CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus

… has a whole conference devoted to her works. This sounds like a very good reason to be in Bristol in early July this year. Of course, the author of so much wonderful speculative fiction will be in attendance as guest of honour.

The venue is the University of the West of England. The dates are July 3-5 and the closing date for registration 20 June.

Here’s an interview about her Worlds of Chrestomanci series.

From midnight tonight (AEST) speculative ficton writers from around the world (and their readers) will be participating in Flycon 2009 - an online convention of author chats, interviews, workshops and panels.

Here’s the schedule, and you will see that there’s much to interest YA aficionados. It’s thoughtful of the organisers to give five time zones : Auckland, Sydney, London, US East Coast, US West Coast.

The Fairy Tale workshop on Sunday morning sounds especially interesting, although it’s on at 4am Perth time so it might be a tough one to ‘attend’:

From Walt Disney to Robin McKinley to Anne Rice to Gregory McGuire and beyond, lots of people have been drawn to retell fairy tales. In this workshop we’ll examine what makes a good retelling so satisfying, and also take a look at some of the retelling trends that aren’t so hot. We’ll also discuss fairy tale friendly markets. Put your name down for this, as workshop will be locked to protect publication rights.

Have a look and see if there is anything for you. You can also follow the action on twitter. There is an aggregated Flycon feed here.

It’s a pity Melina Marchetta wasn’t a guest as she did well in the recent Aurealis Awards with Finnikin of the Rock. Her Printz might even have scored a mention. What does the author of Looking for Alibrandi have to do to get media attention in this country?

But at least Radio National’s Book Show is talking about the Aurealis Awards and speculative fiction generally with Alison Goodman, Adrian Bedford and Jonathan Strahan. The podcast will be available for a short time only.