The Ten Best Books I Read in 2022
Read about forty books* this year, which isn’t bad. I try to read every day – the second most important part of the job of being a writer is reading widely – but unfortunately I am also human. As a …
Tag: T. R. Napper
“The Will and the Act”: 36 Streets Book Launch
Delayed (by you-know-what) a couple of months, I launched my debut novel in Canberra on Sunday, 29 May. To be blunt, I find these things exhausting – unless you’re a superstar, you organise the entire event yourself, which is a …
Update: An Aurealis Award Nomination, new stories, & other news
Very happy to have received a nomination in Australia’s premier speculative fiction awards, the Aurealis. I was shortlisted in the ‘Best Science Fiction Novella or Novelette’ category for A Vast Silence, which first appeared in the Magazine of …
36 Streets – available now
It’s done. Five years, working on this novel. Giving up on it, coming back to it, agonising, creating, drafting and re-drafting, and the bloody thing is done. Now – marketing BS aside – it’s out of my hands and up …
Praise for 36 Streets
Breaking out the begging bowl and approaching successful authors for a book quote was one of my least favourite parts of finalising 36 Streets. In fact I hated it. “Hey, you don’t really know me, but could I …
Your Debut Novel: From Acceptance to Publication Day
The space between selling your first novel, and publication day, is long and exhausting. For me, the gap was about 18 months. I’ve written this article throughout the process, while the experience is fresh. It is fair to say …
The Ten Best Gambling and Poker Films
Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter came out earlier this year, which prompted me to reflect on one of my favourite sub-genres of film: the gambling flick. They are an obsession of mine, in part, because so many of these movies …
The Writer’s Training Regime (9): Remembering how to Write (some thoughts on staying creative)
Ideas had always come easy to me. So-called ‘blank page’ writer’s block had never been a problem I’d faced. The reason was, in part, because I started writing relatively later in life – in my mid-30s, and had a career …
The Writer’s Training Regime (8): Celebrate the Wins
To be a writer is to face perpetual defeat and lingering self-doubt. The default in this profession is failure. Rejections come (I’ve had around 300 for short stories and novels) and they don’t stop coming. Agents are indifferent, and the …
Award Eligibility – Ditmars
Ditmar voting is open. For the uninitiated, the Ditmars are the annual peer-voted awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy in Australia.
What does peer-voted mean? Well, that you are either attending the National Convention (this year it is Conflux – …