Now I know who the main character is… [Thanks to Wordle]

My last Aurealis Awards review is of this ripping time-travel tale. More conventionally science-fiction than the other finalists, and the only one with no Australian references. I have no idea who is going to win this thing…

Having a chat about Australia’s extinction crisis at the Wheeler Centre

My third read of writers shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards, Nike Sulway’s Rupetta is a formidable novel, a thorough creation of a world and a philosophy. I was pretty impressed, as you can see from this review.

This is surely the favourite for the SF section of the Aurealis Awards. Lexicon made Time magazine’s list of the best ten books of 2013, NPR’s list of the same and the New York Times’ best summer reads. More than 3000 people have reviewed it on Goodreads. And it is an undeniably ripping read. My […]

Fear is defeated by understanding, right? Right. So I’m reading the books of everyone else who was shortlisted in the science fiction category of the Aurealis Awards. So far it’s not making me any less scared. Review number one is of Andrew MacRae’s ‘Trucksong’: read it here.

Harry was Caddy’s settling down. She settled into him like a pillow on the couch, a blanket pulled over her, and footy on the TV, falling asleep by three-quarter time on a Friday night. He was knowing that everything would be OK; he was kissing goodbye for a little too long before heading out to […]

So this year I thought I’d take part in the Australian Women Writers challenge which is, thankfully, a reading rather than a writing challenge. I realised that last year I read 13 Australian women writers without even trying, so thought I’d promise to read 10 this year. It’s not even February and i’m through five […]

I could not be more stoked to have been short-listed for the Aurealis Award for best Science Fiction novel of 2013. Thanks, Aurealis! I feel pretty privileged to have “Wrong Turn” listed as a sci-fi book, and proud I held my fake universe together well enough that someone thought it worthy of inclusion. Hoping to […]

Thanks so much to leatherboundpounds for a just really lovely review on her blog. Makes me want to press on! And that she is a lover of libraries too…

I like to keep track of what I’ve read each year on Goodreads, because otherwise I tend to forget and accidentally read the same things twice. This year I read 62 books (and started another two that I didn’t finish). I think that’s probably too much reading, and I should consider doing a few other […]

or my book is on your list, or something. I made some “best reads of 2013” lists, and that is nice. Readings put me on their 50 great reads by Australian women authors for 2013 (were there more than 50 Australian women authors in 2013? I guess we’ll never know). The Australian’s delightful Ed Wright […]

I’m going to read a bit from my novel at the Melbourne Writers Festival on Friday August 30. It’s not the most glamorous time: 10am on a Friday, when you should either be at work or asleep. But I’ll be keeping some glamorous company, including Tao Lin: all his other sessions are sold out, so […]

I’m doing a couple of readings this week in Canberra. On Thursday night I’m at Electric Shadows Bookshop with Lucy Neave and Christie Thompson, talking about our debut novels and reading bits of each of them (maybe we should all read each others…). On Friday night I’m going to talk a bit about imagination at […]

Come to Colour Box studio in Footscray on August 6. Once you’ve learned, you can also listen to me read from my novel.

but I may have to take them all back. Today Ed Wright compared me to Paul Auster, Peter Carey, Neil Gaiman and Cervantes and I have to say I am mighty chuffed.

Footscrayvians and other westies, get down to Colour Box Studio before the end of August and enjoy their top-notch pop up bookshop. Oh yeah, they have my book. And I’m going to do a reading some time in August.

A great review from Patrick Allington at the Adelaide Advertiser. Great in that he liked the book, of course; but also great in how closely he read it and how much he got out of it. 

I’m next to Mathew Reilly! I’m a sell-out, and I LOVE IT.

and here they are, on ANZLitLovers, where I talk about being born in an imploding hospital, before it imploded. And about cats. By the way, ANZLitLovers is a brilliant blog.