"Sure, writers have demons and inner critics that whisper horrible, discouraging things to us. But some of us give them undignified pet names and enrol them in short courses to get them off our hands..."
In these essays, Angela Slatter-the World Fantasy Award-winning author of the Sourdough Stories, the Verity Fassbinder Series, and more-explores the relationship between the writer, their work, and the publishing industry they inhabit.
Drawn from twelve years of author presentations, keynote speeches, blog posts, and articles aimed at aspiring and established professionals, You Are Not Your Writing features Slatter's best advice on managing social media, understanding the role awards play in your developing career, the hierarchy of rejection, and strategically building your career and network of other writers. Most importantly, they draw the line between the writer and their work, and illustrate the dangers of mistaking one for the other.
Whether you're a new writer seeking advice on taking the next step, or a fan of Slatter's fiction looking for a glimpse behind the scenes, this chapbook is a peek into the mindset and philosophy of one of Australia's most acclaimed writers of fantasy and horror.
Slatter, Angela: - Angela Slatter is the author of the supernatural crime novels Vigil, Corpselight and Restoration from Jo Fletcher Books, as well as nine short story collections, including The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, Sourdough and Other Stories, The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, and A Feast of Sorrows: Stories. She is also the author of the novellas, Of Sorrow and Such and Ripper. Vigil was nominated for the Dublin Literary Award in 2018, and Angela has won a World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, a Ditmar, an Australian Shadows Award and six Aurealis Awards. She has recently signed a two-book deal with Titan Books for All The Murmuring Bones and Morwood, gothic fantasies set in the world of the Sourdough and Bitterwood collections. Angela's short stories have appeared in Australian, UK and US Best Of anthologies such The Mammoth Book of New Horror, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, The Best Horror of the Year, The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror, and The Year's Best YA Speculative Fiction. Her work has been translated into Bulgarian, Chinese, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Polish, French and Romanian. Victoria Madden of Sweet Potato Films (The Kettering Incident) has optioned the film rights to one of her short stories (Finnegan's Field). She has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing, is a graduate of Clarion South 2009 and the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop 2006, and in 2013 she was awarded one of the inaugural Queensland Writers Fellowships. In 2016 Angela was the Established Writer-in-Residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre in Perth. She has been awarded career development funding by Arts Queensland, the Copyright Agency and, in 2017/18, an Australia Council for the Arts grant. Find her online at www.angelaslatter.com
