An Introduction to Australian Horror
In honour of Australia Day, I was asked to write an article about Australian horror for This Is Horror in the UK — and it’s now up! The article surveys some of the standout horror published in the past two years by Australian independent presses: so much to talk about, so much incredible talent!
Australia is a land of extremes. One minute the country is ravaged by drought and bushfires, the next it’s drowning in devastating floods. The continent is a combination of enormous red deserts meeting sprawling metropolises meeting ancient tropical rainforests meeting endless coastlines. Some of the largest — and tiniest — deadly predators on the planet are hidden out in the wilds, but are also unearthed in suburban backyards. Over it all, the harsh Australian sun beats down. Casting the longest, darkest shadows.
And right there — right where the glaring light gives way to shade — a population of Australian horror writers thrives. It’s a great position to be in. Looking at stories published by independent presses in the past two years, we find that Australian horror can plunge wholly into the black, even more tragic and disturbing by contrast to the brightness left behind; it can be light-hearted but nuanced, love and joy limned in darkness; or it can tread both worlds, supernatural and terrifying and endearing all at once…
Read the rest here — and enjoy!
Top 2011 Stories: Not if You Were the Last Short Story on Earth
In all the end-of-year hoopla, I completely forgot to mention that the readers over at Not if You Were the Last Short Story on Earth rock! Bluegrass Symphony got much love on their Top 2011 Stories lists:
‘Carousel’ gets a nod from Alisa;
Mondy also picked ‘Carousel’ as well as ‘Fur and Feathers’, ‘To Snuff a Flame’, ‘Forever, Miss Tapekwa County’, and ‘The Short Go: A Future in Eight Seconds’;
And Sarah highlighted ‘Unlocking the God’ — which isn’t a Bluegrass story, but was published in a whopping double-issue of Electric Velocipede.
So many excellent authors, so many amazing stories! Thanks so much, LSS! This is so cool!
Lists of Excitement!
So it’s been a pretty busy couple of days for Aussie authors on heavy-hitting lists, namely the Stoker Preliminary Ballot and the Locus Recommended Reading list for 2010.
Sure, you could instantly clickity-click on the links I’ve just provided to see the lists in full – but before you do why don’t we give three cheers to Stoker contenders: Kirstyn McDermott (Superior Achievement in a First Novel for Madigan Mine), Shane Jiraiya Cummings (S.A. in Long Fiction for ‘Requiem for the Burning God’), Dave Conyers (S.A. in editing the Cthulu’s Dark Cults anthology), Amanda Pillar and Pete Kempshall (S.A. for editing the Scenes from the Second Storey anthology). And for the awesome authors and editors recommended by Locus – it’s so exciting to see so many familiar names on the list, but particularly the Sprawl anthology edited by Alisa Krasnostein; stories by Peter M. Ball and Cat Sparks from said anthology; and not one, but TWO mentions for stories written by the dear other half of our Brain, Angela Slatter.
(And of course it’s always awesome to see Margo Lanagan, Garth Nix, Jonathan Strahan, and Sean Williams on these lists — hell, I’m stoked with pretty much every choice the panel of readers has made!)
*Hip-hip-hooray!*
Two stories, two reviews
Both reviews appeared today, and both have lovely things to say about my stories! Late Christmas presents for me? With comments like the following, I can’t help but think so:
A snippet from the first, written by Russell B. Farr about my story ‘Weightless’, which appears in Sprawl (ed. by Alisa Krasnostein; Twelfth Planet Press) reads, A handful of the stories in this anthology are exceptional pieces. Simon Brown’s “Sweep” is a well-told, chilling tale of adolescence. It is remarkable in both its depth of feeling and subtlety. “Walker” by Dirk Flinthart is another fine story, an amazing urban fantasy tale that respectfully includes indigenous Australia. Lisa L Hannett’s “Weightless” was almost flawless in its telling, magical in its narrative and incredibly sensual in the lasting impression it leaves on the reader. (The rest lives here)
And Angela Slatter offers a detailed and insightful review of Music for Another World (ed. Mark Harding), in which my story ‘Singing Breath Into the Dead’ appears: Hannett is a real writer and seeing how she has crafted and re-crafted this story of strange births, strange deaths, and songs to enable even stranger conceptions is truly impressive. (Ze rest is here)
*blushes*
15 Days of Tesseracts, Reviews, and Other fun stuff
If only I could go to this shindig: Tesseracts Fourteen, and the authors and editors of Tesseracts Fourteen are going to be featured at the Merril Collection’s Christmas Tea, on Saturday December 4th, at the Merril Collection (239 College Ave, Toronto) from 1-4. Alas, the commute between Adelaide and Toronto is too great for me to attend this event and to spruik the anthology properly — but I can spruik the online events the folks at EDGE publishing are running to promote this new book. As part of the 15 Days of Tesseracts, head on over to the Totally Tesseracts blog — I’m ‘Day 2′, responding to some great questions with some goobery answers.
In other exciting news, Black Gate reviews Weird Tales 356 — the Uncanny Beauty issue – which sees me rubbing elbows with some of speculative fiction’s most ‘eerily sensuous’ writers.
The folks at Scoop Magazine have some lovely things to say about ‘The February Dragon’, which I co-wrote with Angela Slatter — and they also interview Russell B. Farr, who shares the news about Ticonderoga Publications‘ forthcoming books (including Bluegrass Symphony — squee!) and they also chat with Alisa Krasnostein, editor extraordinaire of Twelfth Planet Press. Check out all the Scoop goodies here.
Last, but certainly not least, Alexandra Pierce offers a detailed and insightful review of Sprawl over at ASiF, where she says some lovely things about many deserving stories.
Happy reading!
