May 2011 Archive

Edward Lascelles Abercrombie

Born on the evening of Thursday 26th, in fact, but haven’t really had a moment to make a post until now.  5 gruelling hours of labour but, you know, with my wife there to rub my back and whisper encouragements I made it through with just the gas and air.  That makes three, and I think that’ll be all, thank you very much…

In case you’re wondering, Lascelles was my Great Grandfather’s name.  He was an academic, critic, poet, close friend of Rupert Brooke, was the first name on the list of people to be immediately arrested in the event of a Nazi occupation of Britain (an alphabetical thing), and was once challenged to a duel by Ezra Pound, apparently.  Since he received the challenge, he had the right to choose weapons, and suggested that they bombard each other with unsold copies of their books.  Which would have given Lascelles a decided advantage in quantity of ammunition.

I like the way he already seems to be viewing the world with a slightly ironical raised eyebrow, as if to say, ‘I daresay writing speed will suffer for the next few weeks, father.  If not to say decades.’

Read more | 63 comments | Posted in Other Life

The Tyranny of Words

Ah, word count, word count, how I love thee, how I hate thee. When I first started writing some time in, er, 2001, I think it was, the version of Word that I was using didn’t have a visible, steadily updating word count as does the modern one, you had to click the word count […]

Read more | 28 comments | Posted in process

FantasyCon 2011

Hot off the press! I am honoured to be among the Guests of Honour at this year’s FantasyCon to be held in Brighton, England, September 30th – October 2nd this year.  Other GoHs are Gwyneth Jones, Peter Atkins, John Ajvide Lindqvist, and sci-fi heavyweight Brian Aldiss, with Sarah Pinborough serving as Mistress of Ceremonies.  Other […]

Read more | 8 comments | Posted in announcements, appearances, news

Flowers and Plaudits

It seems I am now able to add another name to the ever-lengthening list of awards I haven’t won, for I duly note that my short story, The Fool Jobs, is one of five finalists for a Locus Award.  It’s actually not a short story apparently, as at some 8,000 words (yes, I can’t even write […]

Read more | 14 comments | Posted in news, reviews

In Conversation with GRRM

I note that some fiend has uploaded the Book Show interview I did with GRRM to YouTube.  Naturally, I entirely condemn such outrageous behaviour.  But I suppose there’s no way I can stop people watching it HERE and HERE…

Read more | 24 comments | Posted in interviews

Gardening and Architecture

So I’ve finished my first (extremely rough) draft of the first part of my new book.  Which means, bizarrely, it’s already about one fifth completed.  Strange, since it feels I’ve hardly started it and still have only the vaguest grip on at least one of the two central characters and most of the details of the […]

Read more | 27 comments | Posted in process