Well, not that new, I guess. One of the stories – The Line – was the second I’d ever written. But I reworked and rewrote the damn thing over a year as I felt the central idea was worth pursuing – a northern Australia dictatorship based on the fevered imaginings of Australian mining magnate, Gina Rinehart (to be precise, a particularly turgid poem she wrote, the content of which would make Ayn Rand blush).
It’s out now in the new Australian speculative fiction magazine, Grimdark.
The second (something I wrote quite recently) – An Advanced Guide to Successful Price-Fixing in Extraterrestrial Betting Markets is out now in Interzone #256. Lois Tilton reviewed it for Locus and was quite positive, calling it ‘darkly gonzoid’.
Not sure what that means, but I’m going definitely be a wanker to start using it: “Yes yes, well, some of my work has been described as darkly gonzoid.”
David Farland (Wolverton), coordinating judge for Writer of the Future, sent me his edits for my winning entry (to be published in April this year). The changes were minimal and he said very positive things about the story, which was most welcome.
The anthology goes to high schools apparently, so he had to cut out all the f-bombs. While a damn will never have the resonance of a well-timed fuck, there were only a couple there and I’m not particularly fussed by it. Very much looking forward to my trip to LA in April to attend the Writers of the Future workshop.
