… other than Sigrid Thornton’s birthday, or celebrating the anniversary of the start of the Bathurst gold rush* … February 12 2014# sees the launch of Regime 03, “the world’s most frivolous of serious literature magazines”, this time including a story, “Good Boy” by yours truly. … *thanks Mrs Wikipedia # wonder what I’ll be […]
Aurealis has been promoting Australian speculative fiction and supporting Australian writers since 1990. Their latest endeavour is to seek to become a Science Fiction Writers of America qualifying market, one of the prerequisites for which is to pay writers 5 cents a word (soon to be 6 cents) for stories published in their magazine. In […]
Horace Tott spent an uneventful life in Cheshire always intending to write a large book on English magic, but never quite beginning. And so he died at seventy-four, still imagining he might begin next week, or perhaps the week after that. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke
I thought that it must have been International Burns Day with the victims on parade, their different scars on display. Marks I had not seen before. Hair up, showing pigmentless flesh below the ear. Flashmark along the arm. Puckered skin running down the rear of a shoulder. Are these the marks that all lives leave, […]
News of the bus misadventure high in the Canutes caused me to reflect on an incident from my school days. Those of a certain age will remember the tightening of the local school curriculum, when a scientific fine tooth comb was drawn through the hippy length hair of what in those days passed for the […]
Your story-telling style is witty, keep up the good work! Your story-telling style is bravo, keep doing what you`re doing! Your writing style is witty, keep it up! Your story-telling style is bravo, keep up the good work! Your story-telling style is spectacular, keep up the good work! Your humoristic style is bravo, keep it […]
I ranted commented previously about one line dismissals of stories, and how hard it can be to work out what they mean. I am such a hypocrite. I get another one line critique with a rejection and I am very happy about it. I like the mood this piece evokes, but overall I felt it […]
The real reason to write fiction, after all, isn’t to make money, nor to show the human heart in conflict with itself, nor to give a picture of one’s time, nor to call attention to the plight of any oppressed classes, but to show off. You want to be able to say to visitors, “Sit […]
Hello David, Congratulations! Your story ‘Avoiding Gagarin’ has been accepted for publication … That makes me a very happy old builder. Second acceptance for the month … year … century … Details to follow …
SURPRISE Cancer too is a prize You don’t have to queue at the newsagent’s to buy a ticket. They slip it in with the teddy bear, the Beatrix Potter china setting, the first photograph album, unnoticed. The final draw may be foreshadowed in the missed stitch in the booties grandma made put aside, only used […]
Nobody is looking 