The Melbourne launch of Dreaming in the Dark will take place at the Continuum 13 National Science Fiction Convention at 6:00 pm at the Jasper Hotel, 489 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. I can promise everyone a great time…and our authors will be there to read and sign books. Oh, and I just may do some schtick <Grin>. Join us for a drink and nibbles!
As usual, I’ve been remiss in posting to my website. Mea culpa! A lot has been going on, including recovering from my recent PhD. The latest bit of news is that I’ve got copies of my new Holocaust collection Concentration in hand.
Here’s the skinny on the new book (which was officially published in 2016):
http://www.pspublishing.co.uk/concentration-hardcover-by-jack-dann-4173-p.asp
More soon…
Congratulations to James Bradley! His fabulous Dreaming in the Dark story “Martian Triptych” has been selected for inclusion in the prestigious The Best Australian Stories 2016.
The good folks at Dymocks Brisbane will be hosting the launch of Dreaming in the Dark on Thursday, December 8th at 6:00 pm. Dreaming is a showcase anthology of Australian speculative fiction, fantasy, and horror. To quote Locus Magazine:
“Dreaming in the Dark will especially appeal to two groups of readers–those who love words themselves, and those who want an enticing sampler of work by some of Australia’s most talented working writers.”
I’ll be doing some master of ceremonies schtick, and Dreaming in the Dark contributors Paul Brandon, Kirstyn McDermott, Jason Nahrung, Janeen Webb, and Kim Wilkins will be giving some short (and spectacular) readings.
Paul and his wonderful Aria-finalist partner Sarah Calderwood have also graciously agreed to provide a few songs (and some sophisticated sound equipment).
So…sign up and help us celebrate this fabulous volume of “impressive prose, sometimes precise and measured, sometimes poetic” (Locus). Come and help us celebrate this first book from PS Australia! Click on the url below for details:
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/dreaming-in-the-dark-book-launch-tickets-29396355290
Dreaming in the Dark, the first volume in the new PS Australia line, will be out in November; and here’s a sneak peek of the cover:
Our Table of Contents:
Welcome to the Golden Age:
An Introduction of Sorts—Jack Dann
Sing, My Murdered Darlings—Sean Williams
Falling Angel—Paul Brandon
Martian Triptych—James Bradley
Northerner’s Farewell—Rjurik Davidson
Midnight in the Graffiti Tunnel—Terry Dowling
A Right Pretty Mate—Lisa L. Hannett
Eromon No More—Jason Nahrung
Luv Story—Kim Westwood
The Luminarium Tower—Sean McMullen
Neither Time Nor Tears—Angela Slatter
His Shining Day—Richard Harland
The Liquid Palace—Adam Browne
Heat Treatment—Venero Armanno
Snowflakes All the Way Down—Rosaleen Love
Served Cold—Alan Baxter
The Dog Who’d Been Dead—Anna Tambour
Fade to Grey—Janeen Webb
All those Superpowers and What Are They Good For?
—Garth Nix
Burnt Sugar—Kirstyn McDermott
In Hornhead Wood—Kim Wilkins
Moonshine—Simon Brown
And as I wrote in the introduction:
It’s said that one of the characteristics of a good editor is the ability to read out of his or her comfort zone. Well, I can only say that every story in this volume is here because it made me nervous, made me laugh, scared me, made me think, reconsider, or just plain blew me away: i.e. knocked me out. And many of these stories are definitely out of my comfort zone. My response: ‘Oh, joy!’
Not one of the stories was bought (yes, authors need to be paid!) because the author had a big name or because the volume was light on a particular subgenre or because I had to meet a word count. If I couldn’t get the stories, then I’d wait until I did. No conciliation, no accommodation, no concession. Well, okay, I lied: I did have to make one accommodation: I had a word limit. I couldn’t buy the universe. But I sure as hell tried to buy the best of it!
Dreaming in the Dark can be pre-ordered HERE.
More Dreaming news as it happens…
A conference on contemporary Australian popular fiction is taking place Thursday, October 6th from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm at the Gryphon Gallery, 1888 Building, University of Melbourne. Conference title is The State of Play: Australian Popular Fiction in the Twenty-First Century. I’m doing a program panel at 11:30 called “Genre Communities: How Is Popular Fiction Organized and Supported?” with romance writer Anne Gracie, crime writer Angela Savage, and academic Lisa Fletcher. Should be great fun!
Other writers, publishers, bloggers, and academics attending the conference are Kate Cuthbert, Rjurik Davidson, Beth Driscoll, Rochelle Fernandez, Candice Fox, Ken Gelder, Kat Mayo, Adrian McKinty, Angela Meyer, Kylie Scott, Angela Slatter, and Kim Wilkins.
I’m pleased to announce that Concentration, my collection of holocaust stories, will be published by PS Publishing in November. It will also contain an original story called “Trainspotting in Winesburg”, which is set in a future Australia.
In her introduction to the book, critic and scholar Marleen Barr writes:
In Jack Dann’s Holocaust visions, “imagination is used to enrich reality, not to escape from it.” His “invented, alternate worlds” are related to the ones Faulkner and Márquez create. But Yoknapatawpha and Macondo are not Jewish neighborhoods. Dann is a Faulkner and a Márquez for Jews. His fantastic retellings of the horror stories Nazis made real are “more truth than fantasy.” Dann imbues the Holocaust with the fantastic to liberate it from the constraints of temporal reality and, via using writing as a time machine, transports it to the new light of present and future relevance.
Looking forward to November, as my showcase PS Australia collection Dreaming in the Dark will also be published. This volume really shows off the extraordinary talent we have in Australia…and will truly be a showcase for the new PS Australia imprint. Oh, did I mention that I’m its MD? <Grin>
The audiobook version of The Silent is out from Audible–I’ve just received the MP3-CD. It’s performed by Chris Kipiniak and is twelve hours and thirty-nine minutes long. You can find it here.
As Audible describes the book:
“From the critically acclaimed author of The Memory Cathedral comes perhaps the most powerful, haunting, and unforgettable novel of the Civil War–or any war–ever written. Provocative, poetic, and disturbing, it introduces us to a young narrator, Mundy McDowell, whose voice rivals any in literature, bringing poignantly to life the surreal horrors of battle and its spiritual cost to human survival.
I might start catching up on my website by going backwards (so what else is new?). I’ve just sold “The Carbon Dreamer”, which Harlan Ellison had originally bought way back in the day for The Last Dangerous Visions, to the good folks at Cemetery Dance. And Omni is back (hurrah!), which has featured my story “Going Under”. You can find it at:
http://www.omnimagazine.com/archives/fiction/under/index.html
More as (and when) I can get my act together. <Grin>
Have a great weekend, everyone!
I’ve been negligent updating my website, but I’m determined to remedy that. One reason I’ve let things go–and a lot has been happening!–is that WordPress isn’t doing a good job of connecting with Facebook. So this is (yet again) another test. Testing, one…two…three.
Cheers!
–JACK
