Voyagers for Sale, Stand Up Poetry, Online Voting for the Vogels, and James Dignan's New Exhibition

Voyagers for Sale

Mark Pirie and I are still waiting for the contributors' and review copies of Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand to make their way to the shores of Aotearoa, so we can start sending them out. But it is already possible to buy – or at least order – Voyagers online, as follows:

• From Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle e-book (search for "Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry")
• From Fishpond in New Zealand.
• From the publisher, via the Voyagers mini-site which also has information about and excerpts from the book.

And a poem from Voyagers has already gone cross-platform! (That sounds good - I hope it makes sense.) Meliors Simms has produced a video version of part of her poem "Two Kinds of Time", which appears in the anthology. You can see it and read about it on Meliors' blog, and also see it as part of Helen Rickerby's initiative, NZ Poets on Video. It's well worth watching.

Get Up, Stand Up

I will be the featured reader at Stand Up Poetry at Palmerston North City Library on Wednesday 3 June at 7pm. Helen Rickerby was the May reader, and it sounds like she had a great time; Harvey Molloy is reading in August; if someone can tell me who's reading in July, I'll mention them too. I'm looking forward to it - come along if you are in the Palmerston North area and hear my repertoire of anecdotes for the first time!

UPDATE: As Helen Lehndorf has reminded me, and I should have remembered, Glenn Colquhoun is the June reader. Helen Heath will be reading in September.

Online Voting for the Vogels

The Sir Julius Vogel Awards, New Zealand's equivalent of the Hugo Awards, will be awarded at ConScription, this year's National Science Fiction Convention, being held in Auckland at Queen's Birthday Weekend. There's a very strong field of finalists, and yours truly has two finalists (Transported and JAAM 26) in the field for Best Collected Work.

Members of ConScription and of SFFANZ, the administering body, are eligible to vote - and if you join SFFANZ (it costs $10 per annum) you can vote online until 27 May 2009. I encourage you to do so.

James Dignan's New Exhibition

Dunedin artist and reviewer James Dignan has his fifth solo exhibition, "The Unguarded Moment", at the Temple Gallery, 29 Moray Place, Dunedin from May 15-28, with the opening this Friday (the 15th) from 5.30-7.30pm. I recommend it! You can find out more about the exhibition, James's art, music and writing, and his past exhibitions on his website.