Jane Sullivan writing in this Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald, suggests that writers aim for 100 rejections as a new year’s resolution. She cites an American literary writer being pleased with her 43 rejections in a year, and shellacking (there is a word I have not read in a long time) her rejection slips onto her […]
The gods of the gaps
“You will be free; you will die and be reborn. I will guide you to what you want, and to what is fit and proper for you. Tell me what it is.” “You don’t want me to kill the others …”. The Intercessor inclined his head in a nod. “It is for each of them […]
This from the SMH last weekend (the Saturday SMH is the only newspaper I buy anymore, for the occasional nugget like this, but their review section is becoming so dire I may give up on newspapers altogether): “My memory bank is not my brain: its my book collection. I can’t do without it. When I […]
I have strong views about many, many things. I do not express them here. But I do speak a little bit about vampire novels and perfectionism and being true to one’s self in writing even if that means you write weird little stories about a man recovering from living in a lizard, or the unknown […]
Dear Reader, the latest edition of BREACH magazine, featuring Australian and New Zealand writers, is available for your reading pleasure. The former group includes yours truly, with my contribution being a weird tale, “Baby, cold outside”. If you are cold outside, what do you want more than anything, baby? I wrote the first draft of […]
It is quite possible you can learn something from feedback accompanying a rejection. I’m sure someone has. A recent rejection of a story of mine was accompanied by feedback from two of the slush readers for the magazine: “… really strong narrative voice and prose control. … it’s all developed and described quite well” and […]
You can check out my latest published story, “Miracle cure”, at Liquid Imagination – just click on the link. (Sitting at home just now with my new friend, Gastroenteritis, but I’ll put up with the illness in preference to a miracle cure like this one … stomach, I have cared for you so well all […]
Very happy that my weird story “Baby, cold outside”, has found a home in Breach magazine, and will appear in Breach #08 in August. More details to follow … … meanwhile, while you are waiting, you can read (or listen to) my latest published story, “The gods of the gaps”, here at Three-lobed Burning Eye […]
There, that’s a blunt factual title! My story, The Big Reveal, did NOT win the 2017 Australian Shadows Award for short fiction. Congratulations to the winner, Matthew J Morrison for his story The Banksia Boys (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #66). Nonetheless, feel free to click on the link to read my story which appeared in the […]
Nobody is looking 