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And so there have been demands for photographic evidence of me and the mountain, provided below, oh ye of little faith (and generally much sense).

T’is Mt Ngungun, one of the Glasshouse Mountains – according to my guide, the Old Man of the Mountains, apparently it’s the second hardest … or the second easiest, depending on how you look at it … I was promised the easiest one, but he lied.

And yes, it was raining … it was raining lots – people elsewhere were being washed away and we wuz scrambling up a wet rocky mountainy thingy … and how was it, I hear y’all ask.

It was aweseome.

Walking in the rain rocks (when one isn’t wearing high heels); the smells and sounds are more intense, which is good for a writer doing research. Wish we’d gotten shots of the climby bits – rocks and tree branches and water trickling down them. Keep in mind I am afraid of heights. How did I get down after the uppish bit? Much to the Old Man of the Mountains’ amusement: on my ass. No, not falling, just making my way down as close to the ground as I could – in fact, I discovered I may be part crab, having uncovered a heretofore unsuspected ability to move sideways using all four limbs, whilst still facing up. Had things required it, I may even have been able to be mobile through the simple expedient of my skin moving on its own.

Kudos to the Old Man of the Mountains for being patient and not laughing too much.

And yes, I am sore – everytime I move I make a noise of which Grandpa Simpson would be proud.

Photo one: not feeling as pathetic as I look.

Photo two: yes, I may have been swearing.

Photo three: wet rocks and bushy bits.

Photo four: cloud clearing briefly before closing in again with more rain.

* Title courtesy of a sniggering Old Man of the Mountains.

Yesterday

I walked up a mountain. In the rain. Today, I am very sore.
More later, with photographic evidence.

Ouchies.

Some VanderFiction over at Ecstatic Days:

In the old, tattered photo Sensio has been dressed in a peach-colored prisoner’s uniform made out of discarded tarp and then tied to a small post that Aunt Etta made me hammer into the ground. Sensio’s long white ears are slanted back behind his head. His front legs, trapped by the crude arm holes, hang stiff at a forward angle. The absurdly large hind feet with the shadows for claws are, perhaps, the most monstrous part of Sensio—the way they seem to suddenly shoot from the peach-colored trousers, in a parody of arrested speed. The look on Sensio’s face—the large, almond-shaped eye, the soft pucker of pink nose—seems caught between a strange acceptance and an inchoate rage.

The rest is here http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2010/02/04/the-quickening/

woman

The lovely Tartarus Press will be publishing my short story collection, Sourdough & Other Stories, this year. It will have (if I manage not to offend them) an Intro by Robert Shearman and an Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer.

The ToC looks thusly:

1. The Shadow Tree

2. Gallowberries

3. Little Radish

4. Dibblespin

5. The Navigator

6. The Angel Wood

7. Ash

8. The Story of Ink

9. Lost Things

10. A Good Husband

11. A Porcelain Soul

12. The Bones Remember Everything

13. Sourdough

14. Sister, Sister

15. Lavender and Lychgates

16. Under the Mountain

So, twelve new ones and two reprints from the previous two Tartarus Press Strange Tales anthologies, one from Shimmer #5 2006 and one from Crimson Highway May 2008.

Russell B Farr of Ticonderoga Publications is bringing out a collection of my short stories in time for AussieCon 4 (http://www.aussiecon4.org.au/).

It will be a mix of previously published works collected in one place (so, sitting around together having drinks and eating peanuts and pretzels) and a few new stories that have not yet shown their faces anywhere else (and will sit on the edge of the crowd, hoping someone will talk to them and desiring peanuts and pretzels).

Yes, there is this happening around my desk at the moment (which is scaring the people at SLQ – so, bonus! :-) ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUQX2B67KL4

Lives here http://www.locusmag.com/Magazine/2010/Issue02_RecommendedReadingList.html

Some awesome names there (like LL Hannett, Peter M Ball, etc) :-)

Until March 13, Twelfth Planet Press is offering free electronic copies of Horn by Peter M Ball and “Siren Beat” by Tansy Rayner Roberts and short stories from Deborah Biancotti’s A Book of Endings to help you catch up on your Australian specfic reading.

Go here http://girliejones.livejournal.com/1544355.html

A v nice review of Strange Tales III:

I will mention first the three stories which struck me as really outstanding. Nina Allan’s The Lammas Worm is an extraordinary piece told in an exceptionally captivating narrative style, revolving around old unwholesome myths and featuring a weird girl who joins a circus company, bringing  about trouble and tragedy.  Sanctuary Run by Daniel Mills,  where a young man seeking refuge from a snow blizzard becomes the guest of  a strange community, is dedicated to Robert Aickman and  does have an Aickmanesque tone, disquieting in a puzzling way and  totally fascinating, especially for the  things left  either unsaid or unexplained. I was also bewitched by Angela Slatter’s  Sister, Sister, a vivid, powerful fantasy where a former princess is abandoned by her husband for her wicked, inhuman sister.

The rest lives here http://www.bookgeeks.co.uk/2010/01/29/mario%E2%80%99s-review-strange-tales-volume-iii-edited-by-rosalie-parker/

Mmmmmm

ToC for ‘Sprawl’

Twelfth Planet Press’ next anthology is Sprawl. ToC looks thusly:

Liz Argall – Seed Dreams (comic)
Peter Ball – One Saturday Night, With Angel
Deborah Biancotti – Never Going Home
Simon Brown – Sweep
Stephanie Campisi – How to Select a Durian at Footscray Market
Thoraiya Dyer – Yowie
Dirk Flinthart – Walker
L L Hannett – Weightless
Pete Kempshall – Signature Walk
Ben Peek – White Crocodile Jazz
Tansy Rayner Roberts – Relentless Adaptations
Barbara Robson – Neighbourhood Watch
Angela Slatter – Brisneyland by Night
Cat Sparks – All The Love in the World
Anna Tambour – Gnawer of the Moon Seeks Summit of Paradise
Kaaron Warren – Loss
Sean Williams – Parched (poem)

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