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I’m in Brisbane for the Emerging Writers Festival, which I’ll blog about in greater detail during the week when I get back. In the meantime, I have the morning to myself so I came to see an exhibition of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photography at the Art Gallery.

I’m glad I did. It’s an amazing collection of photographs evoking incredible nostalgia and place. Cartier-Bresson is a master storyteller with his imagery. Very powerful stuff. While soaking up the exhibition I saw this and had to share. Tis a great truth:

Gah!

If you subscribe to this blog and you just got an email titled Latest From The Word, as you’d usually expect, but it listed loads of old posts from 2007, I can only apologise!

I have no idea why this happened, but I’m looking into it and hope it doesn’t happen again.

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No really, this is a test post. I apologise for any inconvenience.

As compensation, here’s what happens if you cross Giger’s Alien with My Little Pony:

Move along now. Nothing to see here.

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The Word was upgraded to WordPress 3.0 this morning and unfortunately this broke the theme we had been using previously – apologies to anyone who couldn’t access the site earlier. Have put a temporary theme in place for now, will be working on customising this over the next few weeks.

It’s my birthday tomorrow and I want robot ninja monkeys as my minions.

Don’t disappoint me now, it’s really not too much to ask, is it?

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The Australian Shadows Awards finalists are in. These are an annual award presented by the Australian Horror Writers Association and judged on the overall effect – the skill, delivery, and lasting resonance – of a work of horror fiction written or edited by an Australian and published either in Australia or overseas.

The finalist for 2009 are (in alphabetical order):

Long Fiction

* A Book of Endings by Deborah Biancotti (Twelfth Planet Press)
* Red Queen by H. M. Brown (Penguin Australia)
* “Wives” by Paul Haines (X6, Coeur de Lion Publishing)
* The Dead Path by Stephen M. Irwin (Hachette Australia)
* Slights by Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot)

Edited Publication

* Grants Pass, edited by Jennifer Brozek & Amanda Pillar (Morrigan Books)
* Festive Fear, edited by Stephen Clark (Tasmaniac Publications)
* Aurealis #42, edited by Stuart Mayne (Chimaera Publications)

Short Fiction

* “Six Suicides” by Deborah Biancotti (A Book of Endings)
* “The Emancipated Dance” by Felicity Dowker (Midnight Echo #2)
* “Busking” by Jason Fischer (Midnight Echo #3)
* “The Message” by Andrew J. McKiernan (Midnight Echo #2)
* “The Gaze Dogs of Nine Waterfalls” by Kaaron Warren (Exotic Gothic 3)

There are some truly excellent works in there by equally excellent writers. Best of luck to you all!

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I am: Philip José Farmer This prolific author brings surprising depths to he-man adventure tales, and broke science fiction’s prudery barrier.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Hat tip: Laura Eno.

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Okay, you might think it’s pretty weird that I’d post something like this on my blog, but take a moment and read through to the end. It’s pretty rare that someone can be so honest about their life and it’s really worth the read. Trust me.

Before you read this: Please don’t judge me… I’m just sharing my story because people asked…

Wow… okay, I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to tell anyone about this, but it’s late and I’m sleep deprived so i guess I’ll just write it now and regret it in the morning :/

First of all, – just for some background: My mom died right when I was born, (she was actually really, really hot- but this isn’t about her. I guess that’s fsck up to say, but whatever.) I actually grew up with my dad’s family, because my dad has all sorts of emotional issues and he bailed before I was born. So you can see, my childhood was really kind of messed up.

Anyways, growing up I feel like there was always a lot of distance between me and my sister. When I was about 17 or 18 I first noticed that my sister was a hottie.

I don’t want to go into too many details about it, but basically what happened is that I accidentally found a video that she made of herself. I knew she didn’t make it for me- but I thought she was so fsck beautiful that I watched it twice. I probably would have watched it a hell of a lot more, except that like right around the time I found the video, all this crazy poop went down and I had to leave home. (My dad’s family who I was staying with got in bad trouble with the law. I never talk about it).

Sooo… I was totally lusting after my sister at that point. She was also having bad trouble with the law. She was actually in custody when I left home.

My friend and I went to go pick her up. When I saw her that day, after seeing the video, I have to be honest, I just wanted to fsck her brains out. Looking back on it now, it’s pretty messed up- but I think she had feelings for me too. She actually kissed me right after we came to get her… and it wasn’t a sisterly kiss, you know? I mean, it wasn’t like ridiculously sexual or anything, but it definitely wasn’t sisterly.

After we left, we all went to crash with my Sister’s friends. On the trip there, my friend sort of implied that he wanted to get with my Sister, and I got a little jealous. He’s a good looking guy- and even though she was my sister- I just felt like he was competition. Not much else happened between us for a while except some maybe-sexy hugging.

Pretty much everyone in my life at that point was wanted by the government, so we all moved around a lot. I’m not saying that I’m proud of it or anything, but it was kind of an awesome time.

My friend and my sister never hooked up I don’t think- but I thought there was some serious sexual tension going on between them. It was around that time that I got really badly hurt in an accident. It was fsck up. I almost died. But when I was in recovery my sister came to see me, and out of the clear blue sky she started gives me this awesome, slow, passionate kiss on the lips.

Sadly (although, I guess for the best) nothing ever came of it. We spent some time apart… and I started to get really religious, so I tried not to think of her that way. It was actually going well for a long time- like I was totally over her. But I have to say, like a year or so after all that stuff went down, we were out sailing (not like a date or anything romantic like that), and she was wearing like the hottest bikini I’ve ever fsck seen and it brought back all the old feelings. Sigh.

A little while later she actually wound up with my friend from before (the sexual tension guy). I can’t say I was surprised.

But even after she was shacking up with my friend, there was one time we were at a party… my friend was inside, and my sister and I were outside alone. It was a really intimate moment. I think something might have happened, except that I killed the mood when I told her that Darth Vader was our father and that I had to go face him.

Ha!

I got this from my friend Tish, but if anyone knows where it originated I’d love to know.

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Time
Pink Floyd (Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour)

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.

I went shopping today to get a few bits and pieces, including a new calendar and diary. Barely into November and things are already cropping up for next year. It’s not like they’re bad things. For example, I need to jot down a date in January when a piece of flash fiction of mine will be published in an online zine. Also, Halinka and I are planning a trip back to Europe for mid-next year. But man, you do notice the time flying by.

I suppose part of the melancholy about all this for me is that next year is fairly significant. Let’s just say I was born in 1970 and you can do the maths. I’m actually okay about it – to be honest, life is better than it’s ever been. I miss my family terribly and would give pretty much anything to have them back, but otherwise life is good.

It’s just hard to believe that it’s 2010 next year. Seriously, people, where the fuck are the flying cars? And don’t even get me started on manned missions to Mars. Clarke was talking about return missions to Jupiter by 2010.

Then again, who am I to talk, going out and buying paper calendars and diaries? I always try to use my iPhone calendar and sync it online and stuff like that, but the simple truth is that I like to jot things down in a diary. It’s a real book and I have all my old diaries that I thumb through once in a while when I’m passing the bookshelf in my study. Nostalgia can be cool. And a calendar hanging on the wall is useful – you note something down while you’re on the phone, Halinka and I can both stand in front of it and figure out dates for stuff and things like that.

However, my paper time-keeping idiosyncrasies notwithstanding, it’s a simple fact that we’re all way behind on the whole advancement of the human race thing. On the one hand I look at my iPhone and rejoice at how cool the future is. On the other, I look at the complete lack of a moon base, manned missions to Mars and the bewildering absence of flying cars and I can only think, Humanity: Your finger – Pull it out!

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