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Launched - A Hand of Knaves

A couple of weekends ago I attended Conflux 14 in Canberra. I had a great time for many reasons, not least of which was because, alongside Leife Shallcross, I got to finally launch A Hand of Knaves!

Editing this fantastic collection of stories about thieves, pirates, con-artists and anti-heroes of all kinds with Leife has taken up a lot of my time over the past year and to see the finished product in the hands of readers was a real thrill for me.

It's the first collection of stories I've 'properly' edited and I think I can safely say that Leife and I struck up a great working relationship. It was a superb learning experience for me as a writer as much as anything. I learned a lot about my own strengths and weaknesses, not only through my interactions with Leife, but with the authors as well.

A couple of tipsy editors
A lot happened for both of us between the time we chose to take on A Hand of Knaves, and the date of publication. Leife beat out literally thousands of hopefuls to have her The Beast's Heart MS accepted and published by Hodder and Stoughton through their open submission call from a few years back. And I've secured contracts writing Choose-Your-Own-Adventure gamebooks for companies such as Big Fish Games. Just goes to show where editing a CSFG anthology can take you.

You could call me biased (and I am) but I really think this anthology is THE BEST. I had a hoot launching it, dressed up as the cowardly rogue Jayne Cobb, with Leife as Cersei Lannister. But neither of us could hope to match our spontaneously hilarious MC Rob Porteous, whom I suspect lives a double life as an actual space pirate.

A bunch of happy launch attendees

I'm kinda' sad it's all over now, but the launch was great fun. Thanks to all those who came along and best of luck to all the authors in this anthology. It was fun to meet some of you there.

The ever-popular signing table


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