US and UK editions of Yellowcake

US edition

My short story collection Yellowcake came out in the US this week, to some very nice starry reviews! "These are stories worth hungering for. Cut yourself a thick slice," said Cate Fricke in her review (click the "nice" link) while kind Sarah Potvin (click "very") said, "...if everyone wrote short stories of this caliber, they might be as popular as they should be. Lanagan has a true gift with language and her ability to create an entire credible world in each short story is just staggering."

Heh, so prepare to be staggered.

UK edition

But there's another slice! the UK edition is also coming out soon-soon-soon—6 June, to be precise. You would think that it was an entire different book from either the Australian or the US edition; Richard Merritt has chosen to illustrate the first story in the collection, "The Point of Roses". Yes, that's the Traveller boy Jo, standing in the pond, amplifying the roseness of the roses.

Aus edition

Both these collections are the same as the Australian edition except for one story. "Heads" in the Aus. book has been replaced by "Catastrophic Disruption of the Head", the "Tinderbox" retelling that had its first outing in Nan McNab and Isobelle Carmody's The Wilful Eye.

Ditmar and Hemming joy!

On Saturday night at the Conflux 9 convention in Canberra, I was very honoured to receive, for Sea Hearts/The Brides of Rollrock Island, the Norma K. Hemming Award (for exploration of race, gender, sexuality, class or disability in science fiction or fantasy), and the Ditmar Award for Best Novel.

Thanks, Deborah Biancotti for hosting a great awards night, and thank you, Hemming and Ditmar judges, for all the hard work that went into making these awards happen.

The judges of the Hemming Award wrote: "Sea Hearts takes us on a journey through what it means to be male and female, lover and loved, thing and person, and Lanagan's rich prose goes beyond the fantastical towards new sensibilities and understandings."

I'm very pleased with myself. :)

Ditmars, Norma K Hemming, CBCA, NSW Premier's

More wonderful shortlistings!

• In the Ditmar awards, Sea Hearts is up for Best Novel, "Significant Dust" from Cracklescape is nominated for Best Novellette and Cracklescape itself is up for Best Collection.
• Sea Hearts is also up for the Norma K. Hemming Award, which will be awarded at the same ceremony next weekend at Conflux, and which "marks excellence in the exploration of themes of race, gender, sexuality, class and disability in the form of science fiction and fantasy". These are named after Norma Kathleen Hemming (1928–1960), fan, actor and writer of science fiction and fantasy.
• Sea Hearts is shortlisted in the Children's Book Council Awards this year, too, for Book of the Year: Older Readers. Winners will be announced on the third Friday in August.
• And the NSW Premier's Literary Awards shortlists have been announced, with Sea Hearts included for the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature. The winners will be announced at a dinner at the State Library the day after the Aurealis Awards night.

I know, it's Shortlist Central around here.

There was a wonderful celebration in Melbourne on Tuesday night to announce the winner of the inaugural Stella Prize. The entire shortlist was flown in for the occasion, and both Helen Garner and the winner, Carrie Tiffany (for Mateship with Birds) delivered terrific addresses. Carrie also donated $10,000 of her $50,000 prize among the five other shortlistees, which was a total surprise and very kind of her!

Here she is accepting her prize, with the shortlist either side of her (Michelle de Kretser is there too, behind the camera on the left—there was TV coverage on the ABC and SBS news), in a photo taken by Demet Divaroren.

Two new interviews

Alan Baxter asked a bunch of writers about our "ongoing angst" and posted a great series of interviews on his blog. Here's mine; the other subjects are Kaaron Warren, Jo Anderton, Lisa Hannett, Angela Slatter and Trudi Canavan. Find out what we're all afraid of.

And the Stella Prize is running interviews with shortlistees and judges over on its site; explore all those, too.

Oh, and remember that Indie shortlisting?

Well, look here!

Sea Hearts, winner,
Children's and YA section,
Australian Independent Booksellers
Awards 2013

Newcastle Writers Festival this weekend—come one, come all!

Newcastle (NSW, Australia) is having its first writers' festival this weekend, and it's going to be a juicy one. Here is the program. If Anita Heiss, Michael Chamberlain, Jane Caro and David Marr aren't enough for you, come along and see me, too. I'll be on:

• at 11.15 a.m. on Saturday in the Lock-Up Cultural Centre (in the Gallery), with Felicity Pulman and Alexa Moses, being wrangled by Kaz Delaney, talking about "why Young Adult fiction isn't just for teens" on the Crossing Over panel
• at 1.30 p.m. on Sunday in the Hunter Room at the City Hall, on the Dreaming Australia panel. Russell Blackford will be there making sure that Janeen Webb and I get a word in edgewise alongside the ebullient Jack Dann, as we celebrate home-grown speculative fiction.

I also hope to sneak off and visit the Treasures of Newcastle from the Macquarie Era exhibition at the Newcastle Art Gallery, because, you know, history? (Here's the Macquarie collector's chest from 1818.)

Stella, Aurealis, Indie

Last week was quite a week for Sea Hearts.

First it was shortlisted for the Stella Prize, so it sits among 5 other wonderful women's books, ready to be celebrated on 16 April, when the winner is announced.

Then it became a finalist, not once but twice (Fantasy Novel and YA Novel), in the Aurealis Awards. Mid-May is when we find out whether it makes it right to the top there. (Three of the four stories in Cracklescape also made the running, which is pretty damn fine, too!)

Tomorrow night the annual Indie Awards (Australian Independent Booksellers Awards) dinner is on, and as you can see on the linked page Sea Hearts is up for the award in the Children's Section (which in the absence of a YA Section is for Children's and YA books).

I'm running out of fingers to cross!

Write with Sue Woolfe and unlock the story you KNOW is within you

If I weren't doing the Newcastle Literary Festival, I'd be sorely tempted to go to this on Saturday, 6 April. I've heard that Sue Woolfe's approach is unusual and effective—and who wouldn't want to be delighted and energized?

Neuroscience has discovered the techniques creative people use; Sue Woolfe, award-winning novelist and renowned writing teacher, has sleuthed through neuroscience to teach them. She helps students write in a manner that delights and energizes them.

Many of Sue's students have gone on to produce books that have excited publishers and readers alike; often these were students who claimed they’d “never had an imaginative thought”.

Sue Woolfe teaches creative writing at the University of Sydney and now at NIDA she’s further researching creativity, and teaching creative thinking as it applies to writing stories. She is the author of four novels, plus The Mystery of the Cleaning Lady: A Writer Looks at Creativity and Neuroscience, and co-author of Making Stories: How Ten Australian Novels Were Written.

When: Saturday, 6 April 2013, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (with an optional follow-up with individual discussions on Saturday 27 April). Morning and afternoon tea are provided, and you can grab some lunch at one of the nearby cafes.

Where: Inner-city address, Sydney.

Fee: $450 (add $250 for optional follow-up, which involves a half hour’s discussion, Sue having read up to 7000 words beforehand—the follow-up is only for workshop members, and may only be taken on 27 April. Both sessions to be paid for by 30 March.)

Bookings: Book by email.

Newcastle Literary Festival

Newcastle's own literary festival is happening from the evening of Friday 5 April until mid Sunday arvo, and I will be there for the following sessions:

Saturday 11.15–12.15 in the Lockup Gallery, talking about Crossing Over: Why YA isn't just for teens with Alexa Moses and Felicity Pullman (Kaz Delaney will be wrangling us).

Sunday 1.30–2.30 in the City Hall (Hunter Room), where I'll be Dreaming Australia with Jack Dann and Janeen Webb, and our chair Russell Blackford, celebrating all things Australian and odd. (That's quite a collocation of silver foxes we'll have there!) 

And I'm currently poring over the program of other goodies on offer. If you're anywhere Newcastle, you should come on down!