Tyneside telefantasy

Here’s a rather belated write-up of my visit to Newcastle for the Alien Nation conference. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I’d been feeling quite nervous about presenting my thoughts on Doctor Who to an audience of experts. By Tuesday, as I got on my train, I was a bit more confident.

I was on a panel with Tom Steward, Claire Jenkins and Julian Chambliss, who had travelled over from Orlando, Florida (naturally, it rained all of the time he was here). My co-panellists were all great and I was reasonably happy with how my presentation went. Unfortunately, we’d been asked at short notice to reduce our papers to 15 minutes, and I had to skip over a lot of my carefully constructed prose! Luckily, two academics I respect greatly, David Butler and Andrew O’Day, spoke to me enthusiastically afterwards and asked me to send my paper to them. That was particularly encouraging and it was great to talk to them.

It was excellent too to meet a number of people who I’ve enjoyed chatting to on Twitter. John Williams, Ian Greaves, Frank Collins and Dave Rolinson were nice enough to invite me along to dinner with them on Wednesday night and I had fantastic time of talking over much-loved television programmes and toasting Frank Marker!

The next day, I decided to do some sight-seeing before I got on my train home. Newcastle is a very beautiful place, reminiscent of Edinburgh in some ways but without the sinister aspect of that city. As I walked around in the sunshine,I decided this was somewhere I needed to come back to for a holiday. Everyone I met was friendly and I especially fell in love with the quayside area. I even got time to stop at the Literary and Philosophical Library and I spent a happy hour in there reading Darwyn Cooke’s The Hunter. The Lit & Phil is a fantastic archive, with a specialist music library. I hope to do some resarch there in the not too distant future!

The politics of Pertwee

This week, I’m presenting a paper at the Alien Nation conference at Northumbria University. I’ve been alternately excited and nervous about this, but now that I’ve got my paper written and my Powerpoint presentation sorted out, I’m really looking forward to it! (you can read about my paper here)

The programme of speakers is great, and I’m looking forward to meeting some academics face-to-face who I’ve previously only chatted to on Twitter! If you’re interested in science-fiction and telefantasy, Cathode Ray Tube is live blogging the event.

My friend Paul very kindly did some screen captures for me yesterday, and I’m so pleased with them I thought I would reproduce a few here. Think of it as a trailer for my paper!

Inferno

The Curse of Peladon

The Green Death

Being busy

Hello everybody!

It’s been ages since my last blog post. Shameful, I know, but I’ve been horribly busy the last few weeks and so it’s been difficult to find the time. What have I been up to? Well…

1. Trying to finish my 80,000 word PhD thesis on representations of marriage in 1930s and 1940s Hollywood.

2. Interviewing two authors in preparation for writing a journal article.

3. Drafting another article, to be published in Mystery Reader’s Journal.

4. Preparing papers for two conferences: Alien Nation and Drink and the Life Cycle.

5. Writing and drawing a comic strip for publication in a fanzine.

6. Writing an article for the aforementioned fanzine.

7. Finishing my radio play, for submission to Radio 4.

8. Writing web content for my university’s library.

9. Self-publishing a comic for Birmingham Zine Fest.

10. Writing a 14, 000 word pulp detective story for a new publishing house.

Yikes! To be honest, it’s been too much to handle and I’ve decided to drop the last two items on that list for a while. I’ll get back to them when I’ve got a bit more spare time…

This weekend I had the chance to take some much needed rest. Roisin and I walked out to Warwick on Sunday, had a lazy meander around the streets and a lovely picnic in the park. It was perfect, and really sorted me out. I’d been feeling cooped up at my desk, so it was good to stretch my legs! And why not, when we’ve got such beautiful scenery on our doorstep?

The mysterious Town Wall.

Warwick Castle. Pure fairytale!

Interview etiquette

I had some good news this week. I’ve been putting together a proposal for an essay in an academic journal. Not really expecting anything back, I contacted two writers who I admire asking them for an interview and they agreed! I’m putting together questions right now, but I’ve also blogged about it over at PhD Life. If anyone has any experience of conducting interviews, I’d be really grateful for your advice.

Detroit Halloween

I didn’t have a camera with me when I was in Detroit, back in 2009, so I’ve had to lift these photos from Google Images. But it was somewhere here on Clifford Street that I had the idea for a short story. It’s been percolating since then, and I finally got round to writing it for Silkworms Ink’s 50th chapbook.

Read my story here and explore the rest of the chapbook here. Oh, and let me know what you thought of it! Detroit really got under my skin. Sometimes my time there feels like a dream…

Silkworms Ink L: 50th Chapbook

At last, it’s here!

To celebrate the publication of Silkworms’ 50th chapbook, we’ve been working away to put together something very special. Today we’re publishing a bumper-sized collection of new work by some of the top names in poetry (and us!). It looks rather spiffy too – gorgeously illustrated throughout and specially designed by Harringman Studios.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your delectation, and entirely free – it’s Silkworms L!

Click here to read!

If you like what you see, please post this flyer on your blog, or post a link (http://www.silkwormsink.com/chapbook_50.html/) on Facebook or Twitter. I’d be tremendously grateful – we worked hard on this one!

Hammett Bends the Silkworm

 

A few years ago, I wrote a radio drama about Dashiell Hammett. I’ve posted a scene from that play over at Silkworms Ink. You can read it here.

Taste the Blood of Silkworms Ink

I’ve written another post for the chaps at Silkworms Ink. It’s entitled “Kensington Gore” and you can read it here.

Superman vs. the Silkworms

Last month’s big news was that the lovely fellows over at Silkworms Ink asked me to be their film editor. There are some really exciting things planned for the site in 2011 (not least the bumper size 50th Chapbook) so be sure to keep checking back! In the meantime, you can read my first post for Silkworms: Whatever Happened to the Man from Tomorrow? Oh, and don’t forget to leave me a comment to let me know if I did good…

For the Love of Film (Noir) Blogathon

I’m currently writing up my contribution to the exciting Film Noir Blogathon, hosted by The Self-Styled Siren and Ferdy on Films. As well as inciting a lot of hard-bitten whisky-swilling bloggers to wax lyrical on the cynical underbelly of Hollywood, the blogathon serves a good cause. This year, it’s all in aid of The Film Noir Foundation’s efforts to restore The Sound of Fury (Cy Endfield, 1950), a neglected classic starring Lloyd Bridges. It’s a remake of Fritz Lang’s Fury, and the word on the street is it may be better than original. But how are we ever going to find out if the print wastes away?

Marilyn Ferdinand describes where your donation will go:

“A nitrate print of the film will be restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, using a reference print from Martin Scorsese’s personal collection to guide them and fill in any blanks. Paramount Pictures has agreed to help fund the restoration, but FNF is going to have to come up with significant funds to get the job done. That’s where we come in.”

You can donate using the button below, and you’ll automatically be entered into a raffle.

The prizes are as follows:

1. The brand-new deluxe DVD edition of The Prowler.

2. A DVD documentary on Eddie Muller, The Czar of Noir, featuring his short film with Marsha Hunt, The Grand Inquisitor.

3. Illustrator Steve Brodner will be contributing a drawing of Lloyd Bridges as a raffle prize during the blogathon. Look in the photo album on the Facebook page for samples of his work.

4. A full set of all nine posters for the Film Noir Foundation’s NOIR CITY film festival, held each year in San Francisco since 2003.

5. A set of all three NOIR CITY SENTINEL annuals. Noir City is the Foundation’s flagship publication.

6. Programs from NOIR CITY 8 and 9

7. An autographed copy of Eddie Muller’s first novel, The Distance.

And if you want to join in the blogathon as a writer, there’s still plenty of time, so get typing. The rules can be found here. Links to entries so far (and there are some doozies!) can be found here.

And what will I be blogging about? Well, here’s a big clue: