Collin Piprell

I’m in the business of generating alternative realities and then exploring them. This, I claim, is not schizophrenia. A Canadian writer and editor based in Bangkok, I've also lived in England, where I did graduate work at Oxford, and in Kuwait, where I learned to sail, waterski, and make a credible red wine in plastic garbage bins. At the end of 2008, I resigned as editorial director at Dragon Art Media (Bangkok, Phuket, Koh Samui, Bali) to devote myself to writing. My chief skills are words and tunnels. Before the Oxford and Kuwait years, my employment experience included, among other things, four jobs as a driller and stope leader in mines and tunnels in Ontario and Quebec. (One of my few regrets in this life is having had to refuse a development mining job in Greenland.) There’s been little call for tunneling these days, but since moving to Thailand I've produced many articles on a wide variety of topics, four novels, a collection of occasional pieces, a diving guide to Thailand, another book on diving, and a book on Thailand’s coral reefs. I've also co-authored a book on Thailand’s national parks. I've taught writing at a local university (Thammasat), and I conduct occasional writing workshops for publishing companies and community organizations. I'm currently at work on a fifth novel, the second of a futuristic trilogy that begins with *MOM,*, now available on amazon.com. Books by Collin Piprell (currently out of print, aside from MOM and Diving in Thailand): *MOM* (http://tinyurl.com/y9am7lq) *Yawn* (A Thriller) Bangkok: Asia Books, 2000 *Kicking Dogs* (Bangkok: Asia Books, 2001) *Bangkok Knights* (Bangkok: Asia Books, 2001) (The previous three titles need a new home.) *Bangkok Old Hand* (Bangkok: Post Books, 1993) *Diving in Thailand* (Singapore: Times Editions; U.S.A.: Hippocrene Books, 1994, 2000), photographs by Ashley J. Boyd. *Thailand’s Coral Reefs* (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1993), photographs by Ashley J. Boyd. * Thailand: The Kingdom Beneath the Sea* (Bangkok: Artasia Press, 1991), photographs by Ashley J. Boyd. * National Parks Thailand* (Bangkok: IFPC, 1993, 1995), with Denis Gray and Mark Graham Prospective agents and publishers are welcome to contact me at collin.piprell@gmail.com.

Stones hurled from a glass house

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Bangkok Noir is enjoying favorable review, both locally and abroad. But I’d like to critique the second sentence of my own contribution to that story collection, “Hot Enough to Kill.” In fact, I suggest that readers take a pen and revise it.

Here’s the printed version (not mine—I swear that some gremlin on my computer vandalized the sentence; I have two copies of the story that read the way I wrote them, and two more corrupted versions):

Eyes are filled … Read more

Writerly occupational hazards: Ersatz creativity (boozing)

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Inebriation is a false Muse. As seductive as they may be, chemical substitutes for true creative intoxication don’t work.

Maybe there are exceptions that prove this rule. Malcolm Lowry, e.g., did much field research for his brilliant novel Under the Volcano, which included a main protagonist who was drinking himself to death. (Lowry, unfortunately, perhaps in his quest for verisimilitude, was himself to go all the way at an early age.) Emulating his own hard-boiled detective protagonists, writer … Read more

Harvest Season—better than The Beach?

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In my opinion, Chris Taylor’s Harvest Season is a better story, better told, than Alex Garland’s The Beach.

I compare the two books only because each involves “backpackers” on the Asia trail. Taylor’s story unfolds in relatively remote China, whereas The Beach is set in what are supposed to be islands in the Gulf of Thailand. With Harvest Season, though, I have a much surer sense that the writer is indeed familiar with his geographical and subcultural settings. … Read more

Not just another bargirl book

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She Kept the Bar Between Them: Stories from Thailand

by Steve Rosse

BangkokBooks (2011)

www.bangkokbooks.com

info@bangkokbooks.com

Long-time Phuket resident (now living back in the States) and frequent contributor to a variety of Thailand publications in years past, Steve Rosse has recently added an e-book collection of new stories to his credits.

These disturbing, often blackly comic tales issue from a darker side of human nature. Some of the stories chronicle encounters with bargirls, and some of these verge on the … Read more

Actual physical manifestation of a meme: First confirmed sighting in the wild

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The following item has been appearing on countless blogs and Facebook pages around the universe: “Donald Trump has revealed the truth about the Republican Party.”

Trump stands accused of serving up a distillate of all that’s worst about current Republican attitudes and programs. (Many Democrats find this convenient, and really hope his party runs him for President.)

But I don’t believe we can blame Trump.  It’s the thing on his head, its roots extending into his cerebral cortex, … Read more

Bookish enhancements vs. publishing gimcrackery

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Print books are still alive, despite continuing attempts to ruin them with digital enhancements. Digital bells and whistles are appropriate for textbooks, e.g., but, if anything, they’re destructive of works of fiction. According to this story in The Bookseller, early moves to klutzify fiction with such gimmicks as hyperlinks and video have not proven a commerical success, and are unlikely to.

In other developments, someone has found a wildly imaginative way to non-digitally enhance print reference books. Call … Read more

Better than ever: Surgical revision rools

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1 April 2011. I’m trying to beat a self-imposed but important deadline with The Proteant Enigmass. A few people have said they’d like to see the working ms., but I’m waiting till I get to a certain point in the story so they can get a better sense of what I’m trying to do. And I’d really, really like to do that before Tuesday’s operation. (As it stands, no one has seen any part of this thing, and I need … Read more

*Bangkok Noir* book signing — Kinokuniya, Siam Paragon

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I’m a true genius at marketing.

I’m on my way to a book signing at Kinokuniya Books, Siam Paragon Centre. It’s 2.35pm, and I have to be there at 3pm. And I’ve just remembered I have a blog, and what a good opportunity to add this item, and everything. And I’m sure many other people will now rush into the street, as I plan to, and hail a motorcycle taxi to take me to a BTS station so I can … Read more

Gallows humor for writers

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I see I haven’t posted an item since 17 March. Excuses range from “I’ve been too busy to blog” and “I’m suffering a multi-tasking deficiency” to “I’ve sustained a fit of sanity, wherein I see no percentage in posting elaborate messages into the Void.”

Mostly, though, I’ve been in thrall to a fiction project, a series of speculative novels. The Muse, revealing herself as a dominatrix this time around, has shacked up with me big time. (I speak only figuratively, … Read more

Rules? I don’t need no stinkin’ rules

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Well, maybe just a few.

A writer should find a good chair, e.g. Install it right there in front of  computer, pencil & pad, whatever, and then sit in it for extended periods, writing stuff.

Here’s a real lode of good advice from The Guardian—10 rules for writing fiction from each of a bunch of prominent writers.

And here are five tips of my own, something I recently added to advice emerging from a Clarion Science Fiction and … Read more