Posted by Matthew Lang, on March 14th, 2011% So, I’m back from ChillOut!, having decided not to stay for the Monday festivities. It was a fun experience, although I’m not sure how much of it was really my thing. My boyfriend and I arrived on Friday, and due to a booking mess up (on my part) we only had one night’s worth of accommodation in Daylesford itself. Thankfully, one of our friends in Baccus Marsh came to the rescue and we bunked in with him for the Saturday and Sunday nights, which was good, otherwise we might have had to return after only one day there.
Had dinner at The Farmers Arms Hotel, which was good (if pricey). I ordered the venison as an entree and the pork neck as a main. Both were excellent, although the bread the cured venison was served on tasted a bit stale. It wasn’t soft, but it lacked the crisp crunch I think it was meant to have–it seemed as though it had been toasted and then left too long before serving it up, resulting in a rather unexciting texture. For his part, my boyfriend loved the vegetable parcel entree, but didn’t like the lentils that accompanied the pheasant main. Personally I did, I think he just doesn’t really like lentils.
Dayleford itself was a riot of rainbows. It seemed like every establishment had a rainbow flag up–even the ANZ bank (okay, admittedly they are a sponsor). You know something strange is going on when the banks are flying pride flags. All right, I get that ChillOut is one of the Hepburn Shire’s biggest events, with an economic impact somewhere around the $30 million mark. I also would much prefer to be welcomed with pride flags than run out of town, but most of the flag flying seemed very commercial. It was ‘Hey, gay people, come shop here!!’, which admittedly is something I advocate as one of the best ways to improve tolerance, but part of me objected to the almost over the top gaudiness that the festival seemed to engender. I’m all for bring inclusive and encouraging gay people to shop at your establishment. But if you’re only going to fly the pride flag for 3 days a year, I’m probably going to ask what you do to support gay community the other 362 days. Frankly, a small, understated rainbow flag sticker in your window will do more to endear your business to me than jumping onboard the queer bandwagon for a 3 day festival. Of course, if you’re flying the pride flag all year round, then I may consider it something I wouldn’t necessarily do, but I will respect and fully support your business in doing so. Up to and including shopping there.
Just saying.
Anyway, a big thanks to everyone who turned up at Horvat’s Wine Bar on Saturday for the banQuet 2011 readings, and a . . . → Read More: ChillOut! 2011
Posted by Matthew Lang, on March 11th, 2011% 
So it was MLR Press author chat day at the LR Cafe yahoo group yesterday, and I thought I’d post the Q&A here for you all to enjoy, or laugh at. Either one’s good really.
Please tell us about yourself. What got you interested in being an author?
Well, about ten years ago, I was living in Hong Kong–my dad got a job over there and moved the whole family–and I ended up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia because of Model United Nations. I honestly can’t even remember which country I was representing. Possibly Sudan, although I think that was the year before. Anyway, it was cool because the host family I stayed with was Australian–I’m an Aussie, by the way, hello from down under–and it turned out Simon and I both liked writing, Australian comedy (can’t wait for the festival) and Warhammer (okay, I’m a geek). Anyway, he introduced to an PBeM egroup called Imperial Secrets (IMS) that is now sadly defunct, but um… I got home to HK, was up at 2 AM in the morning and created a character to post with and discovered what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
Can you tell me a bit about your most recent/upcoming release?
My debut novel is called The Secret of Talmor Manor. It’s a modern paranormal mystery–although some people are classifying it as historical–the main conceit is that my main character, Jake, falls asleep and finds himself in a Victorian era manor inhabited by a number of ghosts–and then one of them (the hunky one) appears in Jake’s living room. Then it’s a case of, why is the ghost, Nathaniel, in the waking world? Why is Nathaniel corporeal? WTF is up with this sexual chemistry thing, who is trying to kill them, and what should he wear to the upcoming Halloween party? You know, all the important questions!
For any readers who may not have read any of your books, can you just give us a little sneak peak into world (i.e. the type of genre you write, type of stories you like to write…etc)?
So that would be every reader here, right? Um…well see, typically I write fantasy fiction, so this novel was a bit of a departure for me, and of course it’s the one that Laura and MLR went ‘Yes Please’ to. Um… I guess I like to write stories that are really less ‘romance’ stories than other stories that just happen to have a male/male romance built in to them as part of the overall plot. I tend to push myself to give characters real reactions, and I also like to be funny, which sometimes doesn’t work with the real reactions, so it usually comes down to finding the place where the story sits and forcing myself to stick to it. It usually works.
How much of yourself, if any, do you put into your characters?
That depends entirely on the character. Jake got a few of my pet peeves, but there’s bits of me in just about every . . . → Read More: Q&A @ LoveRomances Cafe
Posted by Matthew Lang, on March 2nd, 2011%
Well, it’s official–The Secret of Talmor Manor is out as an eBook, available in PDF, EPUB and PRC (Kindle) format. Currently it’s available directly from MLR Books. For anyone after a printed copy, watch this space, I expect it to be available in print shortly and I’ll keep you all posted on that. It hope you all enjoy it–I certainly enjoyed writing it.
If you’d like a sneak peek you can read an excerpt here.
In other news I will be doing a full reading of Mr. Perfect at this year’s Chillout Festival in Daylesford this Labour Day long weekend, Satuday 12th of March at Horvat’s Wine Bar. The events starts at 3:00 PM and will feature full readings from both BanQuet 2011 Anthologies, which will be available for purchase on the day. Tickets are $15/$10 and are available through the Chillout Events webpage. Pop it into your calendars and I hope to see you there.
Love to all
Matt
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