This morning I took part as a speaker in an event called “How To Prosper In The Coming Bad Years“, set in this fantastic open-air venue in Victoria Park, Bristol:

The structure is called The Black Cloud, designed by artists Heather and Ivan Morison, who also hosted the event, which brought together a number of guests to discuss the future. As well as myself, the speakers included Jon Turney, science writer and author of the forthcoming Rough Guide to the Future, Richard Sandford, learning researcher at Futurelab, Lisa Morgans from Greenpeace, and Thomas F. Thornton, a lecturer from the Environmental Change Institute in Oxford.

Continue reading “Talking About The Apocalypse”

How are artists, musicians and writers supposed to support themselves when everything they do can be distributed and downloaded for free? No-one’s figured it out yet, but Amanda Palmer has some passionate words on the subject: Why I’m Not Afraid To Take Your Money.

Scottish author Hal Duncan is trying a brave experiment, distributing copies of one of his short stories directly to fans via his website in return for donations: Scruffians Stamp.*

It seems to me that the music, art, photography, journalism, and fiction industries are all (to a greater or lesser extent) facing the same crisis — a crisis the game industry will probably also run up against in a couple of years. Our dominant means of reaching audiences (teh intartube) favours free distribution, yet artists  have a right to be paid for their efforts.

I have a feeling that the next five or ten years are going to prove very interesting…

*Thanks to Futurismic for the link

Last year, Eran Cantrell provided the cover art to my short story collection, The Last Reef and Other Stories – which then became the masthead of this website. Now she’s gone one better and illustrated an entire book – this time, the perennial favourite by Lewis Carol. I’ve seen some pages online and they look magnificent.

Writing on Facebook, Eran says:

“I can’t tell you how exciting it is to publish a book for the first time. After several months of working in the margins of my busy school and work schedule, it’s finally available on lulu.com for $9.95. I’m still trying to earn enough money for my final year’s tuition in college, so any revenue is greatly appreciated! I hope you all enjoy how it’s turned out.“

Eran’s full length comic of The Jabberwocky can be found on lulu.com here: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-jabberwocky/7290052

Regular Interzone artist Vincent Chong has redesigned and relaunched his website and added some of his latest work. Please check it out: www.vincentchong-art.co.uk

Andy Bigwood’s cover art for the forthcoming Future Bristol short story anthology is now online at his site: http://www.deviantart.com/print/4885642/.

The anthology will be published in April by Swimming Kangaroo books, and features the following stories and writers:

> Isambard’s Kingdom by Liz Williams
> The Guerilla Infrastructure HOWTO by John Hawkes-Reed
> After The Change by Stephanie Burgis
> A Tale of Two Cities by Christina Lake
> Trespassers by Nick Walters
> Pirates of the Cumberland Basin by Joanne Hall
> Thermoclines by Colin Harvey
> What Would Nicolas Cage Have Done? By Gareth L Powell
> The Sun In The Bone House by Jim Mortimore

As an experiment, I’ve put together a book of photographs called Ambient Randomness via Booksmart. It’s a collection of pictures of everyday objects and landscapes taken using the simple 2.0 megapixel camera on my mobile phone. Although the majority of the images were taken in Somerset, others were snapped as far afield as South Wales, London, Dublin, and Barcelona. Although the pictures look good in the preview, I’m not sure how well they’ll print out. You can see the preview here:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/270507/5a978b7b423fe3cd9166e36b021a4533

Vincent Chong (who is providing the cover art for my novel, and illustrated my short story The Last Reef when it appeared in Interzone) will be exhibiting several pieces of his award-winning artwork in the Art In Mind group exhibition at The Brick Lane Gallery in London (196 Brick Lane) from 29 Jul – 11 Aug. So, if you’re in London for my book launch on 9 August, why not make a day of it and pop along to the exhibition too?. The gallery is open daily from 12-6pm and there is a preview opening night for the show on Wednesday 30 July between 6-9pm.

I have just seen Vincent Chong’s final cover design for my novel, SILVERSANDS (due April 2009) and I’m very pleased indeed, as it reflects the same mix of intrigue, technology and character that I tried to convey in the story.

In his latest newsletter, Christopher Teague of Pendragon Press writes:

“Talking of covers, Vincent Chong is hard at work on the design for Gareth L Powell’s debut novel Silversands, which is due for launch at next year’s Eastercon. I’ve seen a simple sketching and I’m just salivating at the prospect of seeing the finished version…”