Just over 20 years ago, I first met my future wife. Our lives together have now been longer than the years of our lives before we met.

Sixteen years ago today, we were married, and it has been the most wonderful and amazing 16 years of my life. Definitely looking forward to another 16...20...40 years together!

I was just asked on another forum to outline 2009's acheivements, so I'll post them here too:

** A number of short stories published:

"The Dumbshow" - Masques Anthology, CSFG (ed Gillian Polack and Scott Hopkins) (May 2009) (ISBN 978-0-9775192-1-7)

"The Haunting that Jack Built" - Aurealis #42 (ed. Stuart Mayne, Chimaera Publications), (May 2009)

"The Message" - Midnight Echo #2 (ed. Shane Jiraiya Cummings and Angela Challis, Australian Horror Writers Association), (June 2009)

"Daivadana" - In Bad Dreams 2: Where Death Stalks (ed. Sharyn Lilley, Eneit Press), (October 2009) (ISBN 9778-0-9806911-0-8)

** My short story "The Message" has been nominated for the Aurealis Awards' Best Horror Short Story. It is also receiving recommendations on the international scene for a Bram Stoker Award.

** Also, quite a few illustrations done for books and magazines, both internal and covers. Most importantly to me was the release of "SHARDS: Short Sharp Tales" in collaboration with author Shane Jiraiya Cummings, which has received nothing but wonderful reviews.

"Shards: Forty Short Sharp Tales" by Shane Jiraiya Cummings & Andrew J.McKiernan, colour cover plus 39 internal illustrations - Brimstone Press (ISBN 978-0-980-56772-4)

** I have at least 3 other stories accepted and waiting for publication in 2010, and 8 book cover designs/illustrations, 1 magazine cover, and about 15 internal illustrations still to see print.

A VERY good year for me, and it is just the beginning. I've got this beast by the tail now and my grip will only tighten throughout 2010.

Every time the Copenhagen summit is mentioned in the news, my two boys have taken to shouting out 'Copenhagen! Give these people air' in the same way Arnie does 'Cohagen!' in Total Recall. Very funny.

The list of finalists for the 2009 Aurealis Awards has been announced over at http://www.aurealisawards.com/finalists_winners.htm

Very happy to see my short story "The Message" (from Midnight Echo #2) made the grade for Horror Short Story. There's some awesomely stiff competition there, but I'll keep my fingers crossed. Either way, a nomination is in itself a wonderful thing to have achieved.

Congratulations to all the finalists, and I wish everyone the very best. Thanks also to the judges for wading through so many stories too - that must have been an experience in horror all by itself!

ASif! have just posted Martin Livings' review of Shards: Short Sharp Tales, and it is another review both Shane and I can be proud of. Thanks Martin!

"It's handsome, slick, professional... hell, it's kind of sexy, to be perfectly frank. Together, Shane Jiraiya Cummings, Andrew McKiernan and Brimstone Press have collaborated to create a superior collection in Shards, filled with fantastic illustrations and razor-sharp flash fiction that won't disappoint fans of the form, and may even create some new ones, given the chance."

You can read the full review at: http://www.asif.dreamhosters.com/doku.php?id=shards

I've just posted slew of new illustrations to my website (http://www.andrewmckiernan.com).

One is the illustration for Nathan Burrage's short story "Fractured Forever" in the soon-to-be-released issue #43 of Aurealis magazine. The rest are from P'rea Press's forthcoming collection of Richard Tierney's Lovecraftian poetry "Savage Menace"

Click on any of the images below for a larger view.

"Fractured Forever" based on a story by Nathan Burrage

"Autumn Chill" based on a poem by Richard Tierney

"Stain of Victory" based on a poem by Richard Tierney

"Kingsport" based on a poem by Richard Tierney

"Savage Menace" based on a poem by Richard Tierney

Despite recent blog advice from gillpolack, a few reviews of my work have appeared over the past week or so and I'm going to post notice of them here :)

First up, felicitydowker has reviewed "SHARDS: Short Sharp Tales" over at Specusphere.

"The overall experience of Shards is that of a dizzying, vivid, frightening rollercoaster ride, plunging the reader repeatedly into dark and horrible places, only to climb up toward the light for a gulp of air before dropping sharply into another nightmare. All lovers of dark fiction will find something to cherish here, and those who appreciate high quality artwork will enjoy McKiernan's touches, too."
[read the full review]

Midnight Echo #2 has also been reviewed at Specusphere by Damien Smith. Of my story "The Message" he had this to say:

"Of course there are the traditional horror staples of blood and death. Particularly noteworthy among these is 'Sweet Music' by Shaun Jeffrey, which puts a unique spin on old fashioned creative pain. It would have won my prize for Biggest Reader Reaction if not for the lingering sense of sadness created from Andrew J. McKiernan's 'The Message'. "
[read the full review]

And the wonderful azhure has also reviewed Midnight Echo #2 over at OzHorrorScope, and has some very nice things to say about "The Message":

"'The Message' by Andrew J. McKiernan is the absolute standout in this issue. Again, a grounding in real life events gives this story real impact. There's a real emotional hit to this one that will linger long after you've closed the magazine."
[read the full review]

Thank you all for your kind words :)

Forgive me all for my absence from the interwebs Monday and Tuesday but I wasn't feeling the best. Just worn out, I think, with a few weeks of late nights and bad sleep finally taking its toll. Spent most of my time in bed, or laid-back in the recliner, reading Stephen King's "Under the Dome". About half-way through so far, and it is damn good!

Anyway, I've looked through the answers I received for my Black Friday Shards Giveaway and made a decision.

The question was: What is your biggest fear?

navicat answered: Failure

Quite a general answer, but one that is very real for pretty much every human on this planet (I think). Failure as a person, as a parent, failure in work, failure to find love or friendship, failure in accomplishing our own dreams. Its all pretty universal for us but - and here's the kicker - I think that FAILURE is also the thing that drives most of the human race to accomplish new and wonderful things! I know I'm always worried about failing in my writing - about an hour after I've finished writing anything it kicks in, overtaking any feelings of accomplishment I might have had. I also worry very much about failing as a husband and a father. But it is that fear of failure that makes me work that much harder in making all these things better. Without a fear of failure, humanity probably would have fallen on its arse a long, long time ago.

gillpolack answered: Being Invisible

I could me mean, and just pretend I didn't notice that answer at all, but this is also a big fear for many people I know. To be totally honest, Gillian is one of the least invisible people I've ever met. She's always there with great advice and wonderful writing - be it about fiction, history, food or all of the above - and she has one of the most wicked senses of humour I've ever encountered. Sometimes, with every going on in and around my life, I actually wish I was invisible. I'd probably hate it if I was, and the old adage of 'beware what you wish for' is probably the first thing Gillian will think of when she reads this. Nevertheless, Gillian, you'll never be invisible to me!

LJ newcomer kazwald answered: Being Buried Alive

This one definitely appealed to my sense of morbidity. In this day and age of medical marvels and scientific investigation taphophobia is probably one of the fears least likely to occur. But still, the fear persists. Nowhere near as many people are actually 'buried' these days - cremation now seems to be the norm in the Western World - and you're more like to wake up on the autopsy table than six-feet-under. And yet, those feelings of isolation, of being trapped in darkness and slowly running out of oxygen (not too mention the almost impossible possibility of creepy crawlies in the sealed lead coffin with you) are as real today as when Edgar Allan Poe penned his tale 'Premature Burial' way back in 1844.

And so, with the themes inherent in the collection and the Black Friday nature of the competition, I award the copy of "SHARDS: Short Sharp Tales" to kazwald!

A big thanks to gillpolack and navicat for revealing their fears to the world at large, and I'll see if I can rustle up some form of consolation prize for you both.

kazwald, if you can email me at ashr @ tpg . com . au (remove the spaces) with your full name and a postal address, I'll try and get your copy in the mail within the next week or so.

Remember, if you'd like a taste of what 'SHARDS' has to offer, check out the free PDF chapbook "SHARDS: Damned and Burning" available from http://www.brimstonepress.com.au

SHARDS GIVEAWAY!
WIN A FREE COPY!

Today is the final day to win yourself a copy of 'Shards: Short Sharp Tales'. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post telling me (in 100 words or less):

What is your biggest fear?

I'll choose a winner tonight, Monday the 16th. The choice of winner is mine and no correspondence will be entered into regarding it. I'll choose the answer I like best, so it is all down to a personal preference but I'll almost definitely go for the most interesting (and possibly unusual) fear that gets commented.

So far, there is only one entry. A sure winner unless others chime in soon.

So, off you go! You know you want to! There's a dark creepy book in it for you :)

It might be Friday the 13th but, as a horror writer, I have plenty to celebrate and be happy about at the moment. So happy, that I'm giving one LJ reader a chance to win a copy of 'Shards: Short Sharp Tales'!

Firstly, on Tuesday the 10th November, my wife and I celebrated 20years since we first met by going out to dinner and seeing Jeff Martin and The Armada perform a particularly amazing performance at Lizotte's on the Central Coast. Jeff, Wayne Sheehy and former Newcastle lad Jay Cortez were in extreme intimate mode at one of the smallest, but best, venues I've ever been too. Lizotte's Kincumber is an awesome restaurant with great food and bands and musicians almost every night. A month ago we went there and saw Paul Dempsey solo, and going back next month to see Paul again. But, on such a small stage in so intimate a setting (so close we could touch the band), Jeff Martin and his new band were amazing! It was almost an acoustic gig, but that did nothing to diminish the power of his voice and energy he draws out of every song. It was a great selection of Armada songs, old Tea Party tunes and the odd cover mixed in (NIN's 'Hurt', The Beatles 'Within You Without You' and a few others I can't remember off-hand). As always, Sister Awake was the highlight for my wife and it was a great night for us to celebrate 20yrs of knowing each other! I've now spent more of my life WITH her, than the number of years I lived before I met her. I can barely remember a time when she wasn't there for me and I'm defintely looking forward to spending the next 20yrs of my life with her.

On top of all that, I've been informed that a couple of works I've been involved with have been recommended for nominations in the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards!

Firstly, my story "The Message" from Midnight Echo #2 has been recommended for 'Outstanding Achievment in Long Fiction'. Its still a long way from final ballot nomination, but the honour and thrill of just this much recognition is quite a dizzying feeling.

Second, "Shards: Short Sharp Tales" by Shane Jiraiya Cummings has been recommended for 'Outstanding Achievement in a Fiction Collection'. Shards was very much a labour of love for Shane and I. The marriage of his dark and disturbing flash fiction with my illustrations. Specusphere has described Shards as "...a dizzying, vivid, frightening rollercoaster ride, plunging the reader repeatedly into dark and horrible places, only to climb up toward the light for a gulp of air before dropping sharply into another nightmare."

If you haven't read Shards yet, you can always download the free PDF Chapbook "Shards: Damned and Burning" from Brimstone Press which contains stories and illustrations not included in the full book and get a feel for it (http://www.brimstonepress.com.au/) or, if you'd like you're own copy of 'Shards: Short Sharp Tales' see the Giveaway a little further down in this post.

Sinister Reads - a sister site to the Australian Horror Writers Association - has been wonderful enough to profile myself (as well as the other Australian Stoker recommended authors) on their website (see: http://sinisterreads.wordpress.com/) in hope of drumming up a bit more publicity and recognition for us all. I've been profiled today, along with Felicity Dowker (felicitydowker) and Matt Venne. Check it out: http://sinisterreads.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/sinister-reads-its-a-black-friday-stoker-kind-of-thing/

SHARDS GIVEAWAY!
WIN A COPY!

And, in celebration of all this, I'm giving away a copy of 'Shards: Short Sharp Tales' to one lucky LJ reader. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post telling me (in 100 words or less):

What is your biggest fear?

I'll choose a winner on Monday the 16th. The choice of winner is mine and no correspondence will be entered into regarding it. I'll choose the answer I like best, so it is all down to a personal preference but I'll almost definitely go for the most interesting (and possibly unusual) fear that gets commented.

So, off you go! There's a dark creepy book in it for you :)

Nothing much to say - too busy to think about LJ posts and my personal life - but I haven't posted in ages, so here's a quick update.

Conflux has been and gone and, most disappointingly, this year I had to miss it. A number of books were launched there though in which I had some involvement.

Slice of Life, a collection of short stories by Paul Haines (paulhaines) was launched by Stuart Mayne's new press The Mayne Press . I did the cover and internal layout and design. I'm still waiting to find out how this book can be ordered online (hopefully sorted this week), but I have to say this is a MUST HAVE book. Awesome writing, disturbing and heartbreaking stories, and all proceeds go directly to the Paul Haines cancer fund.

Eneit Press released two books:

Gillian Polack's (gillpolack) novel Life Through Cellophane is a slightly dark (but not too much so) 'suburban-horror' novel that the author and publisher describe as "latte suburban horror". It is available from http://www.eneitpress.com/books.php?isbn=9870980691115. For this one, I also did the internal and cover design and layout.

And the second anthology in the acclaimed "In Bad Dreams" anthology series is also here! In Bad Dreams 2: Where Death Stalks is an anthology with, unlike Life Through Cellophane, no milk or sugar in its dark and bitter tales of horror. It includes 11 stories by authors such as Martin Livings (martinlivings), Stephanie Gunn (azhure), Gillian Polack (gillpolack), and myself. I also did the internal layout and the cover design for this one too.

SHARDS: Short Sharp Tales, with stories by Shane Jiraiya Cummings and illustrations by me, is also currently still available from Brimstone Press (http://www.brimstonepress.com.au/). Keep your eye on my LJ over the next few days for your chance to win a copy!

Following on from my post the other day, here is a draft for the sixth and final book in Chimaera Publications forthcoming "Classic Australian SF" series, which will be released at Aussiecon 4 in 2010.

Click on the image for a larger view.
Or view all the covers in order

Martin Livings (martinlivings) and Cat Sparks (catsparx) both have some very nice things to say about my writing over on Martin's LJ.

Martin gives a mini-review of the recent Midnight Echo #2, and my story "The Message" receives some high praise indeed.

Cat chimes in with a comment on how my story 'The Dumbshow' was possibly her favourite story from the CSFG Masques anthology.

Coming from two writers who I admire quite a bit, comments like these really mean a lot to me. Thank you both, and I'm really glad you enjoyed the stories.

NOTE: Edited to add 5th cover draft. 2nd book cover changed based on editorial feedback.

Chimaera Publications, publishers of Aurealis magazine, will be launching a series of six books at Worldcon 2010 (Aussiecon 4) reprinting some long-forgotten classics of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy. Featuring introductions from some of the biggest names in Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy, these are going to be a great set of books to have on your shelf, and a marvellous collection of Australian history.

Here are my draft cover designs for the first 5 books in the series.

Click on the images for a larger view.

4 days now with no TV, and we haven't killed each other yet... yet.

Our wonderful (less than 12mth old) wide-screen plasma died on Thursday night. The power just went at 7.30pm and that was it.

Its still under warranty - it was only manufactured in Sept 2008 so its not even 12mths out of the factory - but it will apparently take 2-3 weeks to fix and return to us.

2 - 3 Weeks!! No TV. No DVDs. No Playstation.

If you read about a family of four on the Central Coast murdering each other over the next few weeks, you'll know why.

It is a shame when one of my favourite authors says something so ridiculous, abhorrent, and ignorant that you have no choice but to never, ever buy or read any of their work EVER again.

Via ellen_datlow's LJ today, I found out about this post (More Diversity and More Perversity in the Future!) by author John C. Wright.

His statements about 'Natural Law' and homosexuality just make me sick!

Now, I agree, no story (tv, film or book) should ever feel the need to bend to pressure from an outside source just to include their point-of-view. Such things only serve to undermine the strength of story-telling. But, his views are just so wrong - just so ignorant of the scientific facts surrounding homosexuality in the animal kingdom (humans included) - that I can never offer that man another cent of royalties from my own pocket.

A big shame, because I loved his Golden Age trilogy (possibly the best Science Fiction series written in the few decades), really ate up his Everness duology, and (mostly) enjoyed his Chronicles of Chaos. But, not another cent from me! Ever!

Jeff Ritchie of ScaryMinds has posted an excellent review of "Shards: Short Sharp Tales".

Here are a couple of excerpts:

"Cummings is coming at you with splintered tales of the macabre that will reverberate with you long after you have finished the book."

"Shane Jiraiya Cummings with Shards shows he is not only a master of the flash fiction style of writing but has pretty much written the definitive statement on how it should work. The collection is a strong statement on the validity of an internet driven writing style and is a must have for any collector of Australian Dark Fiction. If you love dark fiction or have ever wondered what flash fiction is about then Shards should speak to you in language that you will understand."

"McKiernan draws in black and white, always an advantage if wanting to hit stark themes without overly cluttering the visual with colour, and clearly has a grasp on what Shane Jiraiya Cummings is after in Shards. It might be just me but I took a sort of 1930s film noir art deco feeling away from McKiernan's work in the book. Hey I'm not an art critic but McKiernan's stylings were working for me here."

Thanks, Jeff, for the absolutely wonderful write-up!

You can read the full review at: http://www.scaryminds.com/reviews/book11.php