I’m not entirely sure that Margo Lanagan needs an introduction, but for the uninitiated, she’s a writer of the strange, wonderful, and macabre, and has won nearly every award known to humankind, and quite possibly a few yet to have been discovered.  Her new novel, Tender Morsels, through Allen & Unwin, will be out in [...]

The second pass-through of Downtown is done.  This was the edit where I added/cut scenes in order to bring out or play down particular characters and plot points.  I think it worked quite well, although there are still a few inconsistencies I need to iron out.
The next run through will involve before mentioned ironing (oh, [...]

Having visited quite a few second-hand bookshops of late, as well as a whole bunch of interstate ones due to work travel, I began to wonder what exactly it is about a given bookshop that makes it feel right (or so very wrong) to me.  I seem to spend quite a bit of time in [...]

From, of course, The Age:

Gardener Dies in Freak Accident
7:05pm | Police investigate death of a woman crushed in her front yard when elderly driver loses control.
What a strange method for investigating deaths.

Z S Adani at The Fix has reviewed the latest issue of Shimmer, and has nice things to say about my story, ‘The Glass Girl Looks Back’:
‘The Glass Girl Looks Back’ by Stephanie Campisi is a modern day fairy tale, tragic, as many fairy tales are. People either look through her or past her, until [...]

Two of my short shorts, Organ Donor (originally printed in Shadow Box), and From Famine to Feast (originally printed in FlashSpec and then recorded for Pseudopod) have been reprinted at Microhorror.
Famine to Feast has also been noted as the Microhorror pick of the week at Hermitosis.

Continuing my promise made a few months ago that for the rest of the year I’d only buy second-hand or remaindered books, with purchases based mainly on their covers rather than previous knowledge of the author etc, I picked up a copy of Sarah Addison Allen’s Garden Spells last weekend. The version I picked up [...]

It feels strange to be referencing The Age newspaper for something other than picking out ambiguities in its headlines, but there was an interesting article in today’s paper about an Espresso Book Machine being installed in the Angus & Robertson on Bourke Street in Melbourne.
Customers can use the machine to have a book of their [...]

In between prolonged bouts of procrastination and abject pessimism, I’ve been working on my next round of Downtown edits.  I’m finding there’s actually a lot to like.  I’m enjoying the book again, enjoying tormenting and hanging out with my characters.  Working on a scene the other night, I realised that the [...]

I’ve started iisting to podcasts and audio recordings of stories.  A bit slack of me, I know, given the way in which webzines hosting podcasts and so on have been proliferating over the past couple of years (and given that one of my stories was recorded for Pseudopod last year).  But with my crazy schedule [...]