If you’re a filmmaker in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, the USA or New Zealand (or you want to be one), here’s an opportunity to have some fun, grow your portfolio, and maybe win some cash.

STEP 1:

Read MONEY RUN if you haven’t already. (Don’t worry — it’s short and awesome.) If it’s not in your local library or bookshop, copies are $19.95 here.

STEP 2:

Make a trailer for it, featuring this cover art:

It doesn’t have to be long or expensive (I made a HIT LIST trailer using free software, royalty-free photos, my own music, and my friends as voice-actors) but it does have to be exciting. Maybe it’s just a single scene. Maybe it’s kinetic typography. Maybe it’s animation, or machinima. Get creative.

Feel free to include credits so you get the recognition you deserve — and make sure you have the rights for all the footage/pictures/music you use.

STEP 3:

Upload it to a video streaming site like YouTube or Vimeo (make sure it’s embeddable). Once it’s up, send us the URL.

That’s it! Entries close on Tuesday the 21st of February 2012, and the winner will be announced (and paid) two days later, once I’ve picked the one I like the most. So what are you waiting for?

A couple of readers took offense at my last article. People often do, but for once I’m willing to concede that it might be my own fault. In the interest of clarification, here is one of the comments:

Camille: So the only way men will read women authors is if they dare themselves to do it, as a *challenge*? Like, how many weights can I lift or how long can I hold my breath? Or is this dude just trying to score feminist brownie points? I’m rather angered by this post, especially as someone who has been reading women authors for much of my reading life without feeling as if I must remark upon how amazing it is for me to have done so. I guess that’s because I’m a woman…

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It was a little more than a year ago now that I was walking through Central Park in NYC with another young adult author (the gifted Justine Larbalestier), and she asked me if I liked any books by women. I was surprised by the question, but I shouldn’t have been. I’d just listed my favourite authors as Matthew Reilly, Chuck Palahniuk, Lee Child, Ben Elton and Robert Silverberg. There was a healthy mix of nationalities, ages and genres in there – but it was a bit of a boys’ club.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t read or enjoyed any female-authored novels. I counted Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Joyce Carol Oates’ Zombie amongst the best books I’d ever read. But for some reason it hadn’t occurred to me to name any of these authors in my top five.

Was I sexist? Or were there genuine differences between men’s and women’s writing, making me prefer blokes’ books? Or was it just a thirty-two to one coincidence?

Read the rest at Literary Minded! 

Before I talk about Irredeemable, I need to thank you. Yes, you. No, not that guy behind you. You. Because six books have been shortlisted to represent the Australian Capital Territory in the National Year of Reading 2012 collection, and one of these books was Hit List.

It’s rare for a YA novel to be nominated for an award alongside adult books. It’s especially unusual for a plot-based action-adventure story to get a mention in the context of a literary award (since the definition of literary fiction is almost the opposite of that). So it takes a very special group of readers to make it happen — the kind of readers who will take a chance on a new author, and who will tell everyone they know when they’ve found something they like. Readers like you.

This is how much I love you guys.

So, thank you for this honour. If you’d like to vote for Hit List (only two clicks required) you can do it on the ABC’s website, or at your local library. I’d like to congratulate the other authors on the shortlist: Kel Robertson, Marion Halligan, Alan Gould, Dorothy Johnston, and John Clanchy.

Irredeemable, my new crime novel, is building momentum, slowly but surely. I’ve now received feedback from my agent and my dad. My agent sent me a text message which said the manuscript was “weird, addictive and thoroughly brilliant”. I was cautious; agents and publishers usually offer compliments right before they send their criticisms. Sure enough, I then received an email from her querying some plot points which she felt had been less than clear.

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A few people get to read my manuscripts before they’re published. The first round includes my fiancée, my brother, my parents, my agent, and occasionally a trusted friend or two. The novel will be re-edited based on the feedback I get from these people.

The second round includes my publisher and her team of editors. The book is emailed back and forth, and re-edited two or three more times. In the third round, it goes out to reviewers and sample readers, whose feedback is mostly used to generate publicity and to encourage booksellers to pre-order it. It’s too late to change anything at this point.

I’m now at the first round with my crime novel, currently titled Irredeemable. It usually takes everybody a couple of weeks to get back to me; so far the only person who’s finished reading the manuscript is my fiancée. She said that it’s not gruesome enough, that two of the characters are paper thin, and that the twist at the end is wildly implausible.

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As far as I can tell, there’s no “typical reader” of this blog. Some of you are fans of the Ashley Arthur or Agent Six books. Others are just wandering folks who enjoy humour, philosophy, or pseudo-political rambling. Several of you are my friends and family. Hi Paul.

But one thing I do know is that many of you are aspiring writers. This is an audience I don’t cater to often, perhaps because dishing out writing advice feels too much like work, or perhaps because my road to publication was so unusual that not much can be learned from it. (I posted The Lab to just one publisher, unsolicited, as a 17-year old boy without an agent. It got published internationally. Very few authors are that lucky.)

However, I’ve found myself with a rare opportunity.

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Two days ago, Labor Senator Darren Cheeseman was ridiculed in Parliament for a speech he wrote in 2009. This speech included the following warning about the impacts of carbon pollution:

“The Great Ocean Road, Mr. Speaker, an icon of Australia and the engine room of our local tourism economy, will be largely destroyed. It will be breached in place after place, if sea level rise is as expected. Huge swathes of the Bellarine Peninsula will be inundated. Current areas of the mainland will be cut off and become islands. Queenscliffe will become an island. The area from Barwon Heads to Breamlea will become an island. Many areas of heavy industry will be over-run and inundated. Key public infrastructure facilities, such as caravan parks in Ocean Grove and in other parts of the Bellarine Peninsula will be inundated and lost. Many private homes will also be lost.”

Cheeseman was mocked for his alarmist views, and it’s easy to see why. Of all the prophets who’ve predicted the apocalypse, how many have been proven right? Depending on how you define “apocalypse”, the answer ranges from “zero” to “zilch”.

Although this guy might be on to something.

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A reader recently asked me if I felt responsible for the youth riots in the UK, since my book (in which the teenage heroine becomes a thief after a lifetime of poverty under a corrupt police force) was published there only a few weeks ago. I said no – firstly because I’d be astonished to learn that it had sold enough copies to have such an impact, secondly because I suspect people who smash windows and torch cars probably aren’t keen readers, and thirdly because the core message of the book is that thievery is an extremely poor career choice.

Fortunately, the protesters aren’t blaming me. Some of them would have you believe the riots were caused by the police, who fatally shot 29-year old Mark Duggan. But only a fraction of the rioters seem to know who Duggan was. (“Some guy got shot, I think?” I heard one looter helpfully explain on ABC radio.) Most simply appear to be opportunists, seizing the unexpected chance to steal everything they’ve ever wanted, pausing only to scream about the inadequacies of a government which has deprived them of their prospects for education and employment. Why not go down fighting, when you have so little left to lose?

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by ThirstforFiction

Jack Heath is the author of the middle-grade novel Money Run, which is just being published here in the UK by Usborne, and as part of his Blog Tour he’s here to answer some questions I had for him which will hopefully be of interest to you too! I didn’t expect too much from Jack- but he’s almost written an essay for each question!

ThirstforFiction: How did you get into writing and subsequently publication at such a young age?
Jack Heath: I’ve always been a gluttonous reader, so I guess I had a head start. At thirteen years of age, I found the books I was being asked to study in school much less exciting than the ones I was reading of my own accord, and I started to wonder why. Once I was examining the differences between an entertaining book and a boring one, it wasn’t long before I started trying to write my ideal novel.

As for publication, I was very lucky. I finished the book when I was seventeen, and the first publisher I submitted to happened to be looking for someone to crack the teenage boy market. The action-packed manuscript I had sent them was exactly what they had in mind. It was published as The Lab when I was nineteen, and I’ve been writing one book per year since then.

Read the full interview at ThirstforFiction!

Most of the authors I’ve met have no interest in video games. There are a number of reasons for this, ranging from the practical (those who devote their lives to literature usually don’t have room for much else) to the demographic (based on my observations, authors are usually women aged 35 and over, and while games are less and less exclusive to teenage boys, we haven’t reached equality just yet). 

I’ve never had a problem with the idea of video games as works of art. As a child I noticed that Metal Gear Solid (a game which significantly influenced the plot of my first novel, The Lab) had a story far more original and stimulating than most of the movies I’d seen. I do, however, have a problem with the notion that games are responsible for a worldwide decline in literacy. If, as writers, we accept that we’re losing our readers to games, then maybe we should also accept that games are offering something our books are not. So are we going to wring our hands and ask what the world is coming to? Or are we going to write differently, focusing on the things books can provide and games cannot?

If you’re wondering what those things are, fear not. I think I’ve got it figured out.

Three of the five senses

Immersive as games are, they can only show the player how something looks, and how it sounds. They cannot describe taste, smell or – despite the best efforts of motion-control creators – touch. It’s more crucial than ever before to include these sensations in novels, so that readers really feel like they are present in the story. (I once fainted while reading a particularly gruesome scene in The Cleaner by Paul Cleave, and then vomited later when recalling it. Violent as video games can be, I’ve never had such a visceral reaction to one.)

Read the rest at The Book Zone!

by Ashley Arthur

1 - Let people underestimate you
Forget balaclavas, body armour and utility belts. Thieves survive by looking harmless. If you’re a fifteen-year old girl like me, the best camouflage is a schoolbag and an iPod. The more boring – and bored – you look, the less anyone will suspect that you have a grappling hook launcher in your bag.

2 - Go for the big prizes
The likelihood of getting caught isn’t much decreased by stealing a hundred quid rather than a million. So it’s smart to aim high. Forget wallets and watches – seek out luxury cars and first-edition classic books. Always be on the lookout for that one big score which will get you and your family out of the gutter forever.

3 - Take only what you can sell
In 1911, a man stole the Mona Lisa and got away clean – but when he tried to sell it to a gallery, the curator had him arrested. The lesson here is, never steal anything unique. Go for things which are easily traded for cash. Diamonds are good. Gold is better.

Read the rest at Heaven, Hell and Pergatory Book Reviews!

I started writing my first book at the age of thirteen, mostly to impress a girl. I discovered two things – one: that doesn’t work. Two: writing is addictive. Four years later I was shoving a complete manuscript into an envelope, scrawling the address of a publisher on the front, and pushing the package through the slot of a mailbox. Eighteen months after that, I was wearing a borrowed suit, watching the girl’s father (himself a well-known writer and academic) give a speech at my first book launch.

In the weeks that followed, I was often asked what advice I would give to young writers. I rarely knew what to say. But now, five books later, I think I have the necessary distance to see the things I did right – and the things I did wrong.

For the rest, check out my guest blog post on My Favourite Books!

When you spend your life writing about safe-cracking, skydiving and bomb-defusing, the fastest way to lose your readers is to skimp on the research. They’re already suspending as much disbelief as they can. The more preposterous the story you’re building, the more solid the foundations have to be.

This is a great excuse to do things that are outside your comfort zone. You may not be able to find a real-life bomb to disarm, but your characters will need other skills. For Money Run, I wrote a scene in which the protagonist drove a stolen sports car off the roof of a skyscraper. I signed up for a defensive driving course beforehand, in order to learn how my car would handle high speeds in hazardous conditions. Not well, as it turns out. One of the exercises found an instructor sitting in my passenger seat as the car roared towards a stack of traffic cones at 110 km per hour. At the last second he’d shout either “left!” or “right!” Even on the few occasions in which I swerved the correct way, I always knocked over the cones.

Read the rest of my guest blog post for The Pewter Wolf!

You may have heard that Amazon, the world’s biggest online bookseller, has just purchased Book Depository, the world’s cheapest online bookseller. Some people are upset about this, because monopolies are bad, or because the prices on Book Depository might go up, or because the range might go down, or because they might stop selling books all together. Amazon certainly seems to be phasing them out in favour of apps, Blu-Rays and whatever this is:

No joke, this item has a four-star rating and is called “Hillbilly Butt Pads”.

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Some of my favourite books are Ice Station, which was enthusiastically recommended to me by my Dad, Snakehead, which was left in my Christmas stocking by my Mum, Artemis Fowl, which was given to me as a birthday present by a brilliant clarinetist named Jono, and Misery, which was loaned to me by a woman named Venetia who is now my fiancée (that’s not the only reason I proposed, but I won’t say it wasn’t a factor).

These books are some of the reasons I’m a writer, and why I write the way I do. So I’m grateful to those four people, and to the dozens of others who’ve recommended books that I picked up and devoured and let haunt me in the years since.

I love my job. There are more reasons for this than I can name, but there are two on my mind right now:

1. The work you do keeps rewarding you years after you’ve done it.
2. You can take a year’s worth of effort and hold the result in your hand.

This arrived in the post today:

It’s the new edition of Money Run, which was released today in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This story, once just daydreams and musings in my fickle brain, is now printed and bound and sitting in the local bookstores of 62 million readers.

However, it’s entirely possible that none of those readers will notice it. The cover is awesome, but so are lots of covers. The only name on it is mine, and to the people of the UK, that’s the name of a total stranger. There’s no sticker on the front saying that it’s Oprah’s favourite book. There’s no rumour about Kristen Stewart starring in an upcoming film adaptation (yet. Where’s the best place to start a rumour like that, hypothetically?) It could easily disappear into obscurity.

So, if you liked Money Run (and readers often tell me that it’s “so much better than your newer books”) and you have friends in the UK, then please tell them about it. Not just because you’ll be doing me a favour (although you will). Not just because you’ll seem cool for knowing about it years before everyone else (although you will). Do it because if you like the novel, there’s a good chance they will too. And they’ll be as grateful to you as I am to Dad, Mum, Jono, Venetia, and everyone else who helped me discover a good book.