The post showing these covers is HERE.

Gorgeous, innit? Hopefully these will be out around late July, fingers crossed!

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted here, so I thought I’d share a couple of neat things happening in my vicinity.

Firstly, I’ll be attending my first interstate convention (Worldcon 2010 in Melbourne didn’t count, because, well, it was a Worldcon!) later on this year. The Australian Writer’s Marketplace is presenting GenreCon in Parramatta NSW, which, according to its website, is “a three-day convention for Australian fans and professionals working within the fields of romance, mystery, science fiction, crime, fantasy, horror, thrillers, and more.” Sounds pretty awesome to me, and the timing of the convention (November 2nd to 4th) matches perfectly with the planned release of my collection Living With the Dead from Dark Prints Press. So both myself and my publisher have already bought our tickets, and hopefully we’ll be able to launch the book there in some way, shape or form!

And secondly, Black Static Magazine has just reviewed Dead Red Heart from Ticonderoga Publications, and had some kind words to say about my stories in the collection:

Leading off this massive collection of vampire stories from a ‘land down under’ is ‘The Tide’, a collage piece written by many diverse hands, with a series of news items chronicling the plight of vampires in Australia as illegal refugees, and how they are treated by the locals, the story a very obvious and equally effective satire on the country’s attitude to immigrants, going from resistance through to a time of acceptance.

The vampires in ‘The Rider’ by Martin Livings are entities that shift from one host to another, and when some hunters attempt to destroy one of them
things go tragically wrong, the story tugging at the heart strings as the narrator is deprived of the thing in life that he values the most, made vulnerable by his own humanity.[2]

The review actually covers all thirty three stories in the collection, sixteen of which, incidentally, were singled (if that’s the right word in this case!) out by Ellen Datlow for Honourable Mentions in her Year’s Best Horror of 2011 (full list here, here, here, here, and here). So well done to all concerned!

And that’s about it for the moment. Back to our normal programming.

[1] apologies to Colin Mochrie
[2] Well, apart from the fact that my narrator was a woman, I guess!

Scary Minds

http://www.scaryminds.com/reviews/2012/book131.php

Nine stars out of ten, thank you very much!  And my story “Home”, originally published in Morrigan Books‘ Scenes From the Second Storey, even manages to get a mention:

Martin Livings weighs in with Home, the themes of which are traditional horror, but which for mine never get old or over used. Fingers crossed Livings is working on a new novel, been a while between drinks.

(for the record?  Not hugely seriously, no, but been playing with a few bits and bobs!)

Additionall, as of this morning, Ticon have released the cover of their next Year’s Best, and, unsurprisingly, it’s beautiful.  Can’t wait to see a table of contents for this one!

I heard this morning that the extraordinary writer Paul Haines passed away yesterday, after a very long and public fight with cancer.

Actually, “fight” doesn’t do it justice.  He raged against it.  He and the cancer were like a mongoose and a cobra wrapped together, each taking chunks out of the other, hissing and snarling and never, never, NEVER giving in.  I’ve lost friends and family to cancer in the past, but I’ve never seen anyone fight like that, ever, in any context.  I’ve known and been friendly with Paul online for many years, but only met him in person in more recent times.  Nonetheless, I consider him a good friend.  He has that ability, to make everyone feel like his friend, like they’ve known him forever.

Yes, I speak in the present tense.  You got a problem with that?

Last year at Swancon in Perth, Paul cornered me and demanded to know when my collection was coming out, said he “dug” my short stories.  I have to laugh at that, every time I think about it.  He dug my  short stories?  In my opinion, the best stories in the world, in any medium, have to have the Wizard of Oz holy trinity in order to be truly successful; brains, heart and courage.  Paul’s writing has all three, consistently.  I love Paul’s work, and wish I could write one tenth, hell, one hundredth as well as him.  It was because of that that I even asked if he’d write the foreword for my collection, primarily as an excuse to send him an advance unedited galley of it.  He agreed, as sick as he was, but later had to drop out, he was simply too ill.  I still feel bad for even asking, but he seemed so damned enthusiastic when I did.

I still got a blurb from him for the book, though.  “It’ll freak people out”, he assured me.

No it won’t, you daft fucker. It’ll make them smile, and maybe even cry a little.  But mainly smile.  I don’t think he really knew how loved he was, despite all our efforts to convince him.  I wish he could see the outpouring that’s happening right now, across the community.  One of the previously-unpublished stories in my collection, “Birthday Suit”, is inspired by and dedicated to him.  I don’t even know if I can go back and read it now.

I’ve been trying to think of a word to sum up Paul, and the best I can find is “courageous”.  It encapsulates how he lived his life, how he wrote his amazing stories, how he battled his illness.  And courage isn’t about being fearless, it’s about doing what has to be done despite being afraid.  I’m so proud to have known him.  The world is a poorer place for having lost him.  We’re poorer for having lost him.  But richer for having had him in the first place.

Seeya, mate.

Pre-orders are now open for ‘Living with the Dead’, the short story collection of acclaimed dark fiction author, Martin Livings. ‘Living with the Dead’ celebrates the twenty years Martin has been captivating, challenging, and disturbing readers. It features 23 works of short fiction, including 20 of his best tales as well as 3 stories new and exclusive to the collection, with a special cover by award-winning UK artist, Vincent Chong. The collection will be released ~October 2012 (date to be confirmed when launch venue is acquired), C Format Paperback. The RRP is AUD$24.95 but we have an online pre-order price of AUD$19.95 (plus postage). Secure your copy of history and order via:

http://www.darkprintspress.com.au/books_living.html

What are you waiting for, a written invitation?  This is it!  Buy it now!  CONSUME!

http://darkprintspress.blogspot.com/2012/01/first-novella-titles-announced.html

‘Rope’ by Martin Livings follows a man who played a key role in the gallows at Fremantle Prison. Drenched in history, with an unfolding drama, completely dark and yet a little heart-warming, this is a side of Martin Livings you don’t want to miss – storytelling at its finest.

I can’t wait to see this one in print (or e-print!); it’s a story I worked incredibly hard on, and the research gave me nightmares for weeks afterwards.  Although it’s fiction, the historical facts behind it are entirely true, and my Mum actually went to school with the last man in WA to be hanged, so there’s a personal connection there as well.  I’ll be intrigued to see how readers react to this one, it’s a little different to my usual fare!

Is it crass and commercial to say “buy this when it comes out”?  Ah, who cares?  Buy this when it comes out!

More importantly, and more impressively, he’s posted the full wraparound version of the artwork, which I was hesitant to do myself unti he’d done so himself.  So, ladies and gentlemen, may I present the artwork in all its glory!  Click to see the larger version:

Having the cover artwork done by Vincent Chong, though, is even better.

Vincent has done amazing covers for writers like China Mieville, Stephen King and Peter Straub, amongst many, many others.  So when Craig at Dark Prints Press was going to be doing my cover, I couldn’t believe it.  Then when Vincent contacted me and asked if I had any ideas for what I wanted for the cover, I had to think fast.  I told him I had in mind those Victorian-era “death portraits”, where families would gather around a recently-deceased loved one and have a photograph taken. That sepia, cracked look was what I had in mind. Vincent was already thinking along similar lines, and startlingly quickly sent over a sketch, which I really liked.  I offered a few suggestions, most of which were dumb (cringe!), but one or two made the final cut.  Another sketch was sent, this one perfect, and then not that long later, the final painting.

It took my breath away.  It’s romantic and beautiful and eerie, and so much better than I could possibly have hoped or imagined.  How the hell is my name down the bottom of that?  There must be some mistake!

I genuinely can’t believe how good this book is going to look.  I actually feel a bit unworthy of the cover now, but hopefully what’s inside Living With the Dead will justify this gorgeously creepy artwork.  I can’t wait to see it in the fleshpaper next year, and be pushing it forcefully into people’s hands, insisting “Buy it, buy it now!  Even if you don’t read it, just put it on a bookshelf somewhere and look at it!”

It’s going to be awesome, trust me!

Sorry, what was I talking about?  Oh yeah, that’s right.  On Saturday morning, I found out that my story “La Mort d’un Roturier” has been accepted into the upcoming Machine of Death 2 anthology.  I’m completely thrilled to have made it through, having read the ongoing blog entries from the editors describing the absolute avalanche of submissions they got (over two thousand of them!).  I’m really proud of “La Mort d’un Roturier”, which I’m hoping should be quite different from most of the stories in the collection, and not just because its title is in French!  And I can’t wait to find out who else managed to sneak in.

Then, later that afternoon, another very welcome email, this time from Eclecticism Magazine, accepting my story “Trick Or…” for their (slightly belated) Halloween issue.  This is another story I’m very proud of; it was originally written for a Halloween competition, which I seem to recall it might have possibly won, but it was never actually published until now.  I’ve always held onto it, just waiting for that right market, and how could I not submit it to Craig?  Of course, now it’s starting to become a bit embarrassing how many stories of mine he’s publishing at the moment, especially considering he’s doing my collection next year!

So, all things considered, a pretty damn fine Saturday!  Wish they could all be like that…

This book should be really a interesting one; the publishers have an almost hand-made aesthetic intended for the print edition, with rough cut edges on the pages and illustrations and scribbles throughout.  And, of course, it features brand new stories from Joseph D’Lacey, Jason Nahrung, Amanda J Spedding, Michael Bailey, Kathryn Hore, Ashlee Scheuerman and myself, with “narrative interludes” by the editor, Craig Bezant.  I can’t wait to see this anthology, it really is something a little bit different.  And, of course, the more successful it is, the more emboldened the publisher will be with releasing Living With the Dead, my first short story collection, due out late in 2012.

So go out and pre-buy it!  Then bring it along to next year’s Swancon in Perth, where Craig and I will both be, hopefully to launch it properly!