Tag: Ion Newcombe

Antipodean SF

It’s been a while since I mentioned my friend Ion “Nuke” Newcombe, and the excellent publication he edits and produces, Antipodean SF. Antipodean SF has been running online since February 1998, meaning its 18th birthday has just come and gone. And given the publication is now old enough to drink, I thought it was well worth celebrating with a little shout out.

I’ve had ten or so flash fiction pieces published at AntiSF over the years, and I’m not the only Australian writer to get early publication credits with Ion. I’m always amazed to look back and see how many of my favourite Australian speculative fiction authors got their start with AntiSF.

There have been 212 issues of AntiSF since 1998, each issues publishing between 6 and 10 flash fiction pieces of around 500 words (sometimes longer, sometimes shorter). By my calculations, averaging 8 stories at 500 words for 212 issues equals approximately 850,000 words of flash fiction, a large portion of which has been from Australians.

Ion is very generous with his time, and considering he is not making any money out of the publication, he gives a very generous amount of editorial feedback to his authors. He cares deeply about the Australian SF field and is well worth a chat if you ever see this man at the bar at a convention somewhere.

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So, if you fancy writing a short piece, you could do a lot worse than submitting to Antipodean SF. Who knows, you could be the next great talent that Nuke discovers!

Galactic Chat – Ion Newcombe interview

Regular blog lurkers will know that I have been helping out with the Galactic Chat podcast, interviewing the occasional unsuspecting member of the Australian speculative fiction community when they can’t think of an excuse to get out of it quick enough.

Ion “Nuke” Newcombe is the latest victim of my interviewing technique. Nuke is the editor in chief of the Australian online magazine Antipodean SF and a long time supporter of the speculative fiction scene. Full disclosure: Nuke has published some of my flash fiction and has been both an inspiration and provided valuable support to my writing, making it doubly fun to be interviewing him.

Antipodean SF has been going since 1998, and Nuke has some fascinating insights into trends that have happened in the SF scene over that time. He also has some great insights into the world of flash fiction. Check out the show notes for more details, then get your listening ears on.

Many thanks to Nuke for not only putting up with my questions, but providing such an interesting and wide ranging set of answers!