Things have been a bit quiet on the writing front since the release of The Last Reef, so I thought I’d better give you an update as to what’s in the pipeline:

1. I’m working on a “secret project” with another author, and I’m very excited about it - details to be announced shortly…
2. I’m a 1000 words into writing a new short story about stock trading, skateboards, and shopping malls
3. I have a 5000 word story called Memory Dust pending publication in Interzone
4. There’s another short of the same length called What Would Nicolas Cage Have Done? due to appear next year in an anthology of “Future Bristol” stories from Swimming Kangaroo Books
5. And of course, my novel’s due to appear from Pendragon Press in April
6. Plus, I’m working on stories for two other anthologies – details to be announced shortly…

Two books arrived in the post this morning, and I’m looking forward to reading them both. The first is a new anthology from Anthology Builder called Planet Interzone, compiled by Vaughan Stanger, and featuring stories from the last 25 years of Interzone magazine, including my short story Ack-Ack Macaque. The second is a signed copy of Debatable Space - the new novel by Philip Palmer, courtesy of the kind people at Orbit.

I’m currently co-writing a short story with another Interzone author – and after a few weeks of work-related hassles, it feels good to be writing fiction again.

My favourite lines from the review were:

Now, fifteen of Powell’s stories have been brought together in The Last Reef, giving readers the opportunity for a sustained voyage through a surprisingly diverse range of imaginative and entrancing worlds.

And:

Without question, what all the stories definitely do have in common is a memorable quality – you’ll be thinking about them for a long time afterwards. These are stories that engage both the heart and the brain… Elastic Press has performed a public service in collecting them together.

A little while ago, I was interviewed for Interzone by Paul F Cockburn. That interview will appear alongside a review of my book The Last Reef in issue 218, which will be out on 11th September.

For more details, see: http://ttapress.com/517/interzone-218-out-on-september-11th/

I’m sorry to hear that Jetse de Vries is resigning as co-editor of Interzone due to “musical differences“. It was Jetse who picked my short story “The Last Reef” from the slush pile and later, wrote the introduction to my short story collection of the same name.

Full story here: link

I am very pleased to tell you that I’ve just sold another short story to Interzone, the long-running British SF magazine

“Memory Dust” is a high octane space opera set against the same background as my earlier story “Six Lights Off Green Scar” and features the exploits of Caesar Murphy, another “random jumper”. It weighs in at just less than 5,000 words.

This is my third sale to the magazine, and I hope it is as well received as the previous two – “The Last Reef” and “Ack-Ack Macaque“. It certainly has a lot to live up to because, as regular readers will know, “Ack-Ack Macaque” came top in last year’s Interzone Reader’s Poll.

Once again, Warren Ellis exposes the falling number of subscriptions in the printed SF&F short story market.

“Cases are always made that in fact these magazines are on strong — or at least survivable — financial ground. Even ignoring the fact that the money they offer for fiction is pitiful, I think that matters less than that they are reaching massively fewer people every year.”

There’s no flash fiction this week because I’ve been busy with other things. Beside celebrating the first review of my short story collection over at The Fix, I’m in the process of being interviewed for a forthcoming issue of Interzone, and have just participated in the recording of audio versions of two of my most popular short stories: The Last Reef and Ack-Ack Macaque.

Also today, there’s a new press release up at TTA Press, entitled: ‘Exciting Times For Interzone Authors’, which mentions both the launch of my short story collection in August and the launch of my novel next April, and includes me in the new “generation” of writers to have used the magazine as the launch pad for their careers:

“Over Interzone’s 26 years, several generations of new writers have emerged via its pages… within a few years Geoff Ryman, Kim Newman, Stephen Baxter, Greg Egan, Eric Brown and others were discovered, so I’ll call them the first Interzone generation.

By 1990, a second generation was developing nicely; Charlie Stross, Ian Macleod, Keith Brooke, Alastair Reynolds, Richard Calder, Chris Beckett, Ben Jeapes, John Meaney, and Sarah Ash. The 3rd generation introduced Liz Williams, Tony Ballantyne and (to English language readers at least) Zoran Zivkovic plus, no doubt, others who have yet to produce a novel.

Now, a new generation is starting to come through with Gareth Lyn Powell, so can Karen Fishler, Jason Stoddard and others be far behind?”

This is just a snippet from the release. You can read the whole thing at TTA Press: http://ttapress.com/479/exciting-times-for-interzone-authors/

The new issue of Interzone is here, including the results of the 2007 Readers’ Poll.

As you already know, my story “Ack-Ack Macaque” came first in the poll, closely followed by stories from Grace Dugan and Alastair Reynolds.

Included with the results in the magazine this year are a selection of comments from the voters. There were a couple of complimentary ones about “Ack-Ack Macaque” – and only one negative one, which made me laugh out loud because it described the characters as “petty and unpleasant hipsters“.

Coming first in this poll means a great deal to me, as it was my ambition for many years to sell a story to Interzone, and I’m absolutely delighted that now I’ve had two featured in the magazine, both have enjoyed an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response from the readership.