The Great Unknown authors: Guy Salvidge
(reblogged from Literary Minded)
This is the sixth post published in conjunction with the release of The Great Unknown this month, where authors share their experience of writing eerie stories for the anthology, and give you an idea of what to expect (and, I hope, look forward to). The Great Unknown is available to pre-order from Booktopia, Readings, Fishpond (free shipping worldwide) and all good bookstores. You might also want to add it to your shelves on Goodreads.
Guy Salvidge’s speculative neo-noir story ‘A Void’ was shortlisted for the Carmel Bird Short Fiction Award. Salvidge’s latest novel is Yellowcake Summer and he has a great blog: Wrapped up in Books.
What did you enjoy/find challenging about writing to this particular theme?
As soon as I saw the guidelines for this competition, I was determined to enter. I often struggle to write stories for specific themes, but this one appealed to me for a number of reasons. Short fiction competitions often have very stringent word limits of 3000 words or less, which is a stricture I often struggle with, but I (just) managed to cram what I wanted to cram into 4000 words here. While no aficionado of The Twilight Zone (see below), I am a longtime reader and writer of speculative and slipstream fiction and thus I was well within my comfort zone in writing for this theme. I also enjoy writing about Melbourne, a city I’ve visited many times but never lived in, and so I enjoyed deploying some of my favourite places in Melbourne in ‘A Void’.
Tell us about your story in The Great Unknown.
‘A Void’ is the third in an ongoing series of stories featuring Tyler Bramble, an alcoholic and sometimes suicidal detective (or Seeker) living in a near future Melbourne. The first of these stories, ‘The Dying Rain’, was written at the request of Andrez Bergen, who was putting together a spin-off anthology set in the universe of his debut novel Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat. I ended up co-editing that anthology with Andrez, and the book, The Tobacco-Stained Sky, has recently been released by US publisher Another Sky Press. I enjoying writing ‘The Dying Rain’ so much that I wrote a second Tyler Bramble mystery, ‘Blue Swirls’, which appeared earlier this year in the first issue of Tincture Journal. Here, in Tyler’s third adventure, he must contend with the unintended side effects of the drug ‘Void’ and a frigid Melbourne day that starts poorly and goes downhill from there.
What memories do you have of watching The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits or of reading spooky/uncanny stories (or comics) as a kid? Did these play any role in your developing imagination? Which films, TV shows, books etc provide that same sort of allure for you these days?
Confession time: I’ve never watched an episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits! I didn’t let that dissuade me, however. As a (somewhat disturbed) child I used to watch The X-Files and the ‘true story’ show The Extraordinary that followed directly after. At that age (twelve or thirteen) I was obsessed with cheerful topics like nuclear fallout and the prophecies of Nostradamus. From the age of eighteen, I fell in love with the work of American SF writer Philip K. Dick, who charted territory in novels like Ubik and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch similar to that that I’ve explored in ‘A Void’. J. G. Ballard is another major influence. His stories, such as ‘The Voices of Time’, as well as novels like The Atrocity Exhibition and The Unlimited Dream Company, helped to expand my own mental horizons as both a reader and writer.
What thoughts do you have on the current status of genre fiction?
I do think that certain genres are considered more prestigious and highbrow than others. For most of my life I have been writing some mutant variant of science fiction that is a recognisable descendant of the works of writers like Dick and Ballard. I have realised lately, however, that science fiction novels are very much a niche market in today’s publishing landscape. In response to this, I have quite consciously decided to change genres (in my case to crime fiction) to potentially reach a larger audience. This is a pity, because while I do enjoy reading and writing crime (such as the novels of Raymond Chandler, Megan Abbott and Daniel Woodrell) my first love is for fantastical fiction by writers like William S. Burroughs, John Crowley and Ursula Le Guin.
(reblogged from Literary Minded)
This is the sixth post published in conjunction with the release of The Great Unknown this month, where authors share their experience of writing eerie stories for the anthology, and give you an idea of what to expect (and, I hope, look forward to). The Great Unknown is available to pre-order from Booktopia, Readings, Fishpond (free shipping worldwide) and all good bookstores. You might also want to add it to your shelves on Goodreads.
Guy Salvidge’s speculative neo-noir story ‘A Void’ was shortlisted for the Carmel Bird Short Fiction Award. Salvidge’s latest novel is Yellowcake Summer and he has a great blog: Wrapped up in Books.
What did you enjoy/find challenging about writing to this particular theme?
As soon as I saw the guidelines for this competition, I was determined to enter. I often struggle to write stories for specific themes, but this one appealed to me for a number of reasons. Short fiction competitions often have very stringent word limits of 3000 words or less, which is a stricture I often struggle with, but I (just) managed to cram what I wanted to cram into 4000 words here. While no aficionado of The Twilight Zone (see below), I am a longtime reader and writer of speculative and slipstream fiction and thus I was well within my comfort zone in writing for this theme. I also enjoy writing about Melbourne, a city I’ve visited many times but never lived in, and so I enjoyed deploying some of my favourite places in Melbourne in ‘A Void’.
Tell us about your story in The Great Unknown.
‘A Void’ is the third in an ongoing series of stories featuring Tyler Bramble, an alcoholic and sometimes suicidal detective (or Seeker) living in a near future Melbourne. The first of these stories, ‘The Dying Rain’, was written at the request of Andrez Bergen, who was putting together a spin-off anthology set in the universe of his debut novel Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat. I ended up co-editing that anthology with Andrez, and the book, The Tobacco-Stained Sky, has recently been released by US publisher Another Sky Press. I enjoying writing ‘The Dying Rain’ so much that I wrote a second Tyler Bramble mystery, ‘Blue Swirls’, which appeared earlier this year in the first issue of Tincture Journal. Here, in Tyler’s third adventure, he must contend with the unintended side effects of the drug ‘Void’ and a frigid Melbourne day that starts poorly and goes downhill from there.
What memories do you have of watching The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits or of reading spooky/uncanny stories (or comics) as a kid? Did these play any role in your developing imagination? Which films, TV shows, books etc provide that same sort of allure for you these days?
Confession time: I’ve never watched an episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits! I didn’t let that dissuade me, however. As a (somewhat disturbed) child I used to watch The X-Files and the ‘true story’ show The Extraordinary that followed directly after. At that age (twelve or thirteen) I was obsessed with cheerful topics like nuclear fallout and the prophecies of Nostradamus. From the age of eighteen, I fell in love with the work of American SF writer Philip K. Dick, who charted territory in novels like Ubik and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch similar to that that I’ve explored in ‘A Void’. J. G. Ballard is another major influence. His stories, such as ‘The Voices of Time’, as well as novels like The Atrocity Exhibition and The Unlimited Dream Company, helped to expand my own mental horizons as both a reader and writer.
What thoughts do you have on the current status of genre fiction?
I do think that certain genres are considered more prestigious and highbrow than others. For most of my life I have been writing some mutant variant of science fiction that is a recognisable descendant of the works of writers like Dick and Ballard. I have realised lately, however, that science fiction novels are very much a niche market in today’s publishing landscape. In response to this, I have quite consciously decided to change genres (in my case to crime fiction) to potentially reach a larger audience. This is a pity, because while I do enjoy reading and writing crime (such as the novels of Raymond Chandler, Megan Abbott and Daniel Woodrell) my first love is for fantastical fiction by writers like William S. Burroughs, John Crowley and Ursula Le Guin.
Guy Salvidge Presents Yellowcake Summer - at KSP Writers' Centre 15/9/13
Book launch for Avon Valley author - from Avon Valley Advocate 18/9/13
AVON Valley author Guy Salvidge is launching two new books at Northam Library on Saturday, September 28.
Yellowcake Summer is the sequel to his 2011 book Yellowcake Springs which received an IP Picks award.
It is set partly in the Avon Valley of the future.
“It took me two years to write this one between the school holidays,” Mr Salvidge said.
“My influences are various science fiction and crime authors including Philip K Dick and Raymond Chandler.”
His other book is The Tobacco-stained Sky, a collection of post-apocalyptic noir, future crime fiction short stories from various authors in Japan, India and the United States.
It has been published by a small American publisher.
Earlier this year, Mr Salvidge was a writer in residence at the KSP writer’s centre in Greenmount. In that time, he started writing a new novel called Dan, A Cautionary Tale.
It is a crime story set in a Perth bottle shop 10 years ago.
“I have a view to get it published next year,” Mr Salvidge said.
Mr Salvidge will also be appearing at the Avon Valley writer’s festival this weekend proving various workshops.
Yellowcake Summer is the sequel to his 2011 book Yellowcake Springs which received an IP Picks award.
It is set partly in the Avon Valley of the future.
“It took me two years to write this one between the school holidays,” Mr Salvidge said.
“My influences are various science fiction and crime authors including Philip K Dick and Raymond Chandler.”
His other book is The Tobacco-stained Sky, a collection of post-apocalyptic noir, future crime fiction short stories from various authors in Japan, India and the United States.
It has been published by a small American publisher.
Earlier this year, Mr Salvidge was a writer in residence at the KSP writer’s centre in Greenmount. In that time, he started writing a new novel called Dan, A Cautionary Tale.
It is a crime story set in a Perth bottle shop 10 years ago.
“I have a view to get it published next year,” Mr Salvidge said.
Mr Salvidge will also be appearing at the Avon Valley writer’s festival this weekend proving various workshops.
Dancing With Myself: GUY SALVIDGE interviews GUY SALVIDGE
What’s this ‘Yellowcake’ business? You mean yellowcake as in uranium?
Indeed. Yellowcake Summer is a dystopian novel set in Western Australia around fifty years from now. In it, a Chinese company called CIQ Sinocorp has bought up a vast tract of the state and set up a nuclear reactor town, Yellowcake Springs, there. The region has been deemed a ‘Protectorate’ not subject to Australian law, and not everyone is happy with that.
Hang on a minute. This is a sequel, isn’t it?
It is. The first novel, Yellowcake Springs, won an Australian competition called IP Picks and was subsequently published by IP in 2011. The novel was later shortlisted for the Norma K Hemming Award in 2012.
Right. So what happens in Yellowcake Springs?
In Yellowcake Springs, we follow the lives of three people in vastly different situations in the year 2058. Sylvia Baron is an advertising rep living an affluent life in Yellowcake Springs. Rion is a vagrant from the ‘Belt town of East Hills, trying to scrape out a living. Jiang Wei is a young Chinese man recruited by CIQ Sinocorp to work at Yellowcake Springs. The lives of all three become intertwined partly through the use of Controlled Dreaming State, a sort of advanced virtual reality. Sylvia’s husband heads up a secret environmental (or ‘mental) group known as Misanthropos and the group stages an attack on the reactor complex.
Sounds dicey. So what happens in Yellowcake Summer?
By the time of Yellowcake Summer, three years have passed since the events of the first book. Sylvia Baron is getting out of prison for something that happened in the first book, Rion is about to be conscripted into something called the Civilian Police Force, and our third viewpoint character Jeremy Peters is about to be promoted to Director of Security of Yellowcake Springs.
Am I going to have to wait for Yellowcake Winter to find out how it all ends?
Tempting title, but no. The story is complete in two volumes.
Got anything else coming out, an anthology of post-apocalyptic noir perhaps?
As a matter of fact, yes! A couple of years ago, I read a novel calledTobacco-Stained Mountain Goat by an ex-pat Aussie called Andrez Bergen. Mad book, a mish-mash of detective and science fiction. Lots of fun. Anyway, I wrote a review of that and Andrez ended up inviting me to write a story for something he was putting together called The Tobacco-Stained Sky: An Anthology ofPost-Apocalyptic Noir.
I can’t help but see your name on the front cover there. Am I blind?
No, what happened was that the whole project was crying out for someone to edit the prose fiction. Someone innovative, someone handsome, someone –
— we get it, sheesh. So it’s a good book, is it?
Fantastic book. It has some amazingly entertaining and well written stories in it by people like Josh Stallings, Chad Eagleton, Julie Morrigan and Nigel Bird. Plus a whole bunch of comics, artworks, you name it.The Tobacco-Stained Sky will be out very soon, on August 26th.
So you managed to get a short story published in an anthology that you edited? *slow hand clap*
Wait a minute, I had the story in there before –
Never mind. I take it you have some other stories doing the rounds, then?
My story in The Tobacco-Stained Sky, “The Dying Rain”, turned out to be the first in a series of stories featuring Tyler Bramble, a Seeker living in post-apocalyptic Melbourne. These stories are in the Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat universe. The second Tyler Bramble story, “Blue Swirls”, was published in a new Australian magazine called Tincture Journal and will shortly be featured in the second issue of Canadian anthology, Warpaint. I’ve written a third Tyler Bramble story, “A Void”, which might come out sometime next year, with a bit of luck.
Is that it?
No-o. I had a story, “The Last First”, in Another Sky Press’ Alien Sky anthology earlier this year.
Wait, you didn’t edit that as well, did you?
No, it was edited by a very nice man named Justin Nicholes. We aren’t even related.
Working on something else, are you?
Right now I’m writing a crime fiction novel called Dan: A Cautionary Tale. Earlier this year I was lucky enough to be selected as a Writer-in-Residence at the KSP Writers’ Centre in Perth, so I had four solid weeks to make a start on the novel. I’m about half way through.
So you write full time, do you? Raking in the big bucks just like F. Scott Fitzgerald?
Um, not quite. I have a day job, of sorts. You know, teaching high school English and all that.
But you’ll be able to give that away soon, won’t you? Just as soon as Yellowcake Summer hits the big time like that crime novel by that guy who turned out to be that lady, what’s her name?
…
Reblogged from Nigel Bird’s Sea Minor.
What’s this ‘Yellowcake’ business? You mean yellowcake as in uranium?
Indeed. Yellowcake Summer is a dystopian novel set in Western Australia around fifty years from now. In it, a Chinese company called CIQ Sinocorp has bought up a vast tract of the state and set up a nuclear reactor town, Yellowcake Springs, there. The region has been deemed a ‘Protectorate’ not subject to Australian law, and not everyone is happy with that.
Hang on a minute. This is a sequel, isn’t it?
It is. The first novel, Yellowcake Springs, won an Australian competition called IP Picks and was subsequently published by IP in 2011. The novel was later shortlisted for the Norma K Hemming Award in 2012.
Right. So what happens in Yellowcake Springs?
In Yellowcake Springs, we follow the lives of three people in vastly different situations in the year 2058. Sylvia Baron is an advertising rep living an affluent life in Yellowcake Springs. Rion is a vagrant from the ‘Belt town of East Hills, trying to scrape out a living. Jiang Wei is a young Chinese man recruited by CIQ Sinocorp to work at Yellowcake Springs. The lives of all three become intertwined partly through the use of Controlled Dreaming State, a sort of advanced virtual reality. Sylvia’s husband heads up a secret environmental (or ‘mental) group known as Misanthropos and the group stages an attack on the reactor complex.
Sounds dicey. So what happens in Yellowcake Summer?
By the time of Yellowcake Summer, three years have passed since the events of the first book. Sylvia Baron is getting out of prison for something that happened in the first book, Rion is about to be conscripted into something called the Civilian Police Force, and our third viewpoint character Jeremy Peters is about to be promoted to Director of Security of Yellowcake Springs.
Am I going to have to wait for Yellowcake Winter to find out how it all ends?
Tempting title, but no. The story is complete in two volumes.
Got anything else coming out, an anthology of post-apocalyptic noir perhaps?
As a matter of fact, yes! A couple of years ago, I read a novel calledTobacco-Stained Mountain Goat by an ex-pat Aussie called Andrez Bergen. Mad book, a mish-mash of detective and science fiction. Lots of fun. Anyway, I wrote a review of that and Andrez ended up inviting me to write a story for something he was putting together called The Tobacco-Stained Sky: An Anthology ofPost-Apocalyptic Noir.
I can’t help but see your name on the front cover there. Am I blind?
No, what happened was that the whole project was crying out for someone to edit the prose fiction. Someone innovative, someone handsome, someone –
— we get it, sheesh. So it’s a good book, is it?
Fantastic book. It has some amazingly entertaining and well written stories in it by people like Josh Stallings, Chad Eagleton, Julie Morrigan and Nigel Bird. Plus a whole bunch of comics, artworks, you name it.The Tobacco-Stained Sky will be out very soon, on August 26th.
So you managed to get a short story published in an anthology that you edited? *slow hand clap*
Wait a minute, I had the story in there before –
Never mind. I take it you have some other stories doing the rounds, then?
My story in The Tobacco-Stained Sky, “The Dying Rain”, turned out to be the first in a series of stories featuring Tyler Bramble, a Seeker living in post-apocalyptic Melbourne. These stories are in the Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat universe. The second Tyler Bramble story, “Blue Swirls”, was published in a new Australian magazine called Tincture Journal and will shortly be featured in the second issue of Canadian anthology, Warpaint. I’ve written a third Tyler Bramble story, “A Void”, which might come out sometime next year, with a bit of luck.
Is that it?
No-o. I had a story, “The Last First”, in Another Sky Press’ Alien Sky anthology earlier this year.
Wait, you didn’t edit that as well, did you?
No, it was edited by a very nice man named Justin Nicholes. We aren’t even related.
Working on something else, are you?
Right now I’m writing a crime fiction novel called Dan: A Cautionary Tale. Earlier this year I was lucky enough to be selected as a Writer-in-Residence at the KSP Writers’ Centre in Perth, so I had four solid weeks to make a start on the novel. I’m about half way through.
So you write full time, do you? Raking in the big bucks just like F. Scott Fitzgerald?
Um, not quite. I have a day job, of sorts. You know, teaching high school English and all that.
But you’ll be able to give that away soon, won’t you? Just as soon as Yellowcake Summer hits the big time like that crime novel by that guy who turned out to be that lady, what’s her name?
…
Reblogged from Nigel Bird’s Sea Minor.
Interview regarding Yellowcake Summer in IP Enews 59
[Guy Salvidge talks about his sequel to Yellowcake Springs, Yellowcake Summer, with David Reiter.]
DR: Yellowcake Summer is the sequel to your first IP title,Yellowcake Springs. Did you plan to write a sequel from the outset, or did it occur to you after you'd written the first book?
GS: I originally intended Yellowcake Springs to be a standalone title, but I found that after completing it the main characters were still kicking around in my head, wanting another chance. In particular, I had a clear idea of how I wanted Jeremy to develop from the 'second string' character that he is in the first novel to one of the major players in Yellowcake Summer.Furthermore, as the 'Belt region of the Yellowcake universe is based on my own home in the Avon Valley, I found myself inspired by some specific settings, such as those that became Ley Farm and The Rusty Swan.
DR: Did the writing of the first book make it easier to get into the second? Did you learn anything from the reviews of Yellowcake Springs?
GS: Yellowcake Springs was certainly a breakthrough novel for me and it gave me confidence to start working on the sequel soon after publication. A number of people expressed their empathy for Rion's plight in particular, so I made sure to keep him as the 'moral centre' of the sequel. Reviews of Yellowcake Springs were almost uniformly positive so I decided to stick to pretty much the same formula for Yellowcake Summer. The books can probably be seen as two halves of one longer, and now completed, story.
DR: The dystopian novel has been a popular sub-genre for some time. How much of this has to do with our fascination with doomsday stories and our uncertainty about the future?
GS: Dystopias are very much in vogue these days and it isn't hard to see why. Fears about climate change, terrorism, food and water security and humanitarian crises are played out in dystopian stories of various kinds. It's our way as writers and readers of expressing our discontent with the present course our civilisation seems to be taking. Growing up, I was fascinated with nuclear war and after-the-bomb scenarios, but it wasn't until I watched An Inconvenient Truth in 2006 that I realised that climate change would be to my generation what nuclear war had been to that of my parents.
DR: Both novels are set in Western Australia. What strategies did you adopt to make their themes more universal?
GS: In my twenties I was leery of writing about Australian settings. My first published novel, The Kingdom of Four Rivers, was set hundreds of years into the future in a jungle-infested China, for example. On reflection, however, I realised that a certain verisimilitude would always be missing in constructing such settings, so I decided to set Yellowcake Springs in a world I personally knew. It was around this time that I also began to read a lot of Southern US fiction, which is almost always imbued with a strong sense of place and stubborn regionality. I realised then that I ought to be proud of my own regionality myself. Insofar as the themes in these or any novels can be said to be universal, I felt that the plight of my characters would be reasonably relatable to a non-Australian audience.
DR: Your 'day job' is teaching. Are your colleagues and students aware of your other life, and, if so, how do they respond to Guy Salvidge, the author?
GS: They certainly are! Some of my students like to remind me about how much they can find out about me on Google, which seems to be as accurate a measure of fame as any these days. As I teach English for a living, I find that the fact that I actively write stories gives me a certain credibility with students too. Some of my colleagues are quite enthusiastic about my work and a number of them have supported me over the years in various ways. But, for staff and students alike, my primary role as author is in disabusing them of the notion that I am (or very soon will be) a millionaire. I'm not in a position to retire from teaching just yet!
http://ipoz.biz/News/eNews59.htm
DR: Yellowcake Summer is the sequel to your first IP title,Yellowcake Springs. Did you plan to write a sequel from the outset, or did it occur to you after you'd written the first book?
GS: I originally intended Yellowcake Springs to be a standalone title, but I found that after completing it the main characters were still kicking around in my head, wanting another chance. In particular, I had a clear idea of how I wanted Jeremy to develop from the 'second string' character that he is in the first novel to one of the major players in Yellowcake Summer.Furthermore, as the 'Belt region of the Yellowcake universe is based on my own home in the Avon Valley, I found myself inspired by some specific settings, such as those that became Ley Farm and The Rusty Swan.
DR: Did the writing of the first book make it easier to get into the second? Did you learn anything from the reviews of Yellowcake Springs?
GS: Yellowcake Springs was certainly a breakthrough novel for me and it gave me confidence to start working on the sequel soon after publication. A number of people expressed their empathy for Rion's plight in particular, so I made sure to keep him as the 'moral centre' of the sequel. Reviews of Yellowcake Springs were almost uniformly positive so I decided to stick to pretty much the same formula for Yellowcake Summer. The books can probably be seen as two halves of one longer, and now completed, story.
DR: The dystopian novel has been a popular sub-genre for some time. How much of this has to do with our fascination with doomsday stories and our uncertainty about the future?
GS: Dystopias are very much in vogue these days and it isn't hard to see why. Fears about climate change, terrorism, food and water security and humanitarian crises are played out in dystopian stories of various kinds. It's our way as writers and readers of expressing our discontent with the present course our civilisation seems to be taking. Growing up, I was fascinated with nuclear war and after-the-bomb scenarios, but it wasn't until I watched An Inconvenient Truth in 2006 that I realised that climate change would be to my generation what nuclear war had been to that of my parents.
DR: Both novels are set in Western Australia. What strategies did you adopt to make their themes more universal?
GS: In my twenties I was leery of writing about Australian settings. My first published novel, The Kingdom of Four Rivers, was set hundreds of years into the future in a jungle-infested China, for example. On reflection, however, I realised that a certain verisimilitude would always be missing in constructing such settings, so I decided to set Yellowcake Springs in a world I personally knew. It was around this time that I also began to read a lot of Southern US fiction, which is almost always imbued with a strong sense of place and stubborn regionality. I realised then that I ought to be proud of my own regionality myself. Insofar as the themes in these or any novels can be said to be universal, I felt that the plight of my characters would be reasonably relatable to a non-Australian audience.
DR: Your 'day job' is teaching. Are your colleagues and students aware of your other life, and, if so, how do they respond to Guy Salvidge, the author?
GS: They certainly are! Some of my students like to remind me about how much they can find out about me on Google, which seems to be as accurate a measure of fame as any these days. As I teach English for a living, I find that the fact that I actively write stories gives me a certain credibility with students too. Some of my colleagues are quite enthusiastic about my work and a number of them have supported me over the years in various ways. But, for staff and students alike, my primary role as author is in disabusing them of the notion that I am (or very soon will be) a millionaire. I'm not in a position to retire from teaching just yet!
http://ipoz.biz/News/eNews59.htm
Reading from Yellowcake Summer - 7/5/13 at KSP Writers' Centre
Reading from "The Dying Rain" - 7/5/13 at KSP Writers' Centre
Reading from Dan: A Cautionary Tale - 7/5/13 at KSP Writers' Centre
A VERY BUSY GUY << RTR FM // THE SOUND ALTERNATIVE
FROM THE BLOG
Friday 26th April / posted by Rhian Todhunter
A VERY BUSY GUY
Literary prize-winner Guy Salvidge is a busy man.
With two stories being published this year, a sequel underway, and plans to start a crime novel in the near future – writer in residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre, Guy Salvidge joins me to treat us to a live reading and look at his busy schedule.
CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN
http://rtrfm.com.au/story/what-a-busy-guy/
Friday 26th April / posted by Rhian Todhunter
A VERY BUSY GUY
Literary prize-winner Guy Salvidge is a busy man.
With two stories being published this year, a sequel underway, and plans to start a crime novel in the near future – writer in residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre, Guy Salvidge joins me to treat us to a live reading and look at his busy schedule.
CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN
http://rtrfm.com.au/story/what-a-busy-guy/
Aussie Snapshot 2012
Guy Salvidge was born in England in 1981 and moved to Western Australia in 1990. He studied English at Curtin University, majoring in Literature and Creative Writing, and graduated in 2002 with Honours. Completing a Graduate Diploma in Education in 2005, Guy embarked on a career as a high-school English teacher. His first novel, The Kingdom of Four Rivers, was published by Equilibrium Books in 2009. His second novel, Yellowcake Springs, won the 2011 IP Picks Award for Best Fiction and was published by Glass House Books in the same year. Yellowcake Springs was recently shortlisted for the 2012 Norma K Hemming Award.
1. Your second novel Yellowcake Springs has been shortlisted for the Norma K Hemming Award. Tell us a bit about the book and themes that have caught the judges eye.
Yellowcake Springs is a dystopian novel in the tradition of 1984, but my work has also been heavily influenced by SF writers like Philip K Dick and J G Ballard. Set around 50 years from now in Western Australia, the novel depicts a nightmarish scenario in which a Chinese company has set up a nuclear reactor complex north of Perth in the fictional town of Yellowcake Springs. The plot concerns an attempt by the environmentalist (or ‘mental’) group Misanthropos to destroy the reactor. The narrative follows the lives of three people: Sylvia Baron, an advertising rep in Yellowcake Springs whose husband is involved in the sabotage attempt; Orion Saunders, a down-at-heel vagabond from the depopulated inland ‘Belt; and Jiang Wei, a Chinese man sent to Australia to work in the reactor complex.
My primary aim in the writing of Yellowcake Springs is to lay bare the utter folly of using nuclear power, something that is not as far-fetched in Western Australia today as one might think. A 2005 report to then PM John Howard recommended precisely this strategy. Another concern is the increasing role that Chinese companies are playing in mining operations in Western Australia. Instead of demonising the Chinese people themselves as an alien other, I chose to write this section of the novel from the perspective of a young Chinese man, Jiang Wei. The novel explicitly depicts a vast gulf in social class between the elite coastal dwellers and the impoverished inlanders. The future of sexuality is also explored in the world of Controlled Dreaming State, an immersive, online world where one can enact every fantasy or situation they choose, something that would not only be extremely addictive, but also potentially causing people to disengage from ‘real’ life.
2. How long have you been writing and how did you get into the sf scene? What have you found the most beneficial or worthwhile?
I’ve been writing fairly seriously since I was around 14 or 15, and I’m nearly 31 now so I’ve been at it for a long time. For many years I was a SF reader without having any engagement with the scene here in WA, despite the fact that I worked in the now-defunct Supernova Books from 2001-03. I started up my wordpress blog around four years ago, and that enabled me to engage with the community a little more, and eventually some of these reviews made it onto ASiF. Through my interest in the works of Philip K Dick, I came into contact with Australia’s grandfather of fandom, Bruce Gillespie. A big thing for me was attending last year’s Natcon in Perth, where I met the late Paul Haines for the first time, and I attended Swancon again in 2012. I also joined the Katharine Susannah Prichard Speculative Fiction group in 2011. The most worthwhile about the scene for me is feeling that I’m not, in fact, operating in a vacuum, that there are other people around who share similar views and interests to myself.
3. What are you working on now and what do you have your eye on to write in the future?
I’ve been working on two projects recently: the sequel to Yellowcake Springs, currently entitled Yellowcake Summer. I started writing that in the summer holidays of ’11/’12 and I suspect it’ll take me another year to have the novel in reasonable shape. The other project was a short story, “The Dying Rain”, for an anthology called Tobacco Stained Sky, which is to be a collection of ‘post-apocalyptic noir’. The book is forthcoming from Another Sky Press in the US. I’m toying with the idea of trying to write a crime fiction novel without SF elements, but that’s a couple of years off as yet. I also want to get something published in one of the Australian small-press anthologies in the not-too-distant future, so I thought I might have a crack at Ticonderoga’s Dreaming of Djinn, if I manage to produce something in time.
4. You are a reviewer at ASif! – what are you reading interests and what do you look for in a good Australian book?
The same thing I look for in any book: a muscular narrative, lean writing, and a tinge of darkness. I tend to have two reading rules, even though I get roundly criticised for them. Rule #1 is that I don’t read anything published before 1918, and Rule #2 is that I rarely read anything over 350 pages in length. I prefer novels over anthologies, but I’m partial to single author collections. I don’t read fat fantasy and I don’t read space opera either. What I’m after is intelligent, thought-provoking fiction, not escapism. I’m reading less speculative fiction than ever, which isn’t to say that I don’t want to read it. Books I’ve enjoyed so far in 2012 include the crime novels of Megan Abbott, Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead, and Daniel Woodrell’sWinter’s Bone.
5. Two years on from Aussiecon 4, what do you think are some of the biggest changes to the Australian Spec Fic scene?
I’m not sure I’m qualified to respond to this, seeing as I’m new to the scene myself, but it seems to me that while there is some excellent speculative fiction being published in Australia, distribution remains a serious problem. Excluding a handful of specialist bookstores scattered across the country, most of what passes for a Science Fiction and Fantasy section in the average bookstore these days is wall to wall epic fantasy and paranormal romance. Bookstores like Notions Unlimited are shining lights in this regard, and we need to ensure that the physical bookstore doesn’t disappear altogether over the next decade.
Be sure to check out the rest of the Aussie Snapshot 2012 interviews starting here.
1. Your second novel Yellowcake Springs has been shortlisted for the Norma K Hemming Award. Tell us a bit about the book and themes that have caught the judges eye.
Yellowcake Springs is a dystopian novel in the tradition of 1984, but my work has also been heavily influenced by SF writers like Philip K Dick and J G Ballard. Set around 50 years from now in Western Australia, the novel depicts a nightmarish scenario in which a Chinese company has set up a nuclear reactor complex north of Perth in the fictional town of Yellowcake Springs. The plot concerns an attempt by the environmentalist (or ‘mental’) group Misanthropos to destroy the reactor. The narrative follows the lives of three people: Sylvia Baron, an advertising rep in Yellowcake Springs whose husband is involved in the sabotage attempt; Orion Saunders, a down-at-heel vagabond from the depopulated inland ‘Belt; and Jiang Wei, a Chinese man sent to Australia to work in the reactor complex.
My primary aim in the writing of Yellowcake Springs is to lay bare the utter folly of using nuclear power, something that is not as far-fetched in Western Australia today as one might think. A 2005 report to then PM John Howard recommended precisely this strategy. Another concern is the increasing role that Chinese companies are playing in mining operations in Western Australia. Instead of demonising the Chinese people themselves as an alien other, I chose to write this section of the novel from the perspective of a young Chinese man, Jiang Wei. The novel explicitly depicts a vast gulf in social class between the elite coastal dwellers and the impoverished inlanders. The future of sexuality is also explored in the world of Controlled Dreaming State, an immersive, online world where one can enact every fantasy or situation they choose, something that would not only be extremely addictive, but also potentially causing people to disengage from ‘real’ life.
2. How long have you been writing and how did you get into the sf scene? What have you found the most beneficial or worthwhile?
I’ve been writing fairly seriously since I was around 14 or 15, and I’m nearly 31 now so I’ve been at it for a long time. For many years I was a SF reader without having any engagement with the scene here in WA, despite the fact that I worked in the now-defunct Supernova Books from 2001-03. I started up my wordpress blog around four years ago, and that enabled me to engage with the community a little more, and eventually some of these reviews made it onto ASiF. Through my interest in the works of Philip K Dick, I came into contact with Australia’s grandfather of fandom, Bruce Gillespie. A big thing for me was attending last year’s Natcon in Perth, where I met the late Paul Haines for the first time, and I attended Swancon again in 2012. I also joined the Katharine Susannah Prichard Speculative Fiction group in 2011. The most worthwhile about the scene for me is feeling that I’m not, in fact, operating in a vacuum, that there are other people around who share similar views and interests to myself.
3. What are you working on now and what do you have your eye on to write in the future?
I’ve been working on two projects recently: the sequel to Yellowcake Springs, currently entitled Yellowcake Summer. I started writing that in the summer holidays of ’11/’12 and I suspect it’ll take me another year to have the novel in reasonable shape. The other project was a short story, “The Dying Rain”, for an anthology called Tobacco Stained Sky, which is to be a collection of ‘post-apocalyptic noir’. The book is forthcoming from Another Sky Press in the US. I’m toying with the idea of trying to write a crime fiction novel without SF elements, but that’s a couple of years off as yet. I also want to get something published in one of the Australian small-press anthologies in the not-too-distant future, so I thought I might have a crack at Ticonderoga’s Dreaming of Djinn, if I manage to produce something in time.
4. You are a reviewer at ASif! – what are you reading interests and what do you look for in a good Australian book?
The same thing I look for in any book: a muscular narrative, lean writing, and a tinge of darkness. I tend to have two reading rules, even though I get roundly criticised for them. Rule #1 is that I don’t read anything published before 1918, and Rule #2 is that I rarely read anything over 350 pages in length. I prefer novels over anthologies, but I’m partial to single author collections. I don’t read fat fantasy and I don’t read space opera either. What I’m after is intelligent, thought-provoking fiction, not escapism. I’m reading less speculative fiction than ever, which isn’t to say that I don’t want to read it. Books I’ve enjoyed so far in 2012 include the crime novels of Megan Abbott, Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead, and Daniel Woodrell’sWinter’s Bone.
5. Two years on from Aussiecon 4, what do you think are some of the biggest changes to the Australian Spec Fic scene?
I’m not sure I’m qualified to respond to this, seeing as I’m new to the scene myself, but it seems to me that while there is some excellent speculative fiction being published in Australia, distribution remains a serious problem. Excluding a handful of specialist bookstores scattered across the country, most of what passes for a Science Fiction and Fantasy section in the average bookstore these days is wall to wall epic fantasy and paranormal romance. Bookstores like Notions Unlimited are shining lights in this regard, and we need to ensure that the physical bookstore doesn’t disappear altogether over the next decade.
Be sure to check out the rest of the Aussie Snapshot 2012 interviews starting here.
Northam teacher launches second sci-fi book
NORTHAM Senior High School English teacher Guy Salvidge launched his second science-fiction novel at Two Stories Book Cafe in Northam last Saturday.Mr Salvidge was at the cafe to sign copies of his new book Yellowcake Springs.
His first novel The Kingdom of Four Rivers was published in 2009 by Equilibrium Books.
Mr Salvidge hopes his new book will receive similar recognition.
“I've always been keen on writing, but science-fiction has been my metier,” he said.
Mr Salvidge has been teaching Northam for five years.
He and his wife have two children and live in York.
http://www.avonadvocate.com.au/news/local/news/general/northam-teacher-launches-second-scifi-book/2360211.aspx
His first novel The Kingdom of Four Rivers was published in 2009 by Equilibrium Books.
Mr Salvidge hopes his new book will receive similar recognition.
“I've always been keen on writing, but science-fiction has been my metier,” he said.
Mr Salvidge has been teaching Northam for five years.
He and his wife have two children and live in York.
http://www.avonadvocate.com.au/news/local/news/general/northam-teacher-launches-second-scifi-book/2360211.aspx
Interview #2 with Interactive Publications
[Kayla Clibborn interviews Guy Salvidge, author of the dystopian novel Yellowcake Springs, 2011 winner of the IP Picks Best Fiction award.]
KC: Both Yellowcake Springs and your previous novel,The Kingdom of Four Rivers, depict post-apocalyptic, dystopian futures reminiscent of Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984. Have you drawn inspiration from any particular authors or texts for your work?
GS: I've always written dystopian or post-apocalyptic fiction. My first story that I can recall writing was called 'The Day After' and it was a gruesome tale about a group of boys hiding in a fallout shelter after the bomb. One by one, they go up to the surface and never return. I was twelve when I wrote that.
I certainly read those famous Huxley and Orwell texts, but a novel that influenced me profoundly at a tender age was Robert Swindells' Brother in the Land ≠ another post-nuclear tale.
As an adult, my major influences include J G Ballard, William S Burroughs, Harry Crews, Raymond Chandler and Philip K Dick, all of whom can be considered writers of the apocalypse in their varying ways. In researching Yellowcake Springs, I also read a number of factual accounts relating to the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986.
KC: You have dedicated this novel to your two children, with the message, "may they never have to live through this". What concerns or fears do you have for our society in the future in terms of themes you have dealt with in the book, such as overpopulation and environmental decay?
GS: We seem to be living on the precipice. I've always felt this way, as though our civilisation can and will be swept away by forces beyond our control.
When I was a child, nuclear war seemed to be the major threat, and so I was always writing about that. By then, the Cold War was over and the nuclear threat was fading. It wasn't until I saw Al Gore's filmAn Inconvenient Truth in 2006 that I realised that climate change would be the global threat of this era, and that I could write about it in fiction in much the same way that others had written about nuclear war previously.
Overpopulation, both as a practical and a philosophical consideration, is close to the heart of Yellowcake Springs. One of the ironies of our lives is that the planet would be far better off without us. Having children seems an especially foolish thing to do in these times, and yet I love my children more than anything and feel that they have massively enriched my life.
Here's the crux of the overpopulation problem – no one thinks of his or herself as an unnecessary surplus.
KC: Did you find it challenging to appropriate your factual research and knowledge of the issues facing our society and their potential consequences, into a fictional form?
GS: In truth, I find it more of a challenge NOT to sketch the issues facing our society on a canvascalled 'the future'. My mind is always jumping five or ten steps ahead, considering possibilities that may never eventuate. It should be pointed out, however, that I don't consider Yellowcake Springs to be an exercise in prophecy – merely a warning in the same way that Nineteen Eighty-Four was intended to warn the people of 1950 of the dangers of totalitarianism.
But if you want to write about the possibility of nuclear power being used in Australia, then you have to set your story in the future anyway, due to the long lead time it would take for such projects to be completed. What we call 'the future' is something akin to a bomb testing site, a place where we can play out our desires and fears without being harmed
ourselves. The real challenge for me would be depicting these issues in a contemporary framework.
KC: What made you choose fiction rather than creative non-fiction as a vehicle? Are confronting issues, such as those addressed in Yellowcake Springs, more easily absorbed through fiction?
GS: Absolutely. In writing fiction, one creates characters for whom the world around them is normal and mundane, even if for us it might appear nightmarish.
Instead of writing a dry tract about the possible dangers of nuclear power, foreign takeovers and climate change, all of which are pressing issues here in Western Australia, I much prefer to depict these problems imaginatively. One of the reasons for this is that fiction writers pose questions, they do not offer solutions.
Thus Yellowcake Springs explores some of these issues in a way that doesn't pretend to have all the answers. If these problems were easily solved, then they would be solved. The Fukushima nuclear crisis, which occurred after Yellowcake Springs was completed, brought the issue of nuclear power to the forefront of public consciousness again. Instead of boring readers with a polemic on the dangers of nuclear power, I chose to imagine a scenario in which this debate had been won decades before.
KC: What do you consider to be the appeal of the post-apocalyptic/dystopian sub-genre of speculative fiction? Do you think it acts as a reversed form of escapism for the audience i.e., offering an exaggerated view of a possible bleak future – prompting an appreciation for reality, rather than a desire to escape it?
GS: Dystopian fiction is necessarily exaggerated, offering extreme visions that provoke readers into responding emotionally and intellectually.
One of the aims of such writing is to allow readers to engage with the issues of the present time in a different context. This desire to confront the issues of our time means that dystopia fiction is anti-escapist.
Personally, I find that problems like climate change are so vast and seemingly intractable, especiallygiven the squabbling between nations and within them, that eventually they become a kind of background noise. The desire for escape has a powerful pull on us all, a desire which we satisfy with media, entertainment and gaming.
Yellowcake Springs imagines an even more seductive form of escapism, depicting some of the dangers of disengagement from the political process. Dystopian fiction allows us to re-engage with these problems in a different way.
Published in IP E-news 52: http://www.ipoz.biz/News/eNews52.htm
KC: Both Yellowcake Springs and your previous novel,The Kingdom of Four Rivers, depict post-apocalyptic, dystopian futures reminiscent of Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984. Have you drawn inspiration from any particular authors or texts for your work?
GS: I've always written dystopian or post-apocalyptic fiction. My first story that I can recall writing was called 'The Day After' and it was a gruesome tale about a group of boys hiding in a fallout shelter after the bomb. One by one, they go up to the surface and never return. I was twelve when I wrote that.
I certainly read those famous Huxley and Orwell texts, but a novel that influenced me profoundly at a tender age was Robert Swindells' Brother in the Land ≠ another post-nuclear tale.
As an adult, my major influences include J G Ballard, William S Burroughs, Harry Crews, Raymond Chandler and Philip K Dick, all of whom can be considered writers of the apocalypse in their varying ways. In researching Yellowcake Springs, I also read a number of factual accounts relating to the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986.
KC: You have dedicated this novel to your two children, with the message, "may they never have to live through this". What concerns or fears do you have for our society in the future in terms of themes you have dealt with in the book, such as overpopulation and environmental decay?
GS: We seem to be living on the precipice. I've always felt this way, as though our civilisation can and will be swept away by forces beyond our control.
When I was a child, nuclear war seemed to be the major threat, and so I was always writing about that. By then, the Cold War was over and the nuclear threat was fading. It wasn't until I saw Al Gore's filmAn Inconvenient Truth in 2006 that I realised that climate change would be the global threat of this era, and that I could write about it in fiction in much the same way that others had written about nuclear war previously.
Overpopulation, both as a practical and a philosophical consideration, is close to the heart of Yellowcake Springs. One of the ironies of our lives is that the planet would be far better off without us. Having children seems an especially foolish thing to do in these times, and yet I love my children more than anything and feel that they have massively enriched my life.
Here's the crux of the overpopulation problem – no one thinks of his or herself as an unnecessary surplus.
KC: Did you find it challenging to appropriate your factual research and knowledge of the issues facing our society and their potential consequences, into a fictional form?
GS: In truth, I find it more of a challenge NOT to sketch the issues facing our society on a canvascalled 'the future'. My mind is always jumping five or ten steps ahead, considering possibilities that may never eventuate. It should be pointed out, however, that I don't consider Yellowcake Springs to be an exercise in prophecy – merely a warning in the same way that Nineteen Eighty-Four was intended to warn the people of 1950 of the dangers of totalitarianism.
But if you want to write about the possibility of nuclear power being used in Australia, then you have to set your story in the future anyway, due to the long lead time it would take for such projects to be completed. What we call 'the future' is something akin to a bomb testing site, a place where we can play out our desires and fears without being harmed
ourselves. The real challenge for me would be depicting these issues in a contemporary framework.
KC: What made you choose fiction rather than creative non-fiction as a vehicle? Are confronting issues, such as those addressed in Yellowcake Springs, more easily absorbed through fiction?
GS: Absolutely. In writing fiction, one creates characters for whom the world around them is normal and mundane, even if for us it might appear nightmarish.
Instead of writing a dry tract about the possible dangers of nuclear power, foreign takeovers and climate change, all of which are pressing issues here in Western Australia, I much prefer to depict these problems imaginatively. One of the reasons for this is that fiction writers pose questions, they do not offer solutions.
Thus Yellowcake Springs explores some of these issues in a way that doesn't pretend to have all the answers. If these problems were easily solved, then they would be solved. The Fukushima nuclear crisis, which occurred after Yellowcake Springs was completed, brought the issue of nuclear power to the forefront of public consciousness again. Instead of boring readers with a polemic on the dangers of nuclear power, I chose to imagine a scenario in which this debate had been won decades before.
KC: What do you consider to be the appeal of the post-apocalyptic/dystopian sub-genre of speculative fiction? Do you think it acts as a reversed form of escapism for the audience i.e., offering an exaggerated view of a possible bleak future – prompting an appreciation for reality, rather than a desire to escape it?
GS: Dystopian fiction is necessarily exaggerated, offering extreme visions that provoke readers into responding emotionally and intellectually.
One of the aims of such writing is to allow readers to engage with the issues of the present time in a different context. This desire to confront the issues of our time means that dystopia fiction is anti-escapist.
Personally, I find that problems like climate change are so vast and seemingly intractable, especiallygiven the squabbling between nations and within them, that eventually they become a kind of background noise. The desire for escape has a powerful pull on us all, a desire which we satisfy with media, entertainment and gaming.
Yellowcake Springs imagines an even more seductive form of escapism, depicting some of the dangers of disengagement from the political process. Dystopian fiction allows us to re-engage with these problems in a different way.
Published in IP E-news 52: http://www.ipoz.biz/News/eNews52.htm
From the Avon Valley Gazette, Saturday 22nd October 2011
http://guysalvidge.wordpress.com/2011/10/22/from-the-avon-valley-gazette-saturday-22nd-october-2011/
Interview #1 with Interactive Publications
This novel takes on some serious social issues. Which did you enjoy exploring the most and which do you think is the most important?
Yellowcake Springs tackles a number of social issues in various ways. Firstly, there is a widening chasm in the distribution of wealth demonstrated by the towns of Yellowcake Springs (the rich) and East Hills (the poor). This unequal distribution is evident in our own world and the gulf is widening by the year. The novel also explores the problem of disengagement with the political process through the character of Sylvia Baron. The extremely poor do not have the luxury of disengagement, and in the novel they have become increasingly radical and militant in their opposition to a government which no longer even pretends to service their needs.
What sort of impact do you think a book like this will have on public perception regarding these issues?
In Yellowcake Springs I have sought to offer an extreme worst case scenario of W.A. in the year 2058. Readers may be shocked to read of a world where conditions have been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent, but there are worrying trends in the privatisation or dismantling of public systems in areas such as health, education and social services that might one day lead to such conditions as we see in the fictional town of East Hills. More obviously, however, the issues of nuclear power and the foreign ownership of Australian assets are foregrounded in a provocative way in the novel. My expectation is that readers will see Yellowcake Springs as a dystopian novel in the tradition of 1984, thus offering a warning about the dangers of allowing such trends to continue unopposed.
What do you think of avatar-based technologies like second-life?
Such technologies offer both profound benefits and potentially hazardous consequences to users. Communication media such as Facebook, Skype and Steam allow us unprecedented powers to transcend physical distance and truly 'be' a part of online communities, often in avatar form. However, there is a danger that people will increasingly retreat into these virtual worlds, disengaging with the difficult and often seemingly insurmountable problems of our physical environment. In Yellowcake Springs I have imagined a technology called Controlled Dreaming State which allows users to escape their real lives in a way that transcends the current technical limitations of keyboard, mouse and screen. Such a technology would probably be enormously addictive.
What influence has the ongoing boom in Western Australian mining had on this novel?
In the twenty or so years I have lived in W.A. I have seen the state transformed from a sleepy backwater into something of a mining mecca.Yellowcake Springs was written in the context of the political debate over uranium mining, which I felt might eventually lead to nuclear power plants being built for domestic power generation. I also have concerns about foreign (and particularly Chinese) ownership of mines and related infrastructure. In the novel I have invented a company, CIQ Sinocorp, which not only owns nuclear power plants in W.A., but also the surrounding land. While I have nothing against the Chinese people (indeed I have long been a student of Chinese history and culture), their government's track record on environmental issues and human rights leaves a lot to be desired.
Do you draw any inspiration from your teaching?
Teaching offers me valuable insights into the human condition, in terms of group dynamics and the way that social pressures demand conformity, but often provoke disobedience or withdrawal, in individuals. A school is a society in microscopic form, and as a novel offers a 'world in miniature', so school life can and does inform the creation of fictional worlds. Teaching also gives one access to a far wider range of the social spectrum than might otherwise be the case, and this is useful in imagining how those living in extreme poverty and disadvantage think and behave.