Review and Interview

Martin Livings, author of  ‘Carnies’ (one of a dozen or so books I’m saving for my journey home to Australia) has posted a review of ‘Slights’ at the ASif (Australian SpecFic In Focus) website.

It’s another thoughtful and honest review.

 

I also have an interview up at inTrouble. This is a print mag now online. It’s edited by Steve Proposch, who edited two early stories of mine (“A Positive” and “The Hanging People”) and whom I credit with helping me continue as a writer. He was so encouraging early on, believing in me right from the start.

SF Signal

As part of the launch of The Apex Book of World SF, SF Signal is publishing interviews with some of the authors.

There’s wonderful stuff from Melanie Fazi, Jetse de Vries, Aliette de Bodard and Guy Hasson, with more to come. My interview is up today.

News Frenzy

I have two Fiji travel stories around at the moment.

“When Suva had a Cinema Paradiso” is a Letter from Suva at The Guardian Weekly.

“Circling Suva”, my travelogue on macabre Fiji, is at Hub Magazine.

 

‘The Apex Book of Science Fiction‘ has been launched. I cannot wait to read this one! This is the list of contributors. There will be interviews with most at the WorldSF site over the next few weeks.

S.P. Somtow(Thailand)—“The Bird Catcher”
Jetse de Vries(Netherlands)—“Transcendence Express”
Guy Hasson (Israel)—“The Levantine Experiments”
Han Song (China)—“The Wheel of Samsara”
Kaaron Warren (Australia/Fiji)—“Ghost Jail”
Yang Ping (China)—“Wizard World”
Dean Francis Alfar (Phillippines)—“L’Aquilone du Estrellas (The Kite of Stars)”
Nir Yaniv (Israel)—“Cinderers”
Jamil Nasir (Palenstine)—“The Allah Stairs”
Tunku Halim (Malaysia)—“Biggest Baddest Bomoh”
Aliette de Bodard (France)—“The Lost Xuyan Bride”
Kristin Mandigma (Phillippines)—“Excerpt from a Letter by a Social-realist Aswang”
Aleksandar Žiljak (Croatia)—“An Evening In The City Coffehouse, With Lydia On My Mind”
Anil Menon (India)—“Into the Night”
Mélanie Fazi (France, translated by Christopher Priest)—“Elegy”
Zoran Živković (Serbia, translated by Alice Copple-Tošić)—“Compartments”

 

‘Paper Cities‘, the anthology edited by Ekaterina Sedia and published by Matt Kressell at Senses Five Press, won a World Fantasy Award! It’s available on Kindle now. I love this book. It contains the Aurealis Award winning story “Sammarynda Deep” by Cat Sparks.

 

That will do for now!

 

Twitter

I’m now on Twitter as KaaronWarren.

Halloween

Harry Markov at Temple Library Review has posted a spooky short interview series, asking horror writers about their early scares. I’m there talking about “The Shining”, but more about the night I first saw it.

 

Also, Richard Larson has posted a thoughtful review of “Slights” at Strange Horizons.

Bi Bim Bap

I love this Korean meal, served in a hot stone dish. The heat of the bowl remains long after you’ve finished eating and are sipping your green tea. The beef is tender, the vegies sweet.

For company I had my Japanese friend, just returned from Tokyo. She brought me another book. This friend introduced me to the author Soseki Natsume though his hilarious book, ‘Botchan’. She also gave me ‘I am a Cat’, but I’m saving that one.

Today she gave me Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s collection of short stories. What a tragic life he had! Listen to this, from his biography in the front of the book:

“His mother died insane when he was a child. His father, toward whom he had great resentment, was a failure who gave him up to his maternal uncle for adoption.”

The stories range from “The Hell Screen”, which is described as comprising the qualities of horror, the groteqsque and the macabre, and “The Nose” in which a Buddhist monk finds life difficult with his oversize nose.

I’m lucky in that I can read these books in the English translation. It’s hard for me to find Australian books for her. Her English is very good, but it is difficult to absorb a novel in another language, I think.

At the same time, on my search for last things, I’m reading “Japanese Death Poems written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death”. The poems are of interest, but more fascinating are the descriptions of the men who wrote them. Seira, who died in 1791, apparently said that, having suffered from inflammation of th skin and a boil the size of  pumpkin on his head he could no longer escape the inevitable.

 

 

Reading

I shouldn’t read The Guardian Weekly while eating my lunch. I shouldn’t read William Vollman’s “Poor People” at night, when I’m trying to get sleepy. Both are so full of ideas, stories and inspirations that I have to rouse myself to  note them down. If I’m eating lunch the food goes cold as I scribble this: The US has 8 grades of meat. Bottom three are Utility, Cutter and Canner – for processing. Described as ‘older steers with partially-ossified vertebrae’.

At night, I’m wide awake after copying these words from “Poor People”: Hope dies last says Elena, and they were already in the category of last things.

Will these notes end up in stories? Possibly. I know I have to make them, though, or else the thought is gone and all I’m left with is a vague recollection of a story that could have been.

Interview

The Internet Review of Science Fiction is always a good read, but this month it comes with word of the apocalypse, from the sweet mouths of Angela Slatter, Deborah Biancotti, Peter Ball and Jason Fischer. With pictures. We talk about Puffins and what Gabrielle Lord wrote to me in “Salt”.

Interview

Here’s an interview I did with Harry Markov at Temple Library Reviews. I talk about hell and other people.

World SF

The World SF News Blog is running a round table discussion about how the environment informs our writing. They’ve asked writers from France (aliettedbAliette de Bodard), Mexico (Silvia Moreno-Garcia), India (Vandana Singh) and of course Fiji/Australia!

Next year I’ll be back to plain old “Australian writer”.