Bel Says:

How does it feel when you have nobody to love? When you’re walking around the CBD, watching all the love birds holding hands and making goo goo eyes at each other. I know–it makes me feel pretty meh too. Imagine if you were a ghost… then you really would have no body. But if a ghost were to have some body, then he’d be a lucky guy indeed.

Timing is everything – Halloween is the time when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest; though, this would probably be the time when everyone is out looking to find their own Patrick Swayze. Be sure to get in early to avoid disappointment.

Location, Location, Location – He will probably be spending most of his time hanging out at the cemetery, the dead center of town; where his body was buried, or in the spooky looking house where he died. These places would probably bum him out, so if he’s not bound to the area, take him somewhere nice, like the fair. He’d probably get a kick out of the fun house.
Dress to impress – White flowing gowns or sheets with eye holes cut into them will probably make him cringe. Also avoid jangly chains. Cliché much. Try to dress in whatever was sexy in the year he was still alive. So if he’s been cactus for a while you may have to invest in some corsets and long flowing skirts. For the first few dates a costume store rental would probably be fine.

Pet hates – Cats tend to get their tail in a twist around ghosts. So Mr Whiskers isn’t going to appreciate you bringing your Boo home. Maybe it’d be a good idea to send his furry butt on a little vacation to your Grandparent’s place.

Bridge the gap – The key to any good relationship is communication. Unless you know Morse code and don’t mind his constant wall tapping to make conversation, you’ll need to look into a few things. Befriending someone with the ability to see and talk to the dead would be a good start. But for those times when you want to be more private… a digital voice recorder for EVP’s (not to be confused with VPL), a light with a motion detector, night vision surveillance with infrared lights, and if you want to catch anything he mutters under his breath, perhaps an infra-sound monitor.
Imagine the possibilities – You’re a little old to have an ‘imaginary friend’. People will think you’re an absolute nutter unless you manage to prove to them you really do have a ghost for a boyfriend. For this you may need to have a séance with an Ouija board. Or look into investing in a full spectrum or deep infrared still camera for those happy snaps. For the home movies a full spectrum high definition camcorder is what I’d suggest. All these gadgets can be found at any reputable ghost hunting store.

Electro shock therapy – Ask your Boo to avoid fiddling with your electrical goods. He’ll waste power with all the turning on and off, and if you’ve bought the EVP equipment he shouldn’t have a need to be killing your light bulbs to let you know he’s there.

The cheaper alternative – Everyone knows ghosts make the room cooler when they’re lurking. Inviting your Boo around on those stinking hot summer evenings will be more cost effective than switching on the air conditioning. Not to mention more environmentally friendly.

Penny Wise – Save money on going to see those horror movies together and just have him scare the life out of you when you least expect it. It might make him giggle, and a happy partner is better than a grumpy one.

Safe as houses – Don’t live in the safest part of town? Ask your Boo to move in with you. Ghosts don’t have to sleep and they make less mess than a guard dog. Would probably be more effective on burglars as well.

Good luck!

Music: Blondie — (I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear

Catherine Geaney

Thought it time to officially welcome all our new staff to Burn Bright. In the last few months we’ve had several new writers come on board, namely Cels Jansink, Max Smith (UK) and Mandy Wrangles. Digital artist Catherine Geaney (Ir) has also come back to help us out with some great downloadable button emblems for the gangs of Ixion, which you can find under Extras. Catherine (or Cj, as we know her) will be designing different pieces for us on and off, to complement the iphone apps and wallpapers that Random House are working on.

You can read all our new staff bios in the Staff section, and the slant of their blogs in the Columns section.

Cels Jansink

Max Smith

Mandy Wrangles

In book news, Burn Bright has gone off to be turned into page proofs and some advance copies should be ready in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, I’ve begun work on the Angel Arias (bk 2) and am enjoying exploring Ruzalia’s island, before Naif and I head back to Grave and face her past.

Don’t judge a book by its cover; that’s a point I learnt long ago. Some covers are an exact representation of what is in the book, some are so clearly divorced it boggles the mind, and some are just following the trend of what gets books sold.

The first thing I thought when I picked up this book was “Oh, Two men in hoods on the cover, how original.” To be fair, this is due to a discussion I had with a few high-end editors about what kinds of images sell books.

Bec Stafford interviews DM Cornish:

Friday, September 3rd, 2010 4:30pm. Hilton Hotel, South Wharf, Melbourne.

D.M. Cornish was born early enough to have witnessed the very first Star Wars film and, full of the glee of such a wondrous spectacle, has been making up secondary worlds ever since. When his publisher – for whom he was at the time illustrating picture books – discovered one of his many his notebooks containing his thoughts and ponderings on his own creation – the Half-Continent – he was quickly set the task of turning said notes into a story. This he promptly did and the result was the Monster Blood Tattoo series: Foundling (2006), Lamplighter (2008) and to be released in October this year Factotum (2010). He as also contributed a shorter tale (“The Corsers’ Hinge”) to the most excellent Legends of Australian Fantasy, edited by Jack Dann & Jonathan Strahan.

At this year’s AussieCon4, I was lucky enough to have a chat with the multi-talented, engaging, and all-round nice guy, DM Cornish. Those of you who’ve read his amazing Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy or been blown away by his phenomenal art work will no doubt be curious about what inspires DM and how he became the creative powerhouse he is today. Read on and wonder no more…

BEC: The art on your website’s amazing. You’ve got this incredibly striking illustrative work and then you’ve done impressive commercial stuff, too. Your background’s in commercial art initially, right?

DMC: Correct. I trained as an illustrator at university. Drawing’s always been the thing. ‘Oh, David’s good at drawing’. For me it was quite natural, though not very well thought-out… When I was getting towards finishing year 12… When people would ask ‘oh, what university course are you going to do?’,  I’d think ‘I don’t know!’… So my parents stuck one of those books in front of me… One of those course guides. And I thought ‘Oh, illustration! There’s drawing involved, so I’ll put that at number one’. My Dad’s an art teacher. My parents were really encouraging about that. It was always ‘whatever you find your hand to do, as long as it’s not wrong, go to it.’

BEC: What’s your Dad’s artwork like? Did you learn from him and then develop your own style? Or do you just happen to share the artistic gene?

DMC: It’s funny. My Mum plays with language. She plays with people’s names all the time. So I think I’ve picked up a certain playfulness from her. Dad’s very much more technical. He’s often trying to encourage me to do more technical things. So, Lego was definitely an expression of my creativity… making Lego. And he would say ‘make things with gears and cranes and stuff.’ And I’d want to make space ships.

BEC: Ah – It was always speculative fiction, from early on!

DMC: Star Wars! It was that whole thing. I wanted to do that… And the thing that was always driving me, and still drives me now, is this idea of ‘why’? So I’ve made a spaceship. But why? What’s its setting? What’s its context? It’s got these kinds of devices on it. But why? And Dad taught me a lot about perspective and tricks to drawing. Deliberately, but casually. It wasn’t ‘ok- I’m going to sit you down and teach you things’, but in the process of hanging out together and him showing me things, by the time I got to uni I already knew how to do perspective.

BEC: What was school like?

DMC: Ohhh, I was the pariah in school. You know? The outcast. The bullied one.

BEC: Oh, I’m beginning to think that happens to creative people in general.

DMC: Exactly. I’m just part of that tradition. So that gives me credibility, I hope. It was only when I got to uni that people around me started growing up enough, and I grew up enough, to realise that I can be liked. And that was important. That was when the whole Half-Continent really began – at uni.

BEC: So there was a combination of a lot of support at home and the bullying at school. Then, in the midst of that, you always had your art to escape into… It sounds like it was a bit of a rollercoaster you had to weather. But your family was your rock?

DMC: Somewhat. Home life wasn’t amazing either, as for many people. Parents are human and go through their own crap. I don’t think you can make something like the Half-Continent and not have a list of issues as long as your arm. You know what I mean? It comes from real pain and it comes from me learning, really early, that I could escape to my own head, my own right brain, my own inventions. It’s the usual thing. They were safe and I had control over them. I wouldn’t deliberately work things out. I wouldn’t get the bully and beat them up. I followed archetypes, because humans naturally do that, it seems. So this ability to tell a story… and the Lego… and the drawing… and playing with plastic soldiers… and that sort of thing, came from early on. I’d be in my room a lot, making stuff up.

Trash is in no way a pretty book; the cover is an illustration of a landfill of Himalayan proportions. The setting is in essence a community built around a pile of, as the inhabitants call it “Stuppa”, what we would politely call human waste. And the main characters are garbage sorters of the kind that is all too common in third world countries.

Beneath the filth that is part and parcel of the story reside some very human characters: Raphael and Gardo, two somewhat emotionally scarred teenage trash sorters, and Rat, a young man that starts off alone and grimy but proves to be a creature of natural instincts within.

This story is not an overly complex one. Raphael recovers a discarded bag during his usual day salvaging what he can from an endless field of refuse; the money within promises short lived luxury, the map and key a mystery. A confusing but fortunate find for the boy, until the corrupt police arrive to look for the bag in order to solve a crime.