catsparx

Originally published at www.catsparks.net. You can comment here or there.

When author Hunter Liguore saw my bookshelf photograph on a blog post earlier this year she invited me to write a piece about it. So here goes:

This isn’t my only bookshelf, of course, it’s one of many. The back room is chockers with the things, both double and triple banked. When my parents sold the family home, my father gave me this one from his study and I put it on my second desk and filled it with some of the titles that had been accumulating on the table beside my reading chair out back.

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Originally published at www.catsparks.net. You can comment here or there.

The awards were held last Saturday May 12 at the Independent Theatre, North Sydney. Loads of smiling faces and sparkly frocks. Check out my Flickr stream here.

Pictured: Double award winner Lisa Hannett, me & Liz Gryzb.

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Paul’s family invited me to speak at his memorial service. This is what I said.

Paul Haines was not just another writer. He was the kind of writer who is rarer than you’d think: a writer who actually had something to say. The term ‘unique voice’ is often overused, but in his case it was true.

Paul inspired trust in all who knew him. Grateful for the inclusion he experienced from more established writers early on, he made a point of extending the same friendship and courtesy to newer writers following behind.

Paul focused a spectrum of disturbing truths though the prism of his lens. His writing style was tough, mesmerizing, visceral, no holds barred. In a word: authentic, just like the man himself. He wrote with certainty and strength. Sympathetic to tragedy, he enticed us to engage with and acknowledge elements of the dark within.

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8 June 1970 – 5 March 2012

Never forget you, buddy. Love always, CXX

Current Mood:

sad

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get your tickets here.

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Writing Speculative Fiction
Tutor: Robert Hood
When: Sunday 4 March-10am-4pm

Whether dealing with angels or demons, past or future, aliens, post-humans or artificial intelligences, stories of alternate realities, imagined futures and fantastical impossibilities have been a never-ending source of fascination for writers and readers for as long as humanity has told stories. But once you leave the everyday world behind, once you embrace worlds where the impossible happens, how do you make your writing believable? How do you make the impossible possible?

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Originally published at www.catsparks.net. You can comment here or there.

Ticonderoga Publications is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of a short story collection by the multi award-winning writer Cat Sparks.

The collection, tentatively titled The Bride Price, is scheduled for publication and launch at Conflux – the Australian National Science Fiction Convention in April 2013.

“Cat Sparks has produced a large number of critically acclaimed stories in the last ten years. This collection will focus on bringing together the best of her short science fiction.” Ticonderoga Editor Russell B Farr said.

“As of one of the major Australian SF voices of the past decade, a collection is long overdue,” Russell B Farr added.

Cat Sparks first rose to prominence as the founder of the acclaimed Agog! Press, publishing ten titles from 2002 to 2008. As a writer, Sparks is a graduate of the inaugural Clarion South workshop, a Writers of the Future winner, a multiple Ditmar and Aurealis Award winner, and the author of close to 60 published stories.

The contents will include the award-winning titles “All the Love in the World”, “Seventeen”, “Hollywood Roadkill”, “Last Dance at the Sargeant Major’s Ball” and the acclaimed “Arctica”, and “Home by the Sea”.

The Bride Price is scheduled for publication in April 2013. The collection will be available in limited edition hardcover, trade hardcover and paperback, and ebook editions.

To keep up-to-date with this project check www.ticonderogapublications.com

Media Contact: Russell B Farr, mob: 0427198841

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The plastic doll is a Solar Queen – when light strikes the cell on her handbag, she waves. The card at her feet says STOP TALKING, a souvenir from Margaret Atwood’s class.

Anyone who doesn’t know a Moomin when they see one shouldn’t be reading this blog.

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In all the excitement of cracking my head open, I neglected to write a post thanking the Vandermeers who made me a welcome guest in their Tallahassee home for three days. Aside from being constantly amused by their four hilarious cats, we packed a bunch of stuff into the brief time: a Mayan apocalypse party in a Tiki bar, a day trip to Apalachicola where an impromptu oyster festival was in progress, mid-morning at a wildlife sanctuary where the visiting animals on display were — of all things — emus! An accidental encounter with outre folk artist Mary Proctor in her jam packed gallery showroom en route to the gun show at Tallahassee mall. Other stuff too but distance blurs… I’m writing this post mid air via Gogo… just because I can.

Thanks Ann and Jeff — it was a blast!

Originally published at www.catsparks.net. You can comment here or there.

Today a trip to the London Transport museum with Rachael & Graham. Climbed on and off a slew of big red buses, trains and other things. Lunch, then off to the Moomin shop where Rachael bought me a bunch of cool stuff as a belated Xmas present. Then we did the Tintin shop.

Oh dear – my luggage was teetering on the far side of bloated when I got here. Might have to throw away all my clothes… who needs pants and shoes when you’ve got plastic Snowys and plushie Moomins anyway?

I travelled solo to Embankment, crossed the Jubilee Bridge, then met up with one of my favourite people — the utterly awesome Rob Shearman — outside the British Film Institute. He took me to a pub called The Mulberry Bush where we proceeded to drink diet coke and tea respectively and talk shop (read bitch about writers, writing and the writing community) for five hours solid.

Back at R & G’s house now, knocking off the dregs of yesterday’s pomelo, eying off that luggage of mine, attempting to guestimate its mathematical incongruities. It’s all gonna fit. It has to fit. What was I thinking when I packed 3 pairs of shoes and all those cardigans anyway?