unleashed, closer to its release date. And maybe I'll catch an episode of Flight of the Conchords "live" while I'm there.

It only seems like last week that Amanda and I returned from honeymoon, so I'm not exactly looking forward to the long haul across the Pacific. But it will be totally worth it. Every year, I come home from the awards ceremony totally recharged. Given the schedule I have coming up, it's perfect timing.

I finally have a Flickr account (here) containing photos that range from the professional (Writers of the Future) to the personal (dusty imprints of my arse). I'll post anything that takes my fancy, in no particular order.

My favourites at the moment are the photos of me and Garth Nix sitting in the original TV series Batmobile. That's about as close to fannish heaven as I'm ever going to get.

And speaking of Worldcon... I prepared a speech for one of my panels that didn't end up being used. It's about the flexible nature of humanity--whether it's changed in the past and should change in the future. I've put it up in the "Opinions" section of the web site. If you're interested you can download it here.

The Writers of the Future bash was amazing fun, with new and old friends combining to make it just as mind-blowing as ever. I'll post something more profound than that soon, when photos of the event appear online. I'm in LA now and absolutely knackered (and very glad to have a working stereo again). In lieu of something topical, here's a piece I wrote a couple of weeks ago for a newsletter in Tamworth, with thanks to Mark Snyder for inviting me to contribute.

Like many writers I know, I can pinpoint the moment I fell in love with the speculative genre. For some it was The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia, often passed on from a well-meaning parent, uncle or aunt. I was perhaps five years old and considered too young for such advanced texts. For me it was The Children's Sinbad, an adaptation by F. H. Pritchard who also produced kids' readers of classics like Brer Rabbit and Uncle Remus and collections of humorous essays. This thin tome, which I still have, was a gift from my mother. There's a hand-written note in the front identifying it as a presentation from the Miltalie Methodist Sunday School in 1953. Perhaps they would have given her a different book had they known what kind of chain reaction it would trigger in the mind of her son, twenty years later.

Why this book? What kind of bomb, exactly? Well, up until that point, the only exposure to anything fantastical I'd experienced had come through fairy tales, cartoons on TV, and the movies of Walt Disney. They were fun but not especially stimulating. Looking back on the adventures of Sinbad the legendary sailor, I can see key similarities between them and every other speculative story I had been exposed to: exotic lands, wild adventures, and improbable creatures. There was, however, one important difference. Sinbad survived his seven voyages not by breaking the laws of physics or waving a magic wand. He endured by virtue of his wits.

Here was a story combining the two things that later in life I would come to love most about speculative fiction, and science fiction in particular. All fiction begins with the question "What if...?" That question, given free reign, allows glimpses of worlds that not only do not exist in this universe, but can not exist. What value do they have, then? Their value lies in encouraging people to think out of the box--of exploring every possibility, no matter how improbable. The exercise of imagination is one we frequently let slip in adulthood, to the detriment of ourselves as individuals and of our species as a whole. Speculation is the juice that fuels our waking dreams, and such dreams can change the world.

Speculation is useless, however, without reason to back it up. The partnership between imagination and the scientific method drives every aspect of society today, unseen for the most part (such as technology relying on physics or chemistry far beyond matriculation levels) and sometimes vilified by people who forget that these two pillars separate us from blind nature, with its dead-ends and its absence of morality. Science fiction is the only avenue for writers driven to seek truths beyond the here and the now (and the "us") to see what possibilities await.

So...that's where it all started. The Children's Sinbad led to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, A Wizard of Earthsea and The Dark is Rising. From there it was an easy step to Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein and the other Grand Masters of science fiction. And from there, perhaps, it was inevitable that I would one day begin to flex my own speculative muscles, and produce the stories I have written so far. I hope that one day, somewhere, one of my stories will inspire a child in ways I cannot presently imagine, so Sinbad's legacy will live on forever.

A couple of pleasant pre-Xmas items:

(1) Geodesica: Ascent has been nominated for an Aurealis Award in the Science Fiction section. (Follow the link for the complete list of nominations.) Results announced in Brisbane Feb 25.

(2) I've been asked to be a judge for the Festival Awards for Literature, announced at Adelaide Writers' Week in March next year. The reading schedule will be a bit stiff (107 books arrived a couple of days ago, all due to be read by mid-January) but it'll make a nice change from writing... and judging the WOTF... and making merry. :-)

Cheers,
Sean