John Kenny

Many writers will agree that writing synopses is something they have difficulty doing. There is quite a bit of confusion as to what exactly a synopsis is. Why is it required? How do you go about writing one? It’s common knowledge that a synopsis is a summary of the story a writer has written and … Continue reading »

In a previous life I worked for a consultancy company that managed donor-funded overseas development aid programmes in Central and Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Essentially, they were projects funded by the EU, the World Bank and various national aid agencies and aimed at assisting economic development and recovery. My job was to … Continue reading »

This week, I was asked to write a guest blog for Writing4all, a free online resource for writers. Given that I make my daily crust as a freelance editor, I thought, for a change, I’d focus specifically on the important of the editorial process itself, which has become all the more crucial now with the … Continue reading »

Cover letters are a curious creature. Editors generally pay scarce attention to them, certainly if they accompany a short story submission to a magazine, anthology or webzine. And yet they are nearly always a submission requirement. A sure way to put an editor’s nose out of joint is to post or email a submission with … Continue reading »

There’s no question that getting old is a pain in the butt. You work hard all your life, you struggle for a level of security and relative comfort, which often seems constantly just out of reach, you do your best to provide for and nurture your kids, then bits of you start to fall off … Continue reading »

I thought long and hard before including the word ‘F*****g’ in the title of this second part of my occasional series on submitting work to publishers; reason being I didn’t want to be seen as potentially disparaging towards the vast majority of writers who do go the trouble of checking out the guidelines to a … Continue reading »

Hollywood has a long and varied tradition in the production of biopics, those movies ‘based’ on the life and times of real life people of historical, social or cultural significance. And there have been many excellent examples of this genre down through the years; two that come to mind as I write are Ray, based … Continue reading »

Delighted to see the latest issue of Jupiter magazine drop through my letterbox, which features a story written by myself and David Conyers called ‘Expectant Green’. Following the untimely death of her mother, teenager Francesca Leyton is shipped off to a remote planet and into the care of a father who can barely remember her … Continue reading »

It’s a commonly accepted concept that writers starting out begin by submitting stories to lesser known publications and, as they build a profile for themselves, work their way up over time to more prestigious venues for fiction, the idea being that all the while they are honing their craft and becoming better writers. And on … Continue reading »

Call me old-fashioned, but I still love physical, hard copy books. There’s no doubt that eBooks are becoming more and more popular, eating into the sales of physical books to an ever increasing extent. Some say that books as we know them will die out completely, and this is a distinct possibility. But I still … Continue reading »

I received news just before Christmas, and have been meaning to post something about it since, that Karen Heuler‘s short story ‘Thick Water’, featured in issue 40 of Albedo One (the magazine I co-edit with Bob Neilson, Dave Murphy, Frank Ludlow and Peter Loftus), has been selected for inclusion in The Year’s Best SF #17, … Continue reading »

I do this crazy thing that people marvel at when they see me doing it: I read while I’m walking. On my way to a bus or Luas stop (the Luas is a tram system in Dublin City), or to the shops or the library or wherever, out comes whatever book I’m reading and I’ll … Continue reading »

I’ve just received news that ‘The Show’ by Priya Sharma, which features in Box of Delights, the horror anthology I edited for Aeon Press, has been chosen by Ellen Datlow for her Best Horror of the Year: Volume 4. It’s due out in May of this year from Night Shade Books. In the meantime, of … Continue reading »

My co-editing partner in crime at Albedo One, Robert Neilson, has started up a series of short interviews he calls bloggerviews over at his blog, which will eventually be archived on the Albedo One website. And to kick the series off, he’s only gone and interviewed little ol’ moi. I’ll probably upload the interview to … Continue reading »

Bless me father, for I have sinned. It is over one month since I last blogged. Yes, I know. In these fast-paced, plugged-in, networking days of the blogosphere such a thing is unpardonable. But I plead extenuating circumstances: a surfeit of freelance editing work, the mad dash to get the new issue of Albedo One, … Continue reading »

It’s a curious phenomenon that, historically, the arts have flourished during recessions and withered during economic booms. The reason for this, in my view, is that during economic downturns widespread dissatisfaction results in an upswing in artistic expression, be it through art, literature, drama, whatever. And the audiences for this groundswell of expression increases too; … Continue reading »

There’s a minor character in Albert Camus’ brilliant novel The Plague who spends years and years agonising over the structure and wording of the opening sentence of a novel he plans to write. He’s torn between a multitude of variations of the sentence, convinced that if he can just get that one sentence right the … Continue reading »

Hot off the presses is a new science fiction and fantasy anthology called Transtories, which features a story of mine called ‘Transthermal’. Set in a future Mozambique where it’s capital city, Maputo, is permanently submerged by flooding and people live in gigantic barges on streets that are now canals, it tells the story of a … Continue reading »

I’m delighted to announce the launch of a new original horror anthology edited by myself called Box of Delights and published by Aeon Press. It features fiction by Mike Resnick, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Steve Rasnic Tem, Don D’Ammassa and a host of others. Following a successful Irish launch at Octocon in Dublin on the 15th … Continue reading »

I’m fully aware that Ireland’s Celtic heritage is largely the invention of WB Yeats and his buddies; that the concept of a coherent and consistent Irish cultural identity was not a part of the Irish public consciousness before the advent of the 20th Century. But I’ve always been perfectly happy to buy into the idea, … Continue reading »

Last Christmas I lost my job. The several web-based projects I had developed for the company that employed me were simply not taking off to the extent we had expected and the company’s owner just ran out of money. A few years ago the likelihood is they would have succeeded but ever tightening constraints have … Continue reading »