peter darbyshire

Update your feeds—I’ve moved

peter — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 05:47:13 +0000

I spent the past week moving into a new house — and a new website! I’ve shifted this blog from WordPress.com to a WordPress installation on peterdarbyshire.com. I love the WordPress.com service for its ease of use, but there are just too many restrictions when it comes to design. Hosting everything on my own site allows me to add a few new features, like my Goodreads feed and Boardgame Geek feed.

I don’t think I lost too many things in the move, but let me know if you notice anything odd or broken. The new feed for posts is here, and the new feed for comments is here.

See you in the new digs!

“Living the hallucination”

peter — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 20:27:44 +0000

The Saturday Post has an interview with me about The Warhol Gang –page WP13. The black bloc comment is most appropriate.

Can brain scans predict your behaviour?

peter — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 06:46:09 +0000

I keep telling people The Warhol Gang is nonfiction, but no one wants to believe me.

It would be an advertiser’s dream: knowing the exact location in your brain that indicates whether an ad has worked, and whether you intend to buy that cat food or wear that suntan lotion. Now, some researchers claim they’ve found a region which might predict whether viewers will act on what a commercial tells them.

Buy a copy of The Warhol Gang and become a millionaire!

peter — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 04:14:44 +0000

Just a reminder that I’ll be reading with the Joyland Vancouver crew at The Railway Club, 579 Dunsmuir Street, this Tuesday at 7 p.m. There’s a concert in the place later in the evening, so the readings will start on time!

As a bonus for people who turn out, there will be prizes! Prizes! We’re going to have some sort of giveaway for people, and I’ll be handing out lottery tickets to some of the honourable souls who buy copies of The Warhol Gang — recipients chosen at random. I’m not buying tickets for everyone who buys a book because I’d need to win a lottery to afford that. But hey, what other reading offers you the chance to win $50 million? Even better, there will also be the usual postcard comics I give away to people who buy copies of the book.

See you there!

Be the chaos you want to see in the world

peter — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 06:20:01 +0000

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Be the urban fantasy novel you want to see in the world.

Missed connections

peter — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:43:00 +0000

I lost my job but the government found me a new one. Now the government pays me to pretend I’m a travelling businessman. I fly around the country to imaginary meetings. It’s part of a project to make it look like the economy is doing well. I buy unsold seats on airplanes with fake company credit cards and tell my seat-mates about my imaginary businesses. I tell people beside me on the red-eyes about my bioresearch firm in Houston. I tell people beside me in the airport Starbucks about my contextual advertising firm in Toronto. I tell people beside me at the airport urinals about my air freshener firm in Milwaukee. I give them my email addresses and business cards, but none of these companies actually exist. I see the same people on the same flights again and again. I see the same people sitting at the same airport gates again and again. We introduce ourselves to each again and again, and pretend we’ve never met. We buy each other drinks and sleep with each other in hotel airports. We tell each other about our imaginary families in our imaginary homes. We hold each other in the dark and weep. We keep the country running. We are the economy.

Inspired by this article about renting white guys.

Vancouver launch of The Warhol Gang coming up

peter — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:57:35 +0000

I’ll be launching The Warhol Gang in Vancouver on Tuesday, June 22, with Joyland.ca. It’s gonna be an extravaganza! Details in the poster below.

Thanks, everyone!

peter — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 21:25:32 +0000

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Toronto event last night. It was great to see you all again, and it was a fun reading. Even if I did miss out on the veggie burgers.

I know there were a few of you I didn’t get to chat with. Sorry about that. Next time!

Vancouver, I’ll see you soon.

Irresistible

peter — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:16:27 +0000

Random shot in Toronto

You can still win a Warhol Gang prize

peter — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:01:03 +0000

As I mentioned before, if you post about The Warhol Gang, review it, or otherwise mention it online, you’re eligible to win a new, unpublished short story called “We Continue to Pray for Someone to Hear Our Prayers.” The initial reception to The Warhol Gang has been great, and I’ve sent the story out to a bunch of people. But I know I’ve missed a few, so if you’ve mentioned the book somewhere and would like a copy of the story, just drop me an email, tweet, Facebook message, Goodreads message, etc. I’d love to hear from you. I’m trying to entertain a newborn while doing press for the book, so I’m not Googling myself as often these days.

And for those of you planning on attending one of the upcoming readings, I will have small gifts for you if you buy a book there or bring one to the event to be signed. Just a way of saying thanks for attending a real-life event.

Here’s the original post again:

Like most writers, I want to get as many people as possible talking about the book. And if not talking about it, then at least thinking about it. Hell, I’ll settle for people buying it. So as an incentive, I’m offering a new, unpublished story for free to anyone who blogs about The Warhol Gang, writes about in the local paper, includes it in a status update, puts it in their Goodreads reading list, Tweets about it, defaces bus shelters with Warhol graffiti … you get the idea. You don’t even have to own the book to qualify, you just need to help get the word out.

The story is called “We Continue to Pray for Someone to Hear Our Prayers.” Did I mention it’s totally free? That’s right — free! Don’t pay now, don’t pay later! And it’s only available to people who post/write about The Warhol Gang (for now). Just send me a link or a photo or some evidence that proves you did indeed talk about the book and you’re not just trying to take advantage of a poor writer’s generosity (scoundrel!) and I’ll send you a PDF of the story in a bit (it’s so new I have to wait for the paint to dry. Also, I’m still editing it!).

This offer is null and void if the link/post/comment/review is negative. What, do you think I’m crazy?