I might have mentioned that I’ve been working, with a co-author called James Whitmore, on a personal handbook to help people survive climate change. It’s with the publisher now and should be out later this year. Last night I was part of a panel with Alice Robinson and James Bradley, along with moderator Tony Birch, […]

This week I asked my boss if I could start working four days instead of five, to give me a day for writing, and he very kindly said yes. It seemed a sensible thing to do: I like writing, after all, and consider myself a writer. That’s worth taking a 20% cut to the family […]

Writer-wise, I am a speculative fiction dilettante. I do not have any deep understanding of the form, I have read only around the fringes (Mieville but not Asimov; Mitchell but not Le Guin), I don’t know enough about the tropes and styles to properly respect them. My own writing might be glorified by calling it […]

Last year I won a fellowship – the Mick Dark Flagship Fellowship for environmental writing – which awarded me three weeks at Varuna, The Writers House. I was delighted to win, but mostly because it made me feel better about the project I was working on: I’d been worried it was a bit rubbish, and […]

Just a quick post to nervously gloat that my unpublished novella, Formaldehyde, has been shortlisted for Seizure’s Viva la Novella prize. Six of us are on the list, three of us get our novellas published. Last years’ winners were bloody gorgeous (you can see them here and honestly you might as well buy one or four while […]

I’ve been meaning to stop reviewing on Goodreads and start reviewing over here instead (if you can call it reviewing: I never write more than a few paragraphs), so here’s my first attempt. N by John A Scott is an Australian novel, released last year and since shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award (announced […]

Well, I’m glad you asked. As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, this year I’m trying to knock over some of my to-read pile by not buying or borrowing any more books until I’ve read 20 books I already own. I’ve failed: Harry Saddler was kind enough to send me a copy of his novel Small Moments, now sadly […]

A little while ago I signed up for #TBR20, vowing to read 20 books I already owned before buying or reading more. I’ve already failed: I accidentally got Harry Sadler to send me a copy of his novel Small moments, and I can just tell I’m going to buy The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson […]

Right, let’s assume I’m not going to finish any more books between now and the end of the year. What a ridiculous assumption. Anyway, here’s my 2014-in-reading wrap-up (which won’t cover the books I read between now and the end of the year. I promise to update you if any of them are earth-shattering). This […]

This was the first year I did the Australian Women Writers challenge. I set out to achieve ‘Franklin’ level – 10 books read and six of them reviewed. I ended up reading 39 books and reviewing 30 of them (though most of my reviews are only a paragraph or two: I’m no reviewer). I had no […]

Sometimes I feel utterly overwhelmed by reading. I remember a time (OK, maybe I imagine it) when I used to run out of books to read, or when friends would lend me a book and I just started reading it right away, not worried about the other important books I was meant to be reading. […]

I have a lot of books I’ve read and will never read again, or I thought I was going to read but still haven’t got around to. Would you like one of them? Here’s the deal. If you want one of the books below, let me know in the comments (first in best etc), and […]

I love apocalypses. In the ’80s I spent sleepless night after sleepless night worrying about whether the submarine information relay tower near my house would be a Russian nuclear target. I ruined a family holiday to New Zealand with my relentless insistence Mount Tongariro would erupt from dormancy (I was right, but 32 years ahead of […]

Last week my book, A wrong turn at the Office of Unmade Lists, won Small Press Network’s ‘Most Underrated Book Award’ – you can read about it here if such a thing takes your fancy. It’s a funny award, but also important. Loads of good books are completely overlooked by reviewers and readers, not because they’re […]

A couple of weeks ago, A wrong turn at the Office of Unmade Lists was shortlisted for the Small Press Network’s ‘Most Underrated Book‘ award. It was most-delighting news and apparently I pretty much forgot to blog about it. To make up for that, here are some things you can read on other sites about the […]

If you’ve spent any time on this blog you’ll know I’ve sometimes felt like chucking the whole authoring thing in: in an industry which publishes 160 books a day (according to Chuck Wendig), what kind of lunatic would I have to be to think that anything I wrote would ever be read? But hey, it’s […]

This week, All the Best radio asked what it means for our perception of apocalyptic events that they always happen in world capitals: Godzilla in Tokyo, The Day after Tomorrow in New York, 28 Days Later in London. Does it make it harder or easier to believe that even here in a backwater like Melbourne […]

The Lane of Unusual Traders is a great project from Tiny Owl Workshop, a small publisher in Brisbane doing all kinds of interesting things with – in particular – illustrated speculative fiction. Chris White has created a world, the City of Lind, and writers have been encouraged to submit small stories which take place in this world. […]

,,,with Hell Yeah Writer’s Bloc. This is the Tumblr face of The Writer’s Bloc (an online writers’ community), and is a rather chaotic assemblage of cartoons, interviews, illustrations, videos and heaps of other fun stuff. Plus, now, me blathering about how and what I write. It’s here.

Remember that time I declared Max Barry was ‘not a genius‘? No? Luckily neither does he, as I will be appearing on a panel with him and other actual writers of speculative fiction – Lucy Sussex and Andrew Macrae – at the Wheeler Centre on 27 October. We’re going to be talking about Australian science […]