KSP MINI-CON ON AGAIN!

It's nearly time for the biennial KSP Minicon at the Katherine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre up in leafy and lovely Greenmount.

There's always a good mix of panels and a relaxed attitude. I'll be on two panels this year, including 'Breaking The Rules', which is likely to be lively :)

And I'll be launching The Corpse-Rat King! I'm talking to the publisher about getting copies,  and if they don't arrive in time I'll still be doing a reading and handing out signed things-- if not the book, then definitely things-- and we'll sort out getting copies into your hot little hands if they're not already arrived, and it'll be my usual blend of chaos, irreverence and sweariness no matter what happens.

It's on Sunday, 9 September, from 9.30am-4.30pm at Katherine's Place, Old York Road, Greenmount. The whole day will cost you only $15, or $10 if you book in advance, which you can do by heading over to this KSP Minicon page post and leaving a comment. They'll also have a good lunch available for $5 or you can BYO - there are no eateries in the vicinity, so it's a good idea to be prepared one way or the other.

And make sure you like their Facebook page while you're at it: all the cool kids are doing it.

SPREADING THE CORPSE LOVE

You might think I'd get sick of reading reviews of The Corpse-Rat King that use phrases like "absolutely bloody brilliant" and "utter genius".

You'd be wrong.

You'd be very wrong.

From now on, you may refer to me as Mister Campbell Gilliam-Gaiman McPython.

THE CORPSE-RAT BANDWAGON START TO ROLL

Ooooooohhhhh, look what arrive in the mail last night:

The first Corpse-Rat King ARC. The very first appearance of my novel in real, dead-wood, destruction of the rainforests pulp and print.

Ain't she pretty? 

And the reviews are starting to roll in, too. Over at The Troubled Scribe, it's been awarded 7 out of 10 Liams, with marks taken off because my hero is too complex. I'll take that sort of markdown any day, especially when it's accompanied by phrases like "distinctive voice", "pure brilliance" and "beyond spectacular".

You know you want to buy this book. You do. I want to buy it, and I know what happens... :)

LEGO. COOL. GOT IT?

A couple of weeks back, The Perth Adult Lego Society set up their umpteen-million-miles long display at the annual Perth Model Railway Show, and as it's pretty much the only decent Lego show that Perth has, I grabbed the kids and we gave Lyn a day's peace while we bogged off and had a gander. Along with every other Dad west of Adelaide.

Frankly, it was stunning, and not even having to cram past crowds six-deep at times to get close enough to see anything could dampen my enthusiasm. It was all very much beyond my limited capabilities-- the complexity of each build, the way they were then collected together into clever and at times highly witty displays, and the grasp of narrative and architectural techniques boggled me, but I came away even more determined that my little corner of the State, so far away from the PALS HQ that making their regular meetings is just not feasible, should get their own LUG. It was, for a growing fan like me, a day of aspiration.

But a report ain't a report without pictures, so have an eyeful of this lot.

There's something very cool about seeing builds that contains part and figs you have yourself. So much Space Police stuff in this set. I became, perhaps, more excited than a 41 year old man should...

A space shuttle, with adult human for scale. Gojiiiirrraaaaaa!!!!!!

A touch of Perth, with working TV screen inside the nightclub. Weirdly, I worked in the building behind its real-life counterpart, and watched it being constructed. I would have loved to have 'collected the set' by watching this one take shape, too.

It just ain't Lego if an adult doesn't build a castle. Thousands of dollars worth of bricks, signs printed on copy paper worth 6 bucks a ream. I got yer priorities right here, pal!

Stormtroopers. Chasing chickens. 'Nuff said :)

Beautiful work on the rolling waves. It's skill like this that makes me very envious.

Stunning detail on a Japanese castle. I couldn't get my little phone close enough to take a good shot of the interiors, but the details were unbelievable.

I saw this volcano as the first ten or twenty bricks were being snapped into place by Braith, on my only visit so far to the PALS HQ. I felt like rubbing its hair and saying "Haven't you grown?" like a distant aunty at a Christmas do.

A meccano Red Arrow. Just because it's cool.

There were over 60 different model train tables as well, and whilst I enjoyed them, there was one for which I felt a strange and compelling affinity. I can't, for the life of me, work out why....

It was a grand day out, and I'll be back again next year, and hopefully, I'll be taking notes for my own LUG...

THE GREAT BIG Co-RK TEASE, PART THE PAPER

Now, what about the rest of you?

If you’re the kind of old-fashioned fuddster who’d prefer to hold a real, live, dead-Brazilian-rainforest copy of the book, well, you probably think the Earth is one of God’s old silicon implants gone rogue and that women look pretty damn hot in a bustle and scold’s bridle.

Or you just like books. It’s all cool.

So: what do you have to do to get your greedy little hands on a paper copy of the greatest book ever written by a fat bearded bloke called Lee who lives in Mandurah?

Take a photo.

Okay, take a photo and send it to The Corpse-Rat King email address. 

Okay, take a photo on one of three themes. Have a guess what they are (Hint: there are three words in the title of the book). Then send your photo as an attachment to the Corpse-Rat King email address.

Make sure you do the following:

• ·         Use either the word 'Corpse', 'Rat' or 'King' in the subject line, depending on which category you’re entering.
• ·         In the body of the email, give me your name and postal address
• ·         If you're under 13, this may not be the book for you, in which case snap up a YA book from sister imprint Strange Chemistry to help ease the pain of missing out. Possibly one with unicorns. Or robots that change shape. Or unicorns that get caught in the gears of a robot as it changes shape...
• ·         Only send me one photo per email, and don’t send me more than one for each category.
• ·         Don’t get all smartarsey with photoshop or paintbox or fuckupyoursnaps.com or anything like that. People who use those things are never half as clever as they think they are. Just take a photo, and be clever and amusing and funny and all that without getting all digital and downloady about it.
• ·         Make sure  the photo is a jpg and keep it under 1M in size. Better still, compress it down to document size, so that I don’t have to when I post them.
• ·         Keep in mind that judging is extremely subjective, and I’ll pick the ones I like, rather than the ones that might represent the best use of the technology blah blah blah. So be original. Funny is good. Sensewunda is good. "Fuck me, get a load of that!" is very good.
• ·         Decisions are final, and any attempt to lobby or influence me may result in demands for cash, money, cup final tickets or Lego, depending on what I feel like on the day, and how close you live to a Lego theme park, and whether Forest ever make another Cup Final. Let's be honest, we couldn't make the finals of the Johnstone's Paint trophy right now. Let's be honest, we'd probably struggle with the FA Trophy. But I digress. And depress myself.
• ·         Send your entry in before midnight, Saturday 18 August, Western Australian time (GMT + 8).

One Sunday 19 August I’ll post my 3 favourite photos from each category here and on my Facebook author page. Voting will remain open until Sunday 26 August. 


The entry in each category with the most votes will win a signed non-renewable-resource copy of The Corpse-Rat King. Copyright remains always with you, and all entries will be shitcanned deleted after the close of the competition, so rest assured I shan’t use them for any nefarious promotional, exploitative, unauthorised or onanistic purposes.

Except maybe for one or two of the Rat ones.

Any questions?

Sigh. Yes. The categories are: Corpse. Rat. King. Got it?

Good. On you go, then.

LET’S HAVE A COUPLE OF BIG, FAT, GIVEAWAY TYPE COMPETITIONS, SHALL WE?

So, what we really need to do is give away some free copies of The Corpse-Rat King, don’t you think?

Here’s what we’re going to do:

THE GREAT BIG Co-RK TEASE, PART THE ELECTRONIC

If you'd like to win a copy of the e-book version, log on to my Facebook author page and ‘like’ it. 

Every couple of days from here until September 1 I’ll put out a shout. Be the first person to shout out a page number between 7 and 395 and I'll post an excerpt from that very page of the novel. 

Two randomly selected posters will win electronic copies of the book come September 1st, so don't despair if you're not the first to post-- put something up anyway and you'll go in the draw to win the e-books.

In fact, we’re already doing just that, so, in the interests of catching you all up, have the first couple of excerpts, courtesy of people who already had the sense to follow my page.

The still.

It was the only object in the room. Marius reached out a hand and pushed against it, wincing as the hot wood seared his palm. The heavy cask refused to move. Marius closed his eyes. That much liquid, in a barrel that solid, must weigh almost two hundred pounds. It was his only recourse. There was no time to think about it. Marius frowned, recalling the ease with which the dead warrior had lifted him from the ground. He must weigh nearly as much as the barrel, yet the soldier had hefted him without an ounce of effort. The dead had their own strengths, the soldier had said. And he was dead, was he not? At least, his body was. It bore all the hallmarks of being so. Perhaps it had the same strengths.

Page 54, thanks to Matthew Tait. 

They lay on opposite sides of the fire, listening to the rain thunder against the rock shelf outside. Marius stared out the dimly-lit entrance, willing on a sleep he felt neither necessary nor welcome. Anything to avoid another conversation. Then Gerd spoke once more, and the hope was shattered.

“You know, this reminds me of home.”

“What?”

“This. It reminds me of being at home.”

Marius contemplated the hard rock beneath his hip, the wind and spray chilling him from outside.

“How? You grew up in a village.”

Page 69, courtesy of Daniel Simpson. 

The old man cleaved the stickleprick bush without stopping, stick arms waving like a pair of spindly black machetes, cutting a path through the bushes at a pace that would have impressed a charging elephant. Marius watched him disappear into the gloom of the forest. Within moments the man was out of sight, but the sound of breaking vegetation continued for several minutes. Marius listened to the crashes of destruction fade into the distance, then turned back to the mule. They stared at each other. Marius’ gaze slipped down to the sand at his feet. No footprints spoiled the ground between the cart and the forest.

“Well,” he said. “What do you make of that?”

Page 75, as per the Books, Crafts & Pretty Things Blog 

There’s another shout-out happening almost immediately, so don’t you think you’d better be getting to it?

SO IT BEGINS...

“If you had a wish list every time you read a book – great characters, story, pace, writing –that you ticked off every time you came across one of them, you’d soon wear out your pencil while reading The Corpse-Rat King.”

The first official review of The Corpse-Rat King is out, and I think it’s fair to say The British Fantasy Society is impressed.

The whole review is here, and if I can quote my Angry Robot stablemate (and fellow Lee-at-large) Lee Collins, I am revelling in chuffery.

THE MEDIUM, TRANSCENDED

I had all sorts of different takes on what I was going to write on this image, but I think what I’ll do is just present this stunning piece of art without comment and let you make your own minds up.

Make with the clicky to follow the picture back to The Brothers Brick, where I first saw it, then from the comments to the full Flickr gallery. Mike Doyle, the artist, has a massive reputation in AFOL circles, by all account. Not hard to see why.

ATTENTION QUEENSLANDERS AGED 18 TO 25 WITH ATTENTION SPANS LONG ENOUGH!

Are you aged 18 to 25 and living in Queensland? Decided to live a life of unparalleled luxury, with a team of underwear models following you around licking freshly-made margaritas off spare parts of your body and doing things to your naughty bits that would instantly turn your mother into one of those strange Born-again types who shout at people in shopping malls?

Well, you’re shit out of luck. I’ve been waiting thirty years, and if I’m not getting it, I’m sure as hell going to make sure you don’t get it.

On the other hand, you could enter the Queensland Young Writers Award, if you’re  aged 18 to 15, live in Queensland, and can tear yourself away from Mass Effect 3 long enough to write a suitable short story before July 13.

You could win $2000 and a whole bunch of career opportunities. After all, isn’t that all we really want in life?

Because maragaritas are sticky, and make your pubes look like Jedward. 

A BIG SHOUT OUT FOR MY HOMEY

A massive raise of the glass to one of the loveliest people in the Australian literary industry, Kate Eltham, who will be leaving her role as CEO of the Queensland Writers Centre in October to take over the reins as Director of the Brisbane Writers Festival.

The QWC is a fantastic organisation: in my honest opinion, the best writers organisation I’ve worked with, and they’ll survive Kate’s departure with aplomb. But Kate is a very good friend, and this is just the sort of challenge that she can take on and make her own. Kate’s got an unbelievable set of skills, knowledge and charisma, and the BWF is going to be that much more rewarding an experience for bringing her on board. It’s a real coup for them.

There’s a terribly official newsy thing here. 

ANNOUNCING THE GREAT BIG GIANT Co-RK TEASE!

Wanna win a free e-copy of The Corpse-Rat King?

Course ya do.

Here's the thing:

Every four days between now and the release date of September 1st, I'm going to put out a call on my Facebook author page. Simply 'like' the page, then be the first person to shout out a page number (in the comments, people. Don't just sit there at your computer shouting at it like you expect it to answer you. That's what old people do.) and I'll treat you to an excerpt from that very page of the novel.

That way you can be the first on your block to get a sneak peek of all the Hellestastic action, in just enough words to get you all erect and itchy-in-the-pants-area, but not enough that you have to sneak your undies into the wash before your Mum finds them and asks you some really awkward questions.

You don't get the last 2 chapters: spoilers, sweetie. But pick a number between 7 and 395 and shout away.

If you're not the first to post, don't despair. Post something anyway-- be witty, erudite, articulate, or just a normal Facebook user. Because come September 1, two randomly drawn posters will win an e-copy of The Corpse-Rat King for their very own.

You can't ask more than that, can you?

Okay, a million dollars, a Lamborghini and unlimited oral from the three supermodels of your choice. You could ask for that.

But 2 electronic copies of the book. Let's just focus on that, shall we?

First shout is out. Go. Post. Quickly now!

GENERAL BITS AND BOBS AND THINGS AND STUFF AND JUNK

Adam Browne's book, Pyrotechnicon, Being the Further Adventures of Cyrano de Bergerac Among the States & Empires of the Stars by Himself (dec) moves ever closer to its release date of September. I've extolled the virtues of this wonderful book to you before, having been lucky enough to beta-read it, and you can do worse with a few minutes of your time than head over to Adam's blog and see for yourself some of the illustrations that will accompany the book. And if that doesn't make you salivate with anticipation, then I cannot help you, sirrah.

Word up to the froody Mr Wes Chu, latest member of the Angry Robot Waiting Club to score himself a big-ass publishing deal with the Robot Overlords. Wes' book The Lives of Tao is full of mad space opera skillz, and will be on my pile come publication time in spades!

Also word up to Aurealis and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, two of the finest Australian SF magazines to ever grace the readerverse, who both reached 50 issues in the interim. No mean achievement, especially in a country like Australia where the potential reader base for niche magazines is small, and the financial support can be non-existent at best. Props, my friends, props.

A belated and sadfaced RIP to Maurice Sendak, the children's author whose wondrous Where The Wild Things Are was such a happy part of my childhood, and which has been a shared part of my life with my children as well. The wild rumpus has ended, and we are the poorer for it.

Lastly, on the personal front, I've finally weakened and been persuaded to buy a dog. So welcome to the household, Rory the ball-of-fur-with-eyes. Yes, you are adorable, and I will progressively weaken to the point where I'll talk to you in silly baby words just like everyone else.

SNAP! SHOT, THAT IS.

Every couple of years, the Australian SF Snapshot series of interviews gears up and pins a cross-section of the Australian SF scene under its glare with a view well-placed questions.

I've been lucky enough to have been questioned in each of the previous incarnations, back in 2005, 2007 and 2010, and this year I've come under the relentless Gene Hunt-like attentions of David McDonald. You can read the interview over on his blog Ebon Shores, and eventually all the interviews will be archived on the Australian SpecFic in Focus website.

Until then, engage in some link-hopping at the bottom of the interview and pick your way amongst the gems. It's a huge enterprise, and there are always some excellent surprises to be had.

BATTERSBYS, BATTERSBYS, ALL AROUND, AND NOT A DROP TO... UH...

Damn, but whilst I've been off lounging about the beach crapping about with artists, but people have only gone and bought stories and the like from her Lusciousness and myself.


Where, I hallucinate you asking? Funny you should bring it up....

This friendly little fellow is the cover to Midnight Echo 7, unfortunately harmless. He's the official magazine of the Australian Horror Writer's Association, and undoubtedly the nastiest little read you'll read this year, at least until issue 8 comes out. It contains my short story Ghosts of You, which is quite unpleasant, and I say that with all the love in my heart. 


Purchase ye here.


Next to him... the nasty Year's Best Australian Fantasy & Horror 2011. His tiny fangs cause creeping ulcerations of the skin, and his pages contain Europe After the Rain, a story originally published in Fablecroft Publishing's After The Rain anthology and which I thought had disappeared with a dull whoomph of disinterest, so I'm pleased to see it up and about and being appreciated. 

YBAFH11 can be found at Ticonderoga Publications.


And coming soon... my prize, ASIM 56. Isn't she lovely? And so deadly. Her pages contain twice as many Battersbys as that of other magazines. You see, her contents include The Blind Pig, that is to say a modern fable of the depression by my beautiful wife Luscious as well as my own Comfort Ghost, and eventually... oh sod it, i can't keep that up.


Everyone knows ASIM is a ripper of a magazine. Their website is here, and I'll let you know when the issue is due to come out. The Blind Pig is the best short Lyn has ever written, and if you know Lyn's writing, you'll know what that means: you want a copy of this magazine, and you want it ASAP.


And if that isn't enough to make you wonder at just how many people you can fool all of the time, be sure to check out Bete Noire in July, where my poem Three Messages will appear. 

MARCHING DEAD: A TOTAL CRK-TEASE

“I’m going to be sick.”

            Just look at the basket.”

            “I mean it. I’m going to be sick.”

            “Dead men don’t vomit, Gerd.”

            “Don’t care.”

            “Just look at the basket. Nothing else exists. No cliff, no sky. You’re standing on a nice, flat piece of land, and there’s only you and the basket, nice and close and easy.”

            “You’re a lying bastard and I’m going to be sick.”

            “Just close your eyes. Go on, close them.”

            Slowly, reluctantly, Gerd did so.

            “You have no idea how many things I blame you for.”

            “Yes, I’m a truly terrible person. Now, there you are, on a flat piece of land. You feel it, beneath your feet?”

            “Of course I do.”

            “That’s good. Now, can you see a cliff?”
            “Of course I can’t see the sodding cliff!”

            “It’s not there.”

            “I’ve got my eyes closed, you git.”

            Marius poked him in the ribs. “It’s not there,” he said through gritted teeth. “And there’s no sky. Just you and the basket. That’s all. Open your eyes and all you’ll see is the basket.”

            “How will—“

            Marius took a step back, and to the side, so that he stood directly behind his friend. “Open your eyes.”

            Gerd opened his eyes.

            “Do you see the basket?”

            “Yes, I—“

            “Good. Don’t forget to grab it.”

            He drew his elbows back and pushed Gerd as hard as he could, flush in the centre of his back. Gerd teetered for a moment then, with a scream, pushed off from the cliff’s edge and fell into the basket. It swung out from the cliff with his momentum, swung back to crash into the white stone, then slowly, in diminishing arcs, returned to its original position, twisting this way, then that, around the taut line of the rope.

            “Gerd?”

            “You’re a bastard.”

            “Are you all right?”

            “I’m going to be sick.”

Marius turned to Brys.

            “He’s all right.”

48 500 words in, three beta-readers killed off, two to go, and it’s all progressing rather nicely. Marching Dead comes out in early 2013.

CORPSE-RAT KING: ALL DRESSED UP AND READY TO PUBLISH

Things are moving along sharpish, now that we’re 3 months out from publication—that’s right, you few remaining Battfans. The Corpse-Rat King goes on sale as of September 1^st 2012.

You’ll have seen the cover art, of course, although it’s always nice to see it again, at least, it is for me and it’s my blog so I’m going to put a picture up again:

You want me. You know you want me.

Still so pretty J

I’m compiling a list of possible review outlets, so if you’re a reviewer and you’d like a sneak preview via the loveliness of the Angry Robot overlords, flick me an email and I’ll point you out to he-who-must-send-out-ARCs to have you added to the list. I’m also lining up a bunch of interviews and contra-posts on blogs, so over the next few months I’ll likely be flitting hither and yon about the internet whilst a stream of relative strangers settle into our little armchair-corner-of-the-netiverse to regale you with stories of that one time in college when they were really curious and shared a bottle of crème de menthe with their transsexual history professor….

And, in one of the more enjoyable tasks available to an author on the promo trail, I’ve been pimping for testimonials. And have a listen to what two authors, for whom I have unlimited respect, have said:

“A stunning debut novel, well-crafted and grotesquely inventive. With its madcap story, unforgettable characters and fine balance between humour and pathos, The Corpse-Rat King ticks all the boxes. Fans of Joe Abercrombie will love this.”

- Juliet Marillier, award-winning author of the Sevenwaters series and Bridei’s Chronicles

“The Corpse-Rat King is rugged, muscular fantasy, sure to please those who like their adventures rough around the edges, with wit and style to burn.”

- Karen Miller, author of The Innocent Mage and the Godspeaker trilogy.

It’s all shaping up rather nicely, is it not?

So I’ll be around a bit more over the coming months, ringing you all up individually at 3am asking you why you haven’t pre-ordered your copy of the book. But be sure to answer: it’s a pain having to explain to the police why I broke your window and climbed into your bedroom in the early hours.

(BLOWS INTO MICROPHONE) IS THIS THING ON?

Been a while.

I don’t normally talk about my day job on this blog. I like to keep my writing world and my employment world separate, for the very good reason that I don’t want the one to affect the other— working in the arts field leaves me too open to accusations of using my employment position to advance my writing career, and it’s a lot easier to simply keep the two things disassociated and avoid the possibility altogether. However, this is one of those rare occasions where I’m going to break that self-imposed taboo, because my day job is the reason I’ve not been around here lately, and I think that deserves an explanation.

I work as the Arts Officer for a local government. Every year we produce a beachside sculpture exhibition called the Castaways Sculpture Awards—50 or so sculptures along our officially-the-second-best-beach-in-the-country foreshore, each one made from recycled materials. It is, without patting myself on the back too hard, pretty bloody specky. You can check it out here, here, and here if you don’t believe me. 

See? Good, innit?

The event has been steadily growing over the past 5 years: apart from the central exhibition we run a week of schools workshops, a separate two-day schools exhibition, a flash opening night and a free public forum featuring a series of guest speakers. We co-ordinate a team of community volunteers to staff our information tent, and many of the artworks are for sale, and we co-ordinate those sales as well. This year, the event expanded to incorporate a poetry competition that received over 150 entries and a photography competition which, at the time of writing, had attracted 140 entries with a few days to go until closing. All this, organised by two people—myself, and the Co-ordinator, my immediate superior.

 Six weeks before this year’s event, she resigned and left.

Since then I’ve been co-ordinating this event as well as taking on the duties of both the Co-ordinator and Officer positions, essentially working two jobs as well as applying for the vacant Co-ordinator job and going through the application & interview process for that, culminating in working a 19-day week during the exhibition and aftermath. The event went off like a bomb. I got the job. It’s all ended pretty darn well. But in the meantime, it damn well ate my fucking life. Things are back to normal now: the beach is back to its pristine self, I’ve had a normal-person weekend, and I’ve got a week off coming up where I've been able to tie my fingers to the keyboard and undertake mass wordage.

But in the interests of catching the hell up, and there are a few things that’ll sound a bit out of date along the way, let’s settle in for a bit of updatery, shall we?

7 YEARS, NO ITCH

Seven years ago today, for reasons that may have been clear only to her, Luscious threw me a bone and married me.

If she's regretted it, she's kept it to herself.

So, being in the fortunate position of remaining deeply in love with a woman I find more beautiful and more wonderful every day-- a woman who continues to astonish me with her intelligence; talent; caring nature; capacty for forgiveness; and loyalty to herself, her family, and her ideals; it's left to me to say, simply:

I love you, wife-man.

WE'RE SO PRETTY, OH SO PRETTY....

Oh, it is official.

The cover art for The Corpse-Rat King has been unveiled on the Angry Robot website and oh, it is so lovely.

Am I chuffed? Am I fucking what! So much more beautiful than I had hoped for, it's the work of Nick Castle, who has provided covers for the likes of Nora Roberts, Ellis Peters and Donald Westlake, so I am in some very nice company indeed. I may be slightly biased, but I think this is a thing of beauty.

Go on, be honest. You really want to buy it now, don't you? Well, come September, and we'll all be rubbing this cover against our cheeks and making soft little mewling sounds.

Okay, well, I will. The rest of you should maybe just read it...

FREE FICTION FROM FARRUGIA'S FORCEFUL FELICITATIONS

Over at the Screaming Ink website, the groovy Mark Farrugia, co-editor of the upcoming Midnight Echo #8, has posted a list of short stories that have made an impact upon him due to their offbeat and disturbing nature. The entire post, entitled Fiction That Has Stayed With Me, is a nice little run-down of one man's reading tastes.

If you pop down to number 46, you'll see my beloved Luscious' story As We Know It. It's a nasty, unsettling little gem of a type she does superbly: short vignettes starring a woman who says all the 'right' things and does all the 'right' things, but still ends up disturbing the living buggery out of you-- femininity inverted, revealing all the rages and injustices that are subsumed beneath convention and 'obedience'.

As We Know It first appeared in issue 10 of Borderlands magazine, back in 2008. The magazine has gone the way off all things, which is a pity as it was a classy little unit, but Lyn has kindly agreed to let me reprint it here in its entirety. So, for your entertainment, and in the hope that it will leave as lasting in impression upon you as it did Mark:

As We Know It

by Lyn Battersby

First printed in Borderlands 10, March 2008, Borderlands Publications.

     Don't get me wrong, sometimes you like the sex. You enjoy the way he paws at your breasts, tweaks your nipples and runs his hands over your butt as he whispers eternal love in your ear. You're even partial to the odd slap on the thigh as he grabs your hips and grinds himself into you, the rhythmic thwack, thwack, thwack of flesh assaulting flesh as you thrust against one another, him grunting, you panting, thrusting and grunting, panting and thrusting, panting, grunting, grunting, grunting, moaning, faster, faster, faster,

     breath,

     hold it,

     hold it,

     aaaahhhhh,

     And he's come, and you've faked it, and you're lying on the bed, on the grass, on the stairwell leading to the Humanities building and you recall the acrid tang of that one cigarette you had four years ago and wonder whether it's too late to take up the habit.

     No, it's the responsibility you're avoiding. He doesn't have to worry about words like breech or caesarean or placenta praevia or any of the hundreds of medical terms that share just one meaning: death.

     You search the campus surgery, ransacking the cupboards, searching for samples. You have your preferred brand, the one that doesn't make you feel bloated or teary or furious, the one that acts as it should, regulating your cycle and preventing his little soldiers from invading your ovum.

     You find a  packet in the nurse's station, enough to cover two months, but you're always aware, always aware: the stocks are finite. Sperm isn't.

     Once upon a lifetime ago, you were not alone. People milled through your life with their bad breath and sweat and the endless chatter of mobile phones and you barely noticed them, noticed him, failed to perceive the ebb and flow of one person after another.

     People were unimportant.

     Once upon a time.

     And now, you're at the happily ever after and it's just you and him and you can't help but notice him because he is all there is and he wants more, many more, a world of more and you

     just

     don't.

     "Maybe this month," he says as he pushes you onto the table and opens you up with sex-stained fingers.

     You nod and agree, that it's your responsibility, but all the while you're aware of the sugar bowl, the tomato sauce bottle, the serviette dispenser as they bounce against your head and you try to distance yourself--

     Bristol, Devonshire, London, York--

     "What are you thinking about?"

     Lying back and thinking of England.

     "Maybe this time," you say.

     --Stratford Upon Avon, Ferry Across the Mersey--

     His face screws up into a frown. Sweat drips onto your breasts, into the dip of your cleavage--

     -- Eastenders, Dr Who--

     Then it's over and you sneak off to the bathroom to flush away his semen. You pop out another pill and swallow it with a mouthful of tepid water from the basin.

You are the only woman for him, he tells you and you buy into it because it makes you special. You don't know why you were chosen, it's his mission not yours, but you continue on with your quest and take long walks off campus and one day you find it, the Promised Land. A chemist, unopened, unexplored, and it's a simple matter to find a brick and aim for the window and an alarm shrieks its outraged cry while you head for Mecca, and there it lies, the Holy Grail, hundreds and hundreds of little tan tablets in their foil packets beckoning to you, promising years of infertility.

     Your lover doesn't suspect a thing, him with his self-appointed assignment and need to repopulate the Earth in his image. You've seen behind the mask to the devil within and you know, you know there'll never be one last hurrah, no last moment of giving fate the finger.
     For you, for all of you, this is the end of the line.

     Because he is the last man on Earth.

     And you still don't want him.

     

     

10 OUT OF 10 FOR TRYING

"You can't ground me! I'm a Jedi!"

Nice try, Obi Wan Connorobi...

GOODBYE, MY FRIEND

Enduring memories of Paul Haines:

Subbing for Lyn as she edited ASIM #11. Reading stories. Nope, nope, bored, yawn, nope, nope, fuck me! My first taste of Haines: Hamlyn. Halfway through, the Pied Piper sits at the base of a tree, playing his pipe, as a townswoman approaches to ask after the fate of her son. The son emerges from underneath the piper's cloak. Wiping his chin. I'm an instant fan.

Meeting him for the first time at an Aurealis Awards after party, sometime back in 2004 or 5. We'd conversed on the mailing ,lists for a couple of years, knew each other's attitudes-- if little else, as is the usual-- and shared a mutual respect. He's loitering around the entrance to the bar as we made our way in, and hails me from a deep shadow. A tall, good-looking fellow with a beautiful head of hair and a laconic, lazy smile-- I can feel the women of Brisbane going moist at the knees the moment we hit the bar. We spend an evening chasing beer after beer, leaning back and swapping stories in a mood if instant and mutual ease.

Half-time at a workshop for Aurealis nominees helmed by Ellen Datlow. I'm in a corridor with Paul and Geoff Maloney. Geoff's just brokered an introduction for me with Sean Wallace of Prime Books, and Sean's agreed to publish what will become my collection Through Soft Air. I've got Geoff bailed up against a wall and am singing the praises of Haines in a loud and insistent manner. Paul is laughing his arse off and insisting that he's crap, and that I'm talking out of my arse. Prime publishes Doorways of the Dispossessed, and we have something else in common-- publisher horror stories with which to entrance wide-eyed newbies whenever we meet.

A long, rambling, multi-post email conversation about They Might be Giants, Madness, and Thomas Dolby-- blowing off steam, junking on about favourite songs, following Dolby's blog, and hidden fandoms. A few days later, a DVD in the mail, addressed in Paul's epileptic-seagull-with-ink-on-its-feet handwriting-- His entire Dolby collection: albums, videos, the lot. Burned to disc, for no other reason than he knows I'll dig the shit out of it.

Seeing him for the last time at Swancon 2011. Sick, wasting away, skeletal. Everybody tiptoeing around him, not saying what none of us wants to be the first to say. He spies me as I'm coming towards him. "Fuck," he says. "You look like shit." He's laughing his arse off, once again, and I want to join in but I can see his eyes, and they're like yellow coins, and there's a nasty fever at the back of them: he's trying to fit it all in, and say goodbye to everyone but I can see it's eating him alive and now I'm feeling guilty because I want to join in the banter but I can't. Later, launching his final collection, The Last Days of Kali Yuga, he reads to a room full of the best horror writers in the country, and fans, and friends, and every one of us has tears streaming down our faces, and we all line up like supplicants to have him sign our books. And I can see he's exhausted, and that there's no way he's going to give up one second of this, so when it comes my time I lean forward and smile my sharingest smile and say "Say something nice, you fucking faker." And he laughs his arse off, like he always seemed to do when we were together, and wrote "Thank God this isn't a Prime Book." Our shared story, one last time.

Hugging him one last time, before we all broke up and went our separate ways. Feeling the bones through his shirt, feeling him wince at the contact but not let go. 

In the shower this morning. Lyn puts her head through the door. "Paul's dead." Bursting into tears.

Goodbye, my friend.

IF I HAD A DOLLAR...

Hello, my 100 000th reader.

Leave the money on the fridge.

ON THE SUBJECT OF WHICH: NEW MOCs!

My own small efforts from the day:

There's more at my MOCPages page: feel free to leave a comment.

LEGO AS SOCIAL LUBRICANT

You gotta love teenagers. Masses of them, gathered round the barbecue, just generally hanging out, sitting on each other's laps, drinking, laughing, drinking, playing computer games, cranking the music up, eating everything in sight, smooching, drinking, playing Lego...

Oh yeah, not kidding. The kids and I were were playing Lego inside, and one by one, as they passed on the way to here and there, a teen would stop, sit down for a few minutes, start picking up pieces... the littlies moved on, but the teens stayed.

By the end of the afternoon, we'd turned this:

into these:

One by one, I'm bringing them over to the LUG Side.... :)

UNTRAINED, AND IN CHARGE OF PAINT

So here's how my job can eat my life:

Australia Day means families. Families mean a family-friendly event. 5000 people on the foreshore, which means hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kids.

Kids means face painting. Ask them. They'll tell you.

When your face painters pull out three weeks before the event, this can be construed as a problem. It can also be construed as a problem. I know I repeated myself...

Solution: put the call out amongst our local artists. Gather up a crew of volunteers, equip them, train them, stick them in a marquee, open the lines and cross your fingers.

And it worked. Bloody brilliantly, as a matter of fact. But it also meant that I had a car full of face painting kit in my driveway all weekend. Just sitting there, in my car, all painty and kiddy and sitting there.

Come on. What would you do?

In my defence, I only did one each :)

Hulk not mad. Hulk just disappointed.

Is it a panda? Is it a skull? Either way, the 10 year old hates it. Five minutes with a wash cloth and.... 

Space Commander Travis LIVES!!!

This is me, sticking to writing...

THE INCIDENTAL FELICITATIONS OF A LIFE LIVED ARTISTICALLY or THE MODERN CLUB OF QUEER TRADES: A BLOG POST BY LEE BATTERSBY

Let's be honest: unless you get lucky, you're going to earn the square root of fuck all by being an author. So the only way to remain sane, and not take a hammer to the windscreen of every DB9 you see cruising past with some mouth-breathing troglodyte at the wheel just because he managed to get off the mine site without a dose of the clap and with his bankroll largely intact, (this is me not being bitter. You should see bitter...) is to divorce yourself from money and understand that it is only necessary to feel a sense of being rewarded for your work. Not all rewards have to be financial.

Which is my way of saying: I've worked for t-shirts.

Which is also my way of saying: it has been my inordinate pleasure to spend my recent evenings in the company of the delightfully baroque Pyrotechnicon- The Further Adventures of Cyrano de Bergerac by Himself (Dec'd) by the equally delightful and baroque Melbournian writer Adam Browne, which I am fortunate to be beta-reading.

Adam is an artist with words, what would flippantly be called a 'wordsmith' by those who don't know just how fucking impossible it can be to build spires and rainbow bridges and gossamer spaceships using nothing more than a clear mental image and a sense that you'll never, no matter how much you rage, describe it as perfectly as you see it in your mind. His short stories are invariably tours de force, and the novel manuscript-- wonderfully illustrated by the man himself-- is a perfect distillation of the soaring joy that Adam brings to his craft. The wordplay is joyous, the characters are exercises in bravado, and the whole thing is an explosion of bravura that has me rocking back in my chair and barking with mirth on a regular basis.

Pyrotechnicon is due to be released by one of my favourite small presses-- Melbourne based Coeur de Lion-- in September, as an ebook and limited print edition. If you're after a taste of what to expect, Adam has been posting teaser illos on his blog over the past few months.

As Molly would say: do yourself a favour...

HEY, LET'S NOT WAIT UNTIL A WEDDING OR A FUNERAL NEXT TIME, OKAY?

So the secret to blogging success, apparently, is to do it regularly. Pick a day of the week, or two or more, and no matter what, make an entry on that day. You build up trust within your readership, and regular updates lead to repeat readership.

Heh.

Lot of wevver we've been 'avin, innit? :)

So it's been more than a month, and there's a very good reason for that-- I keep my day job out of this blog, and my day job has been mad. Apart from being the lead officer on our Australia Day Celebrations, a task that ate my January, I'm also involved in the preparation for two major art exhibitions which will eat, respectively, my May and July. It's a fantastic job, but sometimes it takes over.

Still, there's been a bit of action going on at the Battheim: for starters, we've decided to sell up and move closer to the kids' new school. Those who've been to our current house will attest to the fact that it's freaking huge: 2 stories, and enough room to fit 7 or 8 residents, which was fine when we had 7 or 8 residents to fit. But we're due to drop from 6 to 4 in the coming year, as our eldest and his best mate depart our rooms for digs of their own, and this place is just too damn big-- and too damn expensive-- to suit a family of 4. It's time to rationalise for life in a smaller, cheaper house.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

So it's reno time, and cleanup time, and sitting down in the evening to watch Get It Sold and Selling Houses Australia and the like time, and losing my weekends to the garden time. Not to mention realising just how much shit my house is filled with time.

So our weekends are booked for the foreseeable future, it seems. Every time I move house I swear it's the last time, that I only have one more move left in me, that I want to stop and put down roots and actually see the gardens I plant grow to maturity, and give my children a sense of security as they grow through childhood. But it's okay, because I reckon I have one more move left in me......

DUDE, WHAT'S WRONG WITH USING SCISSORS?

I realise it's been a while: I've largely been off the internet doing really-lifey sorta things. There's some real content coming in the next couple of days, but in the meantime, read down to line four of this and be glad you were born with two hemispheres to your brain.....

There isn't a single scenario in the Universe where I can imagine needing to do that.