Paul Haines, both an extraordinarily talented writer and a much-loved member of the Aussie specfic community, is going through a tough time. After being diagnosed with bowel cancer, having sections of his bowel removed and enduring six months worth of chemotherapy, he has recently discovered he has spots on his liver.

Paul has met this news by "reloading his guns" and is going to fight it with two other forms of chemotherapy for this kind of cancer, combined with a monoclonal antibody called Avastin. Unfortunately Avastin is not currently covered by Medicare or the Australian government's private health system's funding. The course of Avastin medication alone costs $20,000, which is beyond the Haines family's already overextended finances.

The Australian speculative writing and fan community are pulling together to try and help Paul raise funds for his medication. Over the coming days, a fundraising plan of action will be formed - in the meantime, you can make a donation via paypal using this button:

girliejones

paulhaines

The following digest of recent horror news is compiled from pieces published to HorrorScope and the Australian Horror Writers' Association website.

( Click through to horror news! )

Submitting News

"WE'RE STILL AN UNDERGROUND BAND."

Krisiun drummer Max Kolesne shoots down any suggestion that the Brazilian trio have become more commercial in recent years. Speaking to the UK's Zero Tolerance magazine, Kolesne said, "I don't care about this kind of bullshit…People have been saying that since Conquerors Of Armageddon, but to me it's ridiculous. How can music like this be commercial? I don't get it. We're always trying to progress as a band, to write better and more interesting music. It's always Krisiun and we're much faster now compared to the old albums…We're still an underground band and we still play some pretty small places, but everywhere we go there are diehards. It makes us really happy and gives us the strength to keep going."

Of new album Southern Storm, the artillery general says: "Every new album, we're trying to be recognised as Krisiun so people can hear a song and tell you who they're listening to. When I looked back on AssasiNation, I was thinking about what I was gonna play on the new album, and I tried to cut out some of the bullshit that I thought was unnecessary…We try to become tighter with every album, and the songs are more solid and straight to the point."

Continuing a Brazilian cover theme, the new issue of Zero Tolerance also features interviews with Max Cavalera, Andreas Kisser and thrash-devotees Violator. Elsewhere there are rare interviews with neo-folk elder statesmen Changes and dark industrial / power electronics veterans The Grey Wolves, not to mention insights from Cult Of Luna, Aborted, Melvins, The Rotted, The Gates Of Slumber, Waylander and many more.

And if that isn't enough, every copy comes with the obligatory free covermount CD, the blackest of humour and a mass of special features you'd be hard pressed to find any other extreme music magazine daring enough to cover.

"…how many bands can claim an out of tune record? It was an embarrassment thing that actually worked out for the best." – which musical mastermind let that one slip? Find out in issue 024 of Zero Tolerance Magazine. ON SALE NOW!

ZERO TOLERANCE MAGAZINE

REPRESENTING THE SONICALLY UNACCEPTABLE

BUY IT. READ IT. SPREAD DISSENT.

www.ztmag.com

I've thrown together a dark networking community for writers and readers - on the same provider as Wonderlands, the fantasy network. I figured it'd give people interested in crossing-over from horror/dark fantasy/sci-fi writing to crime/thriller/suspense writing (or vice versa) a place to network that side of things. A place to discuss forthcoming publications, make writing buddies, jam on ideas and talk shop - with a neat profile linking to your blog or webpage.


It's not really genre based, more about atmosphere. If tense, creepy, spooky, evilheadfucky or otherwise dark fiction sounds like you, feel free to join:



Old-fashioned url is: http://darklands.ning.com/

Right now it looks like the lamest thing ever, because I'm the only member. Yay?

x-posted to Southern_Horror & CrimeSceneWriter

BLACK: Australian Dark Culture magazine is now on sale (for $7.95) around the country. Distributed by Gordon & Gotch, the magazine is available at over 1,000 newsagents, Borders stores, and independent retailers.

Issue one includes...
Features

• Heath Ledger's final role in The Dark Knight
• Stephen King's Dark Tower series
• M. Night Shyamalan on The Happening
• China's Olympic ghost ban
• The secret world of the dominatrix
• A visit to Brisbane's necropolis
• The Zombie Diaries' director Michael Bartlett
• Batman vs Iron Man
• Interviews with authors Robert Hood, Dr Marty Young & Nathan Burrage

• "Graduation Afternoon" by Stephen King (from his upcoming collection Just After Sunset)
• "Moments of Dying" by Robert Hood

• Leigh Blackmore & Margi Curtis - witchcraft
• Dr Carissa Borlase - medicine
• David Carroll - comics
• Luke Challis - gaming
• Shane Jiraiya Cummings - current affairs
• Bella Dee - goth socialite/culture
• James Doig - classic Australian horror
• Talie Helene - independent music
• Chuck McKenzie - books
• Josephine Pennicott - crime/thrillers
• Mark Smith-Briggs - movies & DVDs
• Rocky Wood - Stephen King news

Plus four pages of HorrorScope reviews, Black's competition prize pool, and more!

Subscriptions and further information can be found at the Black magazine website.

Source: Brimstone Press

Addendum: You can hear radio ads for Black on NovaFM today at the following times:

PERTH 4.40 pm, 8.20 pm
SYDNEY 3.45 pm, 7.30 pm
MELBOURNE 3.30 pm, 8.52 pm

Which is kinda neat.

News from the Terminator at the ZT Forum:

After an interminable wait, the ZT Forum is now back online in all it's glory.

Get back on the forums and get posting and start trading in the new trading forum ZTrade.

australianmetal

metal4melbourne

I have received my first ever snarky comment on an AHWA News piece over at HorrorScope.  The comment and my response are as follows (the original comment and response are up at HorrorScope.)

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, really unsure how promoting this will do much for the publishing industry in Australia, especially as the world's Small Press (including Australia's) have been railing against it.

Not sure if this is the sort of thing I like to see on HorrorScope.

Disappointing that editorial direction would not lead you to look as Amazon's 'Booksurge' program a little more objectively. I thought HorroScope was supposed to support the industry, not help it to an early grave with publicising Amazon's dictatorial ways.

Come across more as an ADVERTISEMENT than a news/information article. I hope HorrorScope got paid for it!

July 05, 2008 9:59 AM

Talie Helene said...

Hi 'Anonymous' - this is Talie the AHWA News Editor, who published the above piece on the BookSurge seminar to which you've responded with a degree of ire.

When sourcing news --

- I credit the HorrorScope readership with enough intelligence to make their own determination as to what is of value to them.

- I aim throw a wide net for obtaining news and to be as inclusive of different streams of industry happenings as possible - I subscribe to as many industry information sources as I can find.

You are entitled to your opinion, but I don't believe it's for me to play politics when selecting which aspects of industry are reportable. Many AHWA members will consider various kinds of self-publication, and the BookSurge seminar explores one of many options to consider. If you open an authoritive text on self-publishing such as Euan Mitchall's 'Self Publishing Made Simple' you'll see it is discussed in a serious industry context there.

I should point out - all HorrorScope contributors, and all AHWA volunteers are unpaid.

If you were to skim through all the news I've published, you'd hopefully find diverse content - and that you'd support the volunteer effort made distributing it.

If there's content you feel is being OVERLOOKED, I encourage you to become active in suggesting news items - you'll find a link to my email in the News Editor contact in the HorrorScope sidebar. Constructive suggestions are very welcome.

Best Regards,
Talie Helene - AHWA News Editor

July 06, 2008 2:51 PM

Some people might recollect a couple of years ago I posted excerpts from a Press Kit to my LJ, detailing a forthcoming Croation-Australian heavy metal street-fighting drama called THE WARRIOR - set on the "mean streets" of Airport West -  "where drugs and suicide rule the streets!"

Now there is a trailer up on YouTube - although I somehow don't think it does true justice to the films, um, cult potential.


</lj-embed>

Scott - along with the rest of Alarum - were offered little roles in the film. None of them jumped at the chance. (Hard to believe, I know.) Bit of a bummer, because fruity jazz-metal street-fighting vegans would have given the film extra cred. Maybe they could have used Sustained Connection in the soundtrack, while 'Blaze' (Steve) CONNECTED his fist to some faces!

Still, The Warrior has pretty much everything else needed to make groundbreaking cinema. Music by Lord Tim... sponsorship from Ciloms Airport Lodge... custom cars owned and driven by various members of the writer/director/leading man's family... intoxicating Russian lap-dancers from The Men's Gallery... bunch of part-time metal bouncers/merch guys for extra hardcore fight scenes... Steve appears to have built himself a completely new body for the film.

Gosh, I hope Doro gets to use a tomahawk...

Conversed with my mother while I was all "Yay - slamdunk!" over my well-received joke.

Tried the line on her.

Response - shifting discomfort, and a great effort to grab onto something else and steer the direction elsewhere.

She HATED it.

It wasn't dirty, but it was dirty with living - and parents don't want their daughters dirty with life, or at least not to show it (or flaunt it).

Maybe I should road-test all my jokes on her?

If she HATES them, I'll know I'm on a winner...

I'll have no self-esteem left at all, but - ha! - funny.

I got a smile-worthy email from Calum Harvie - who's the Executive Editor at Zero Tolerance Magazine -

“_________ _____ _____ __ ____ ____ _ _______ _________, ________ ____ Jesus _______ _ ____ __ ___-_______ _____ __ _____ __ ____ __________. _____ __ ___ __ _________ _______.” – had me pissing myself laughing, one of the best opening review lines I’ve read in a long time!!!! Haha, brilliant :D

Recently in my singing lessons (recently enough), Bill talked of ‘rehabilitation with Bill’ – as in rehabilitating the singer who already has discovered their voice, and has a kit of skills equal to some serious engagement, but who has, whether by psychological pitfall or mechanical disruption (chicken and egg, chicken and egg), developed problems with their vocal craft and damaged their voice.

And that is how I feel about myself as a writer, now. I have already discovered my voice. I have a kit of skills equal to some serious engagement. But I have developed problems with my craft, and damaged my voice.

And so, rehabilitation with words.

I won’t dig into the why this has occurred, here.

I must
I must
(I must improve my bust)
I must eventually break an enforced silence, an awful aversion to committing ideas to words -- OK, a touch of why, a vague mess of why there is damage. Words, those dangerous things – if you are in a dangerous place. A place that trades in bullshit, and the dance steps are crap. Articulating only seems to tighten the trap. And through the courage to articulate - a wicked knot of censorship tightens, and the strangled feeling only recedes a little in inaction and mute resignation. And shock.

Remember writing, that most democratic of arts (no need for a fourty thousand dollar studio), that haven that is self-contained and untouchable? Fuck. Time for that again. Story as the centre of the self.

So, how?
So, how?

If you thumb open the Horror Writers Handbook - is it Harlan Ellison? - there's this line - kind and unkind as a bucket of ice water on a scummy, regretful morning.

And I paraphrase wildly, no book to thumb through, no Googling or wireless access as I write this. But it's something like --

"Becoming a writer is not the hard part – STAYING a writer is the hard part."
--- ????

I've just posted this to Southern_Horror:

Just thought a few folks might be interested in this, especially those aspiring to complete Oz horror libraries on a writers income.

A&R at Eastland in Ringwood, Victoria, currently have "rock-bottom-remainder" copies of The Anthology of Colonial Australian Gothic Fiction Edited by Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver (Melbourne University Press) -- going for $5.00!!!

melbournegoths

The following digest of recent horror news is compiled from pieces published to HorrorScope and the Australian Horror Writers' Association website.

Submitting News

IMGA0229, originally uploaded by Talie Helene.

Scott and I found these glasses at the Nth Ringwood IGA Supermarket.

I woke this morning thinking about cynicism and guardedness in writing - with both of which I am wrestling, and both of which as a reader I find extremely unattractive in  writing. It makes for cleverness, but not much depth.

Guardedness in writing is an odd cycle - and somehow feeds into my feeling of self censorship - which in turn stems from actual censorship. I wonder if I really need to blast something out that is so cynical and guarded, it rattles those chains to pieces? Can that be done?

cynic |ˈsinik|
noun
1 a person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons : some cynics thought that the controversy was all a publicity stunt.
• a person who questions whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile : the cynics were silenced when the factory opened.

...I made it to Friday with a massive headache, and took the evening off. Scott cooked soup in his slow cooker and it was good. We watched Neil Gaiman's Beowulf on DVD and it was good. Cheeseball, but that is as it should be.

I had a singing lesson on Saturday - worked on Seiber and Purcell and the Alfred Hall. My Purcell was so uneven. The intensity of the Grade 7 exam is starting to dawn. I really need to make up a CD of my repertoire with List options, and crank through it for stamina, as well as actually working on each lesson CD.

I have a sore throat which feels like it is not singing related. Hope I'm not getting a bug. (How exciting.)

I moved more blobs of text around in a story, and did a bunch of bollocksy anxiety-ridden pre-writing things, made lists about scenes and back-story and intertextual possibilities and other gestures toward being a writer of fiction. Poor Scott kept looking at the screen of my laptop and making comments, and got verbally thrown across the room for looking at my fetus! I'm just not used to or into being watched as I blast out raw material. I don't like it. Be good if he could learn to not peek, as then I could write late at night in bed when I can't sleep.

I did get a bit reinvigorated about the story though. It's been this mothball-laden guilty neglected thing.

Didn't sleep early last night, as the maybe-biker over the back fence had a blues/rock'n'roll band playing a party outdoors until late. I think the fact no one called the police once it hit 1am supports the biker theory.

Which is partly why I am still awake at this hour tonight...

I've just got a bunch of reviews wrapped up, my last for ZT#24. I got a surprise in my review package - something I almost didn't put in my request list, and really wasn't sure I wanted to review. But it's been interesting to do so. It's one of those pieces I send off knowing it's good writing, but I have absolutely no idea if it'll get canned for being too harsh/candid/obscene/whatever (or if that's exactly what they wanted, and why they assigned it to me.)

Reviews sometimes get shelved - but the biggest things that get edited out of my feature articles are references to erect cocks. (It's a testament to my interviewing skills that these are the stories people tell me. I'm going with with that.) I can spot minute grammar changes in my published works, as well as cut phrases. But a disappearing cock...  kind of freaky.

Fumbled from usekh and cameronrogers.


The Challenge:
- Post 3 things you've done in your lifetime that you don't think anybody else on your friends list has done.
- See if anybody else responds with "I've done that." If they have, you need to add another!(2.b., 2.c., etc...)
- Have your friends cut & paste this into their journal to see what unique things they've done in their life.



1) Turned down being set up with Daniel Johns. (The Silverchair guy.)
2) Joined "Australia's answer to Slayer"* - and FUCKING HATED IT!
3) Moved from Melbourne to Dubbo. From Melbourne. To Dubbo.



* According to Peter Hobbs' mum?

Book Meme  [Yanked from cameronrogers]
The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73.The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Based on the lj interests lists of those who share my more unusual interests, the interests suggestion meme thinks I might be interested in

1. Ásatrú score: 41
2. batty's ass score: 11
3. latin jazz score: 8
4. hard bop score: 7
5. vocal jazz score: 7
6. cool jazz score: 6
7. celtic frost score: 6
8. stan getz score: 6
9. free jazz score: 6
10. vintersorg score: 6
11. fender rhodes score: 5
12. dixieland score: 5
13. count basie score: 5
14. new orleans jazz score: 5
15. death angel score: 5
16. jägermeister score: 5
17. avantgarde score: 5
18. pat metheny score: 5
19. conducting score: 4
20. delien score: 4

ouwiyaru

ixwin