Being a part of this anthology has been a huge honour, especially when I look around at my fellow authors. Sharing these pages alongside luminaries such as Sean Williams and Pamela Freeman is sending me into dizzying spirals of fangirl swoons.

In particular I’m stunned and overwhelmed with gratitude for the kindness and generosity of Rowena Corey Daniells and Jodi Cleghorn, who each got me across the line in different ways, without credit (except here!). And of course, huge thanks to Karen Lee Field, publisher, and Sasha Beattie, editor, without whom I would never have had this opportunity. All four of these amazing women are also contributing authors to Hope. And of course, I’m super excited to be sharing the pages with my Orbiteer mates Graham Storrs and Joanne Anderton.

I hope you will buy this book. Not just because it’s raising money for a good cause, but because it’s a corker of a collection of stories by fabulous writers. I can’t wait to read all the stories I haven’t yet read!

“Hope” is now available from the Kayelle Press website, in both paperback and digital editions. I hope you’ll buy lots (Christmas is near!) and tell all your friends. Thank you.

The wonderful Hope anthology will be launched on the weekend of 7 October 2011.

My story “Burned in the Black” is alongside stories by some of Australia’s leading SF writers and it’s a huge thrill!

This great initiative provides some fabulous reading AND will raise funds to aid suicide prevention, so it’s a win-win.

To get info about the launch and enter the draw for some great giveaways, click here to go to the Event page on Facebook.

Debris

My friend and fellow Orbiteer, Jo Anderton (also a contributor to Hope!) will be part of the Angry Robot Hour at Conflux in Canberra, on 30 September…. but the good news is, copies of her debut novel Debris have been spotted in the wild at bookshops already.

Woohoo!! If you’re going to Conflux, be sure to check out this event and show your support for a great Aussie publishing company and not one, not two, but THREE fabulous writers!

Angel Arias

And finally, much excitement for the countdown to the launch of Marianne de Pierres’Angel Arias, the second volume in her Burn Bright series. I love these books, some of the best YA fiction coming out of Australia in my opinion.

Details at Marianne’s Burn Bright site!

Squeee!!!

The new webcomic from author Marianne de Pierres and artist Brigitte Sutherland is out at last!

And you can find it here.

I LOVE this new cross-genre venture into Western/SF.  Even more, I LOVE that it’s from Aussie creative women, who both lead their respective packs!

Kickass heroine (we expect nothing less from MDP, of course), great story, gorgeous settings (Australia, where else?) and fab artwork & design.

As a relative newbie to graphic novels – I don’t count the Superman comics I devoured as a teen, back in the Jurassic – I’m enthralled. The artwork and text line up beautifully, to flow a narrative that is fast-paced, rich and complex. Each element in every panel serves at least three purposes; it’s a masterful crafting and creates a seamless whole. Plus, it’s a damn fine yarn.

My only gripe? ONE EPISODE to begin with!  I’m assuming many more are on their way, and I’ll be sitting patiently at my browser waiting, like a horse by his manger.

Highly recommended. Try a sample or buy it here. Yeehaw!!

Turns out that I didn’t  need to revisit the last week of Dad’s life in detail after all.  The actual anniversary was in the small hours of this morning – and yes, I woke briefly. No significant dreams to report, rather a gentle sense of comfort and connection, and floating off again into deep and restful sleep.

For Dad

Beyond these final days, I said to you,
I know there will be joy for each of us;
though you may find it sooner than I do.

And so, I said to you,
I’ll do my best to choose joy now;
though I reserve the right to weep.

You smiled, and nodded certainty,
then said goodnight and slipped away,
your rumpled flesh like party clothes
discarded on the bed.

And now I feel you dancing.
No decorous foxtrot for you,
but rather heel-kicking jive and twist,
whirling, exuberant, in the music of the stars.

My blood hears the echo of that beat
and my heart lifts high and wide,
beyond the tears.

If such a thing as time existed where you are
you’d fill each glorious second
with undoubting bliss.

I will catch up soon.
You have become joy;
how could I be less?

Glorious!

A year on, I have caught up. Joy is my default position, though of course there are days when anger or grief or frustration appear. But I honour those feelings when they emerge, let them flow, and then return to that dancing joy which is my birthright.

There are still some things I want to say. I talked about the experience in depth on another blogsite; and I’ve acknowledged Sue and Sandi. Now it’s time to do the same for the rest of the family.

Love you, guys!!

To Alistair – thank you for finding a way to keep your business going, spend every hour possible by Dad’s bedside and still be conscious of your family’s needs. You were probably stretched the most thinly of all of us, and that didn’t go unnoticed. And thank you for sharing the big secret confession – I still smile thinking about that moment

To Andrew – thank you for taking so much responsibility on those broad shoulders. Not just the administrative minutiae from which I thankfully ran like the wind; but all the tiny details of making sure everyone had what they needed, all the time. That got noticed, too.

Olivia, Jeremy, Mackenzie, Callum, Riley and Baxter – you guys were AWESOME. Each of you brought the blessing of your presence and your unique personality, and because of you that weekend party rocked!

To my beautiful hubby – thank you for your quiet strength, your mad sense of humour and your wisdom in knowing which was needed at any given moment.

And to Mum – thank you. For everything.

We had a week together in all, and as his anniversary approaches, fragments of memory emerge like gently shimmering stars.

Everyday life has been its usual busy self since he died, and many things have gone back to normal – whatever “normal” is! But that week changed me in fundamental ways, and I want to acknowledge and celebrate the blessings it brought.  My plan is to reflect and post every day.

Today I’m reflecting on how grateful I am to my two sisters-in-law, Sue and Sandi, who selflessly took over everything to do with their immediate families to let my brothers, Alistair and Andrew, spend as much time as possible with Dad. It can’t have been easy as they quietly dealt with their own grief and sadness, handled the emotional turmoil of their children, and got on with the business of daily life: school, home, work.

Thanks guys, for grace under adversity. I know Dad loved you both, and I wanna say – you rock!

How it looked at 10pm

And I’m amazed and delighted to announce that about two hours ago, Nothing But Flowers hit Number ONE on the Amazon UK bestseller list, in the category of Fantasy Anthology. Squeee!

It’s odd, but I don’t think I could be more excited if I were on the prestigious NY Times bestseller list.

I’m simply a single voice in a beautiful chorus of two dozen, including the wonderful Graham Storrs (who writes romance way better than he thinks he does). The book itself is the brainchild and lovingly nurtured product of Jodi Cleghorn‘s immense talent and untiring hard work. And yet, and yet…. I’m shouting to the world that *I* am a bestselling author, even if it’s only for a few hours, in a smallish corner of the literary world.

Man, that feels good. Woohoo!!!

Oh – and do please buy a copy of Nothing But Flowers here. Or buy two. Or ten (Christmas will be upon us soon). The more you buy, the more money for the good folks of Grantham. Pick up 100 Stories for Queensland while you’re at it, if you like. The publishers would love you to do it in the next 12 hours so we keep it up that bestseller list, but really you can get it whenever you want. As long as you get it.  ;-)

It started with Supanova Melbourne, where I caught up with the wonderful Marianne de Pierres, met Rowena Cory Daniells and Trudi Canavan (both of whom are delightful) and had a geekfest with my hubby. We spent way too much and came home with a haul of books (SF novels for me; coffee table volumes re comics and Dr Who for him) plus coffee mugs and a Tardis. Of course.

On Monday, the short story I’ve been wrestling to the ground for WEEKS finally came together easily and elegantly (see, I KNEW a weekend off would do the trick). Yesterday my beta reader, lovely Laura, gave it the thumbs up, and I’ll be delivering today. More about that anthology later, too.

But the BIG news for today is that I’ve been invited to join the party over at the Tara Sharp website, hosted by Marianne’s crime-writing alter ego, Marianne Delacourt. This is cause for several minutes of snoopy dancing, complete brain failure as I lose the capacity to concentrate on anything for more than five seconds, and enough squeeeeing to give my neighbours a fright.  Woo-frakkin’-hoo!!!

Colour me excited

This is not everyone’s experience, and I know how blessed we were. I could not help but be conscious of Dylan Thomas’s famous villanelle “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”, which did not suit my Dad at all!

This poem is my humble and somewhat belated villanellian response.

Set sail for home

Set sail for home, towards that harbour bright.
See? Saints and angels greet you at the gate
where Love, eternal, dances purest light.

How can you stand that bed, cold steel and white?
The drugs that make the awful pain abate?
Set sail for home, towards that harbour bright!

Visitors come hushed, by day and night;
your certain, heartfelt hugs bless us, who wait
where love eternal dances purest light.

Your smile so calm; your hand in mine so tight.
When my turn comes, I’ll choose your path to fate–
set sail for home, towards that harbour bright.

An ending comes to all, rage as we might.
You share your gift of death in grace, not hate,
where love eternal dances purest light.

I weep such bitter tears, but they are slight;
my pain can not our deeper joy negate.
Set sail for Home, towards that harbour bright
where Love Eternal dances purest light.

Woohoo!!! Colour me excited!

It’s Valentine’s Day, 2011,and that means just one thing – my story Alone gets published today! Someone less self-centred would be celebrating the launch of Nothing But Flowers, the anthology in which the story appears, but hey…. a girl’s gotta be true to herself, right?

Just because I’m in the company of twenty-five fabulous authors; and just because it’s all in a fantastic cause; and just because the whole shebang is put together by the wonderful author & editor, Jodi Cleghorn of eMergent Publishing – does that matter?

Oh yeah, it matters. It most definitely matters!

The party kicks off right now, and this whole initiative deserves to be celebrated big time. Nothing But Flowers: tales of post apocalyptic love (NBF) is the second offering from Literary Mix Tapes, the quarterly crowd-sourced short fiction anthology inspired by music, which Jodi first launched late 2010.

Inspired by the Talking Heads song of the same name, NBF explores the what it means to love in a post apocalyptic landscape. Here is the official blurb, which sums it up way better than I could:

The 26 stories which make up the entire collection run the full gamut of post apocalyptic life, both on terra firma and in space. The stories range from dealing with cancer to fleeing a fundamentalist government; there are floods, earthquakes, viruses, war, disappearing animals and the open road. Love takes the reader from a take-away coffee mug to a gun to the head, from a fortune cookie to a guitar. You’ll never think of love in the same way again. The 26 writers involved have pushed the barriers of apocalyptic thought and peeled back the layers to the most intimate level, to explore the way people love and allow themselves to be loved. The stories are horrifying and heart warming; they will rip at your soul, tug at your heart strings and make you laugh out loud.

I’ve had the privilege of reading a couple, and can’t WAIT to see the rest. NBF stories will be available online for free for 48 hours, then available in e-book, paperback and via web access for a charge.  All proceeds go to the Grantham Flood Support fund, helping some of th0se hardest hit by the Queensland flood.

For more information, to join the party or to buy your copy, check out the dedicated Literary Mix Tapes website here.

And PS – my story will be posted at 11am Australia Eastern Standard time on Monday February 14th – for  my lovely US friends, that’s 6 pm on Sunday February 13th.  Yeah, it really IS all about me…