A Vindication of Monsters

It’s awards season, and I’m happy to report that I have glad tidings!

I’ve been shortlisted for two Aurealis Awards: Best Young Adult Short Story for “The Lingering Taste of Your Last Supper” (winner of Crystal Lake Publishing’s monthly Shallow Waters flash fiction contest), and Best Horror Short Story for “Il re giallo” (from Strange Aeon: 2023). You can read the whole list here.

AND… Bites Eyes has been nominated for Best Collected Work in the Australasian Shadows Awards! Also shortlisted in other categories are two books containing work by me, A Vindication of Monsters and The Black Beacon Book of Horror. Read the whole list here.

Thanks to the judges, and congrats to my friends and fellow finalists! Now we wait with bated breath for the results to be announced.

In other news, I’ve had a couple of short pieces accepted for publication since we last, er, spoke. “Mildew Manor” will be published by Banksia Journal, and “Of Stuffed Frogs and Unshod Gods” has been picked up by Foofaraw. I also had a very close call with a highly regarded publisher who had shortlisted a novella of mine; whilst it’s disappointing to come so near and not make it across the line, it’s gratifying that I made their shortlist at all, given the relative paucity of their output and the strength of their existing roster. Maybe next year, then…

And I recently tried my hand at music writing, contributing an interview to Hot Metal Magazine. I pored over each monthly issue of HM back in the day, so it’s a real pleasure to be a part of its legacy.

What else, then? I’ve been running all over town looking for a new place to live, studying four units per term at TAFE, helping Meg with her own studies, working, chipping away at other writing projects including two books for later in 2024… it’s been all go! Man, I could do with a holiday…

Be well!

Listening:

…I Care Because You Do, Aphex Twin — She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She, Chelsea Wolfe — Hopiumforthemasses, Ministry — Made from Technetium, Man or Astroman? — The Triumph of Steel, Manowar

Reading:

The Dead Take the A Train, Cassandra Khaw & Richard Kadrey — Everybody Knows, Jordan Harper — H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, Gou Tanabe — Piglet, Lottie Hazell — When the Lights Go Out, Tanith Lee

Watching:

Doctor Who: The Visitation — Hatchet for the Honeymoon — Prince of Darkness — Eaten Alive — Prom Night (1980)

Hello, and welcome back!

Let’s begin, as usual, with acceptances and publications: “Drones and Dominions” will be published by the Australasian Horror Writers Association in Midnight Echo 18 later this month — and even better, it features a cover image shot by and featuring my partner Meg! That was a lovely surprise for us both. She’s got another book cover coming out before too long, so stay tuned.

“A Walking Wound” will appear in Another Name for Darkness from Sans PRESS. It should be out by the end of the year.

“Sons of Sloe” didn’t make the cut for Weird Little Worlds‘s Playlist of the Damned anthology, but it has been selected for publication on their blog to help promote the book next year. This was quite a quick turnaround for a story — I had the idea on a Thursday, and a week later, it was written, edited, and submitted. I was listening to a lot of My Chemical Romance at the time, so the tale draws heavily on the emo/hardcore/whatever-you-care-to-call-it scene of the mid-2000s, and it features yet another of my fictional bands. Merch idea: a T-shirt advertising a festival featuring all of those made-up acts! Bit of a deep cut, but hey, ideas are what I do.

“The Other Cheek” was published online in Punk Noir Magazine, and you can read it for free here. It’s another of my story-a-day efforts from February this year. How could I go past a mag with a name like that? While it may not be obvious at times, the spirit of punk rock is at the heart of everything I do.

The Black Beacon Book of Horror Stories, featuring “Ruby’s Syzygy”, and A Vindication of Monsters, including “The Maker Remade: Mary Shelley in Fiction”, are both coming out over the next week. You can preorder those books here and here.

The Narratives Library now has a five-minute excerpt of me reading from The Dark Matter of Natasha, which you can hear here. That book was also recently shortlisted for the Ditmar Award for Best Novella, preserving my unbroken run of being shortlisted for at least one award every year since 2016… read on to learn how that panned out!

The big event of the last few months was Conflux 17 in Canberra, a four-day spec-fic convention featuring panels and book launches and all sorts of events, which I attended for three days. It was an absolute delight hanging out with my fellow writers again — you couldn’t ask for a sweeter bunch of people! I sold a book as soon as I got off the plane, moderated two panels, recorded the aforementioned excerpt for the Narratives Library, lost a Ditmar Award to Kaaron Warren (naturally), met the venerable Ellen Datlow, and spent many hours boozing and chatting with my spec-folk. Total blast! I can’t namecheck everyone — and everyone was awesome, no word of a lie — but here’s a shout-out to Kaaron, Alan Baxter, Aaron Dries, J. Ashley-Smith, J.S. Breukelaar, Zachary Ashford, Kirstyn McDermott, Tehani Croft, and Lee Murray for making me feel especially welcome. Check out Cat Sparks’s photos from the long weekend here. In the meantime, here are just a few fun ones from myself and other sources!

Apart from that, I attended a spooky baby shower, caught the I Am Not a Burden metal festival at Adelaide Uni (mainly to see the monolithic Ghostsmoker), worked my arse off at Illuminate Adelaide and the Royal Adelaide Show, watched my brother perform a live solo set at the West Thebarton Hotel, attended a screening of local video clips from the past few decades at ARTHUR Art Bar that featured Meg’s work for Minds Untethered, hung out with some old mates, dealt with painful energy provider and home plumbing issues, and started studying for a Cert IV in Library and Information Technology at TAFE — and that’s just the bullet points I can share here.

Back soon(ish) with more derring-do and dunning-don’t from the life of “Adelaide’s master of horror”! (Yes, someone called me that, I didn’t coin it myself.)

Listening:

Icon, Paradise Lost — Trouble and Their Double Lives, Cradle of Filth — Stone, Baroness — Under the World, VOWWS — Four, Bloc Party

Reading:

Holly, Stephen King — The Wind Began to Howl, Laird Barron — Silver Nitrate, Silvia Moreno-Garcia — Maeve Fly, C.J. Leede — Fearful Implications, Ramsey Campbell

Watching:

‘Salem’s Lot (1979) — Bad Girl Boogey — Inside No. 9 — Sex Education Series 4 — The Lord of the Rings

Cheers, ears of all sizes,

MRD