From julietemckenna.com
What sparked The Green Man’s War?
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The seventh instalment of Dan Mackmain’s adventures makes this the longest continuous sequence of novels that I’ve written. Okay, I actually reached that point with the last book, The Green Man’s Q…
#sff #books #fantasy #writing #urbanfantasy
22h ago
From julietemckenna.com
Guest Post – Andrew Knighton on characters’ occupations.
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I’ve shared in thoughtful panel discussions with Andrew Knighton at conventions, as well as more informal conversations. I am very pleased to share his article on the relationships between a …
on Oct 30
From julietemckenna.com
Forthcoming publication dates – starting with The Green Man’s War
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I will be at Bristolcon this coming weekend, where Cheryl and I will be celebrating the forthcoming publication of The Green Man’s War. For this convention, ebooks will be available for purchase di…
on Oct 22
From julietemckenna.com
Upcoming conventions, and a quick look back…
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This coming weekend, I’ll be at the Queen in Chester hotel for the British Fantasy Society’s Fantasycon. For full details, click here. As well as enjoying seeing friends and colleagues,…
on Oct 7
From julietemckenna.com
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Here’s something that should be of interest to those of you who’ve been following my writing on Equality in SFF. Last year, Luna Press put out a call for papers, with a view to publishi…
on Oct 3
From julietemckenna.com
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The Green Man sends Daniel Mackmain to stop threats from folklore making trouble in the everyday world. Now a naiad and dryad want him to deal with the big cat they’ve seen prowling in their woods.…
on Sep 9
From julietemckenna.com
It’s ZNB Kickstarter time! Support great stories and an open call for submissions
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I mentioned my Ampyrium short story a while ago. I’m thrilled to say I’ll be returning to this fascinating shared world with one of this year’s ZNB anthology projects. As regular readers will know,…
on Aug 30
From julietemckenna.com
A slew of my shorter fiction coming your way
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With one of those quirks of timing the book trade comes up with, the second half of this year will see a whole lot of new short stories I’ve written coming out with different publishers. First up, …
on Jul 11
From julietemckenna.com
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I’m frequently heard explaining how badly broken the current business model for bookselling is, from the author all the way to the bookshop till. What I don’t often get to expand on is all that SF&…
on Jul 2
From julietemckenna.com
Thinking about escapism … back in 2006
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After writing my previous post, another recollection has been prodding me. I’d had a few things to say about escapism. A fair while ago. I must written that up for the blog, surely? It’s a challeng…
on Jun 25
From julietemckenna.com
Who Gets to Escape? Sherwood Smith and Rachel Manija Brown ask a fascinating question.
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These two extremely talented authors are currently working on Kaleidoscope – an anthology of diverse contemporary YA fantasy. This is a crowd-funded project, or hopefully it soon will be. Cli…
on Jun 24
From julietemckenna.com
My weekend at Levitation (Eastercon 75)
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Yes, I had an excellent weekend. The highlight was (obviously) winning the 2023 Best Novel Award from the British Science Fiction Association, as voted on by members. The full list of winners is he…
on Apr 5
From julietemckenna.com
Brief thoughts on women writers being erased from SFF – again
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Another day, another article* supposedly assessing the cutting edge of Science Fiction written over the decades. Citing twenty five authors. All men. No, I’m not going to link. You can find i…
on Mar 25
From julietemckenna.com
Equality in SF&F – Collected Writing
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I’ve been writing about the subtle ways in which women writers are disadvantaged for a while now. If anything is to change, it’s important that we all understand the dumb systems involv…
on Mar 25
From julietemckenna.com
A forthcoming story and my Eastercon programme
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I’m extremely pleased to share the news that my story Unseen Hands will appear in the shared world anthology, Ampyrium, to be published later this year by ZNB. As I’ve said previously, shared world…
on Mar 23
From julietemckenna.com
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I do words, not pictures. I cannot draw anything but the roughest cartoons to amuse small and uncritical children and don’t imagine that a map I might sketch for you for directions will be remotely…
on Mar 22
From julietemckenna.com
Why Do We Write Retellings? A guest post from Shona Kinsella
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I’ve been back and forth with myself, pondering the answer to this question. With so many new ideas just waiting to be worked on, why do we, as writers, return to old stories? Why do some stories h…
on Mar 21
From julietemckenna.com
On Irene Adler and outrage (and influences and Charoleia)
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I’ve very much enjoyed both the movie A Game of Shadows and the series opener to the BBC’s updated Sherlock. Despite – and please do not underestimate the strength of my feelings here – the truly a…
on Mar 12
From julietemckenna.com
Do you ever get writer’s block? No, but I do get stopped dead.
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Writer’s block. It’s one of those questions we all get asked, those of us sitting up at the front on panels at conventions, libraries and literary festivals. To be honest, no, I just don’t have tim…
on Mar 4
From julietemckenna.com
The Uses of History in Fantasy
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“But don’t you just make it all up?” That’s a frequent comment when I mention my research for the book I’m working on. I’m an epic fantasy novelist, writing swords’n’sorcery and wizards’n’dragons. …
on Feb 24
From julietemckenna.com
Thinking about the lenses we use to view history
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We went to the Earth Trust/Dig Ventures festival of discovery on Sunday. We listened to two talks by teams of young, enthusiastic archaeologists discussing the finds from digs around Wittenham Clum…
on Feb 20
From julietemckenna.com
Ego-Surfing for Self-Defence in 2024
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Is it still called ego-surfing? That term was coined in the 1990s as more and more people got online, and would put their names into a search engine to see what came up. It soon became clear this w…
on Feb 12
From julietemckenna.com
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Absolutely nothing, according to those song lyrics. Yet so much of fantasy fiction is built around warfare. Arguably the defining text of our genre, The Lord of the Rings is, according to one of Bi…
on Feb 6
From julietemckenna.com
“That girl looks like trouble!”
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Blood in the Water’s splendid cover art, courtesy of David Palumbo, has attracted a lot of comment since it first circulated. Now folk are reading the book, it’s prompting further interesting conve…
on Feb 5
From julietemckenna.com
It All Depends On Your Point Of View
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I’ve written novels and short stories in the third person, in the first person and in a mixture of both, following intertwining stories. “Irons in the Fire” is a single narrative seen from six diff…
on Feb 2
From julietemckenna.com
Is knowing how many books are in a series a spoiler? Guest blog post from Tej Turner
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Back in 2020, when Elsewhen Press were about to announce the forthcoming publication of Bloodsworn – the first instalment of my Avatars of Ruin series – I had a sudden stroke of…
on Feb 1
From julietemckenna.com
What’s in a name? Better ask Google! (plus ‘The Green Man’s Foe’ excerpt)
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One thing about writing a book set in the modern world is the challenge of finding character names. The business of naming epic fantasy characters is straightforward by comparison. Make sure they&#…
on Jan 30
From julietemckenna.com
A few thoughts for the last blogpost of 2023
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I’ve had a good year. Not an amazing or an astonishing one. I’ve not won any awards or had a book optioned for film or TV or had anything else happen to make the SF&F world go wow! And you know…
on Dec 24
From julietemckenna.com
But Don’t You Just Make It All Up?
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People can be quite surprised when I mention doing research as a fantasy writer. Until I explain how imagined worlds and peoples have to be solidly based in reality. Places and characters have to b…
on Dec 12
From julietemckenna.com
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Is your story the one you cannot bear not to write? Does thinking about it consume your idle moments? Do you lie awake at night worrying about bits that aren’t working? Do you leap out of bed in th…
on Dec 8
From julietemckenna.com
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Having my books translated has been a fascinating experience. Initially, I was simply excited that Meulenhoff liked The Thief’s Gamble enough to pay me for the right to pay someone else to tu…
on Dec 7
From julietemckenna.com
Creative Writing Articles – from me and other authors
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It turns out I’ve had good many and varied things to say about the art of creative writing in the years since my first novel was published. I also continue to find other authors’ perspe…
on Dec 5
From julietemckenna.com
How to be Edited – A Personal View
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Or ‘I really like the book but do you think you could change the beginning, the end and make it half as long again overall?’ This isn’t exactly what Tim Holman, my editor said, the first time we ‘d…
on Dec 4
From julietemckenna.com
How To Be Original and Still Get Published
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Can a good writer remain unique? Does a writer need a track record before originality can be attempted? I’m always surprised when hear people saying the easy way to get published is to retrea…
on Dec 1
From julietemckenna.com
Fantasy? But that’s just rubbish about elves and dwarves and stuff…
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If you’re a fantasy reader, you’ll be well used to hearing this kind of thing, particularly from hard SF fans, who, for some bizarre reason, seem to think that spaceships and terraformi…
on Nov 30
From julietemckenna.com
On the Fifth Day of our Journey
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An Examination of the Conventions of Quest Fantasies The conventions or rather the clichés of quest fantasies and indeed of the various other types of fantasy are what largely stopped me reading fa…
on Nov 29
From julietemckenna.com
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The notion of building my own world was one that attracted me to writing fantasy in the first place. This wasn’t so much because I liked the idea of playing God but when I decided the time had come…
on Nov 28
From julietemckenna.com
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In addition to my novels I’ve written the following shorter fiction. It’s always fun to be challenged and to stretch a few different writing muscles. 2023 Th…
on Nov 27
From julietemckenna.com
Three facets of fantasy writing
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My life as tabletop gamer, live role-player and novelist I’ve read fantasy for far longer than I’ve been writing it and one thing that influences me when considering a new author is the…
on Nov 27
From julietemckenna.com
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This month’s a busy one. On 15th October, I’ll be running an online writers’ workshop for the British Fantasy Society, looking at revising your own work. I’ll share examples of ‘before’ and ‘after’…
on Oct 9, 2023