ejswift.co.uk

This week’s Night Bazaar and other things

E J Swift — Wed, 30 May 2012 18:35:28 +0000

This week at the Night Bazaar we’re talking about the influence of children’s fantasy on adult fantasy. Monday’s post from Paul Tobin made a lot of really good points, but here is my slightly rambling contribution to this week’s theme:

It’s okay for kids’ books to be fantasy – why not adults?

IZ238 cover, art by Ben Baldwin

The Jan/Feb edition of Interzone magazine (issue 238), which featured my short story THE COMPLEX is now available over on Amazon along with lots of other back issues.

With less than a week to go until the official release date for OSIRIS, you can grab the ebook early over at Baen Ebooks along with other June releases from Night Shade Books.

And today Kirkus Reviews included OSIRIS in its list of science fiction and fantasy books for June. All very exciting!

The ones I wish I’d written

E J Swift — Tue, 22 May 2012 21:06:30 +0000

This week’s theme at the Night Bazaar is all about the green-eyed monster – we’re discussing whether you feel envy as a writer (that would be a yes) and how you deal with it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this post took a little less time to write than some previous ones… Anyway, here it is:

The ones I wish I’d written

What if all the male characters posed like the female one?

E J Swift — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:54:27 +0000

The theme for this week’s Night Bazaar is “Dolls or Action figures? Gender roles in popular culture”. It’s another week where I wish I had a bit more time to write (or alternatively, just wrote quicker. Respect to all the bloggers who post every day – I don’t know how you do it!) because it’s a topic I feel very strongly about. However, I’ve posted a few links to people who talk about gender roles far more eloquently than I can.

Here’s the link to the post:

What if all the male characters posed like the female one?

If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need

E J Swift — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:17:51 +0000

This week at the Night Bazaar we’re discussing The Politics of Science Fiction: Eco-tastrophy. The title to my post was inspired by this lovely gem tweeted by the brilliant @brainpicker earlier today: http://exp.lore.com/post/22663248289/if-you-have-a-garden-and-a-library-you-have

Here’s the link to the blog:

If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need

Please send kittens instead

E J Swift — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:00:48 +0000

This week at the Night Bazaar we are discussing horror – what scares you?

My answer to this in short is: everything. The longer version can be found via the link below:

Please send me a basket of kittens instead

Fantasy? Fantastik!

E J Swift — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:28:04 +0000

This week over at the Night Bazaar we’re talking about why we write fantasy. What can you do with fantasy that you can’t do with other genres?

You can read my post here:

Fantasy? Fantastik!

With great power…

E J Swift — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 22:06:10 +0000

This week’s theme for the Night Bazaar is Steampunk: Fetishizing a time that never was.

I know very little about Steampunk, although I’d like to learn and read more, and was wondering what on earth I would write. Fortunately, the Internet alerted me to the fact that NORTHERN LIGHTS, one of my favourite books, is considered to have elements of Steampunk, so I very happily talked about that. You can read it here:

With great power

OSIRIS cover art

E J Swift — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:18:37 +0000

My Dad has always been immensely particular about the presentation of work, which is probably why, when I used to write stories as a kid, I’d always make them into ‘proper books’ with hand drawn covers and a bit of wool to bind them. (Dad has worked as an animator and graphic designer, so something of that must be lurking in the genes.)

When OSIRIS was first being sent out to publishers, there was much speculation between myself and the other members of Family Swift about what the cover might look like, should I be fortunate enough to get a book deal. Would it feature the characters? Would it depict the city? What would be the colour scheme be? And so forth.

When I saw the artwork for OSIRIS, I was hugely excited, and the final cover is better than anything I could have imagined. So this post is really just to say thank you, to Night Shade for doing such a wonderful job with it, and to the following people in particular:

Sparth, for the jacket illustration
Victoria Maderna and Federico Piatti, for the jacket design
Amy Popovich, for the interior layout and design

Thank you!

Writers Anonymous

E J Swift — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:44:38 +0000

Week 2 at The Night Bazaar – this week our topic is ‘Wolf Pack of One?’. Do we write in a vacuum or participate in workshops? Who do we trust, if anyone, to read our first drafts? Link to my post below:

Writers Anonymous

Falling into science fiction

E J Swift — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:53:56 +0000

This month I’ve started blogging for The Night Bazaar, a group blog for authors with books releasing from Night Shade Books in 2012. Each week we write on a given topic and it’s a wonderful opportunity to exchange thoughts with other writers and find out what we share, or what we do differently. I’ll be blogging every Tuesday until July – here’s a link to my first post:

Falling into science fiction