Jane Rawson

Oh g’day. I’ve been doing Nanowrimo for the last month and my brain is utterly fried. Honestly, I doubt I’ll ever do it again, I think my brain is too old and brittle to deal with this kind of pressure. I can barely remember what my name is.

I can, however, remember to do some remorseless self-promotion. I am in two new things in the month of December.

One: Issue 12 of Tincture. Tincture is a digital-only literary magazine that you can nab here. My story, The Reference, came about when my husband lost his job. He didn’t leave on the best terms and he wasn’t sure what his old boss would say when called for a reference, so he asked me to pretend I was from some trucking company and give the bloke a call. It was awful. His boss wanted to purchase some services from my fake company, and he wouldn’t let me off the phone and he kept asking me questions… Anyway, I wrote a story that is a bit like that but not quite, because it’s a bit more ferocious. Even if you’d rather not read my story about a fake reference, you should get Tincture anyway because there are some insanely good stories in this issue. Australia has some incredible writers you have never heard of.

Two: Best Australian Comedy Writing. Luke Ryan and Affirm Press made my little heart beat a good deal quicker when they asked if they could republish a story of mine in this book. They told me that the story is funny and I am funny. It was one of the best days of my life. The story itself is pretty bleak (surprise surprise) but it does include a few excellent jokes. The good news is the rest of the book is actually genuinely funny, so why not buy a copy for someone for Christmas? (Note that I make no money from this book, so I say this out of the pure goodness of my heart and my great love of smiles.)

Coming soon: my annual list of books I have read, unnecessarily charted. I bet you can’t wait.