A Great Review For "The Stars Like Sand" in the Sydney Morning Herald

The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, the anthology I co-edited with P. S. Cottier, has just received a great review in the Sydney Morning Herald:

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/book-review-the-stars-like-sand-edited-by-tim-jones-and-ps-cottier-20150223-13au1z.html

The reviewer, Peter Pierce, describes the anthology as "One of the most enterprising, unusual and rewarding anthologies of the past year" and goes on to say:

The Stars Like Sand shows us, in the work of the more than 80 poets included, much of that illimitable dark, as well as the flights of fancy and hope that can give brief and brilliant illumination. Seek out this book – admirable, and one of a kind.

As you may imagine, I am very pleased with such a glowing review in a major newspaper!

If you'd like to buy a copy of The Stars Like Sand, you have several options. You can buy it (the links work fine):

- from the publisher (paperback and ebook): https://ipoz.biz/ipstore/index.php…

- from Amazon.com: (paperback and ebook) http://www.amazon.com/Stars-Like-Sand-Australian-Specula…/…/

- from Amazon.com.au (ebook): http://www.amazon.com.au/Stars-Like-Sand-Australian-Spec…/…/

(New Zealanders, if you'd like a copy and are having trouble getting one, please contact me: senjmito at gmail dot com)

Try it - I think you'll like it!

Tuesday Poem: Folds, by Jo Mills

infidels of the sun     we watch folds

in this restless land     bake our beliefs

do we enter the new dry     or last ice age

of our imaginings     bright technology

whispers down invisible lines     turns our gaze

to wormholes     sucks our dusty imagery

into temporal twists     spatial vortices

the thrill of discovery   minute gyroscopes

most perfectly sphered     measure dimples

our Earth’s plump rump     sitting in a pillow

time/space sags     beneath her weight

opens new dimensions     in our minds

Saturn grows a storm     or is it humanity

at play     at war with its shadows

breaking its fronts     in bombs and blood

we flee to these folds     in a restless land

while solar flares grow     bright alignments

underscore the shudders     of tectonic plates

we watch folds pucker     oceans drag and pound

ah, the memory of water     bittersoft chaos as if

Shiva’s hand falls     echoes our flight we dance

on moving carpets     while polar caps melt

on Mars     droplets dissolve into the mirror

of our desire for migrancy     beyond borders

of a world grown small     fragile to human touch

infidels of the sun     set longer sights

unlock fantasy’s rim     fear and hope

sand shifts beneath our feet     we watch folds

Credit note: "Folds" was published in The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, which I co-edited with P. S. Cottier (IP, 2014), and is reproduced by permission of the poet. The Stars Like Sand is available from the publisher and from amazon.com.au. If you're ordering through a bookshop that doesn't stock it, let them know the ISBN: 978-1-922120-78-6

Check out this excellent review of The Stars Like Sand in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Tim says: This is another of the fine poems we selected for The Stars Like Sand, and that would be quite enough reason to post it here, but there's another one: partly inspired by her inclusion in The Stars Like Sand and the quality of the anthology, Jo Mills decided to set up an international speculative poetry competition with very generous prizes. It's open for submissions now, and closes on 1 May. Check out the guidelines here:

https://interstellaraward.wordpress.com/interstellar-award-for-speculative-poetry/

About Jo Mills: Jo Mills is a speculative poet, short story writer and fantasy author (under the pen-name Joanna Fay). She recently founded Interstellar to host two annual awards for speculative poetry and fiction respectively, and to publish themed speculative fiction and poetry anthologies from 2016.

Jo lives in the Perth Hills, Western Australia, with her teenage son, two dwarf rabbits and a quail who thinks she's an eagle. She keeps an eye on the sky for starships and patiently awaits the arrival of her galactic family. Jo's author website can be found at http://joannafay.me/

The Hub Tuesday Poem: is Nest by Linda France, chosen by Helen McKinlay.

Tuesday Poem: The End of the World, by Victor J. Daley

IN deeps of space alone,

   Beyond the starry sea,

God sate upon His throne;

   The Earth was on His knee.

Musingly He said,

   Turning the small globe o'er,

“I tire of Men I made;

   They please me now no more.

“I gave them this green earth,

   With all its streams and seas,

Whereon to dwell in mirth,

   And pleasantness and ease.

“I made the sun arise

   Each morning in the East;

I lit with stars the skies

   At night, as for a feast.

“And, when to Heav'n above

   For more gifts they did call,

I sent my Angel Love

   With my best gift of all.

“They are consumed with greed,

   And eaten up with pride;

Each little, paltry creed

   Counts Me upon its side.

“And, when they go to fight,

   Each party calls on ME

To aid the Right—its Right—

   And give it victory.”

Then God the Earth surveyed

   Once more, and thus spake He:

“I tire of Man I made”—

   And brushed it off his knee.

With all its glories ripe

   The Earth passed, like a spark

Blown from a sailor's pipe

   Into the hollow dark.

Credit note: "The End of the World" was published in Victor J. Daley's collection Wine and Roses (Angus and Robertson, 1911) and was included in The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, which I co-edited with P. S. Cottier (IP, 2014). The Stars Like Sand is available from the publisher and from amazon.com.au. If you're on Facebook, please Like its Facebook page for launch photos and special offers!

If you're ordering through a bookshop that doesn't stock it, let them know the ISBN: 978-1-922120-78-6

Tim says: We included a number of poems from the 19th and early 20th centuries in The Stars Like Sand. Of those, this is my personal favourite - for its succinctly expressed moral, and for the wonderfully dismissive image on which it closes.

The Tuesday Poem: is edited this week by P.S. Cottier - and the poem Two Lips Went Shopping by Lizz Murphy (another Stars Like Sand contributor!) and the editor's notes do a brilliant job of representing for the shorter poem!

The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry - Call for Submissions

They're heeeere! Cross-posted from my co-editor's blog, here are the full submission guidelines for forthcoming anthology The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry. Australians, and expatriate Australians, are welcome to submit up to three poems for the anthology. The closing date for submissions is 4 June 2013. Make sure to read the full guidelines before you submit, and have fun out there!

THE ANTHOLOGY

The Stars Like Sand is a planned anthology of Australian speculative poetry. Speculative poetry is poetry in the science fiction, fantasy, horror and related genres. (Please see below for a fuller definition.) It is intended that the anthology will include both new and previously-published poetry, and include a historical survey of the field. The anthology is intended for publication in 2014.

The anthology will be published by IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd) of Brisbane, a leading Australian poetry publisher. IP previously published Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand in 2009 (see http://www.ipoz.biz/Titles/Voy.htm). Further information about IP is below.

The editors are New Zealand poet Tim Jones, who co-edited Voyagers, and Australian poet P. S. Cottier. Please see the editor bios below.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Please note: Submissions do that not follow the guidelines below are unlikely be successful. In particular, attachments will not be read.

1) Submissions are now open. Please submit your poem(s) by midnight on 4 June 2013. Any submissions received after the editors check their email the following morning will not be considered.

Submission format

2) Send no more than three (3) poems in an email message to starslikesand@gmail.com with the subject line "Submission to The Stars Like Sand".

If you submit more than three poems, whether in one message or in separate messages, we will read only the first three you submit. You are welcome to send fewer than three poems.

3) Include your poem(s) in the body of your email message. Do not send attachments. Attachments will be not be read.

If your poem has special formatting requirements which cannot be reproduced in the body of an email, please send it anyway within the body of your email, but include a note about the formatting requirements. If necessary, we will get back to you to request a copy in the correct format.

4) Due to space limitations, we prefer to be sent poems of 50 lines or less. While we will still read longer submissions, they will have to be exceptional to be included. There is no lower limit on lines, so you are welcome to send haiku and other short forms, provided you send no more than three poems in total.

5) You are welcome to submit both unpublished and previously-published poems:
a) Unpublished poems: Unpublished poems selected for inclusion will be eligible for the Rhysling Awards: see http://www.sfpoetry.com/rhysling.html
b) Previously-published poems: Please supply full details of previous publication, including online, magazine and book publication. If permission is required from a publisher for your poem to be reprinted, we will ask you for the publisher's contact details, and for your help with securing permission to reprint the poem in "The Stars Like Sand" should your poem be selected for inclusion.

6) If you are unsure what speculative poetry is, please see the notes below. If you are still not sure whether your poem fits, please send it anyway - we would rather read some poems that don't fit than miss out on good but "borderline" poems.

7) After your poem(s), please include a biography of no more than 100 words in the body of your email message. Your biography may be edited for reasons of space.

Responding to submissions

8) We will respond to all submissions as quickly as possible. However, the time taken to respond depends on the volume of submissions received. Please be aware that, due to size limitations on the anthology, many submitted poems of merit will, unfortunately, have to be rejected.

9) Previous experience suggests that we are unlikely to be able to include all the previously-published poems we initially select for inclusion, due to difficulties obtaining reprint permissions. Should this occur, we may return to some poems that we were unable to include in our initial selection and ask the poets whether we can now include these poems in the anthology. We will do this only as and when necessary, so please do not resubmit poems which were initially rejected, or submit new poems, unless we ask you to.

Payment

10) All poets included, or their estates in the case of deceased poets, will receive a free copy of the anthology. There will no monetary payment for included poems.

Who can submit?

11) Residents of Australia, and Australians not currently resident in Australia, are eligible to submit. If you are unsure whether you are eligible to submit, please include a note in your email submission letting us know your situation.

WHAT IS SPECULATIVE POETRY?

Speculative poetry is poetry that falls within the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, plus some related genres such as magic realism, metafiction, and fabulation. It is not easy to give precise  definitions, partly because many of these genres are framed in term of fiction rather than poetry.

A good starting point is ""About Science Fiction Poetry" by Suzette Haden Elgin, the founder of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, which you can read here: http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/SFPoetry.html

Despite its title, this article is applicable to all forms of speculative poetry.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Tim Jones

Tim Jones is a New Zealand poet and author of both literary fiction and science fiction who was awarded the New Zealand Society of Authors Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature in 2010.

Among his recent books are fantasy novel Anarya’s Secret (RedBrick, 2007), short story collectionTransported (Vintage, 2008), and poetry anthology Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand(Interactive Press, 2009), co-edited with Mark Pirie. Voyagers won the “Best Collected Work” category in the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Awards. Tim's third poetry collection, Men Briefly Explained, was published by Interactive Press in late 2011.

Tim's poem "The Translator" appeared in Best New Zealand Poems 2004, and his short fiction has appeared in, among many other venues, Best New Zealand Fiction 4 (2007), and The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories (2009). His short story “The New Neighbours” was included inThe Apex Book of World SF, Volume 2 (2012).

In 2011, Tim edited a special issue of the Science Fiction Poetry Association's online journal Eye to the Telescope, devoted to speculative poetry by Australian and New Zealand poets – see http://eyetothetelescope.com/

P. S. Cottier

P.S. Cottier's third poetry collection is the suite of poems "Selection Criteria for Death", published inTriptych Poets Issue Three, Blemish Books in 2012.  She has shared the David Campbell Award, given for the best unpublished poem by an ACT region writer.  Her prose poem "Pod, cast", originally awarded first place in a US science fiction competition in 2008, was included in The Indigo Book of Australian Prose Poems (2011).  Penelope has had many fantasy and science fiction poems published in non-genre journals and newspapers, such as The Canberra Times and Eureka Street.

Penelope is also widely published in speculative journals in Australia and elsewhere, such as Star*Line(US) and Chiaroscuro: Treatments of Light and Shade in words (Canada).  Her poem "Fingernails" was recently nominated for the Rhysling Awards, and her magic realist poem "Eight things you may not know about Vladimir Putin's dog" was included in the inaugural Australian Poetry members' anthology.

She wrote her PhD in literature at the Australian National University.

ABOUT IP

Interactive Publications Pty Ltd has been in business since 1994 and has been growing steadily since then. IP currently publishes 35+ titles per year, and is the second largest publisher of literary titles in Queensland.

Interactive Press is one of four imprints of IP. Interactive Press is one of the leading poetry imprints in Australia, publishing up to eight titles each year. Interactive Press titles are generally released via conventional print, as well as in print on demand (POD) and various eBook formats for outlets such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Kobo, Overdrive, eBooks Corp and Wheelers, making them accessible to audiences world-wide.

IP's publisher is Dr David Reiter, himself a prize-winning poet and author.

"The Stars Like Sand" Shortlisted for the ACT Writing and Publishing Awards

The Stars Like Sand, the anthology of Australian science fiction, fantasy and horror poetry that I co-edited with Canberra poet P. S. Cottier, has been shortlisted for the ACT Writing and Publishing Awards. It's great to see the book get this further recognition! All the shortlist and award details are below - congratulations to all the shortlisted authors and publishers. The awards will be announced on Thursday 17 December.

From Capital Letters, blog of the ACT Writers' Centre:

We are excited to announce the 2015 ACT Writing and Publishing Awards shortlist. The announcement of the winners will take place at 6pm Thursday 17 December in the Main Hall at Gorman Arts Centre. More details about the event are here. If you wish to attend, please RSVP to admin@actwriters.org.au This year, we are also pleased to welcome the Minister for the Arts, Joy Burch, who will be announcing the winners of the 2015 ACT Book of the Year Award and People's Choice. The shortlist for this award was released on 12 October 2015. The shortlist is listed below: ACT Writing and Publishing Awards Kristen Alexander, Australia's Few and the Battle of Britain Craig Cormick, Uncle Adolf Sean Costello, Capital Yarns P.S. Cottier and Tim Jones, The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry Pauline Deeves, The Midnight Burial Robert Lehane, The Pearl King Tania McCartney, Tottie and Dot John Stokes, Fire in the Afternoon The Marjorie Graber-McInnis Short Story Award Elizabeth Egan, 'Frozen Stiff' Jennifer Hand, 'Now and Then' C. H. Pearce, 'Torvald's Year' The Michael Thwaites Poetry Award Laurence Anderson, 'Winter evening on the Monaro' Michelle Brock, 'Memorabilia' Penny O'Hara, 'Ode to a Papermate Inkjoy 100' Sarah Rice, 'Action (Bus Route 2) The Anne Edgeworth Fellowship for Young People Myles Gough Louis Klee Rachael Stevens Sarina Talip The Z4 Review Writing Award There is no shortlist for this category; the winner of this award will be announced on Thursday 17 December.

Fast Times In The Poetry Biz: Two Cities, Two Events, One Date (23 July)

As I'm sure you all know, the modern poetry business is a fast-paced affair, full of people in sharp suits and pencil skirts clustered around laptops discussing third-quarter profit projections (OK, maybe that's just business meeting stock photography for websites).

And sometimes, that poet life requires you to be in two places at once, a feat not even T.S. Eliot could accomplish without a lot of CGI. Such is the case on Wednesday 23 July, the date of both the Sydney launch of The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, and a poetry reading at Circadian Rhythm in Dunedin, MC'd by Shae McMillan, at which Rhian Gallagher and I are the readers.

Since I can't be in two places at once, and have made a prior commitment to read in Dunedin, I am unable to make the Sydney launch, but my co-editor P.S. Cottier will be in attendance, as will publisher Dr David Reiter, and a number of poets represented in the anthology will also read.

Meanwhile, I'm very much looking forward to reading and hearing other poets read in Dunedin - my home town from 1976-1993, and a place I still have lots of friends.

If you can be in two places at once, or even one place at once, here are the details of those two events:

The Stars Like Sand Sydney Launch, 23 July 2014: Part of Live Poets @ Don Bank, 6 Napier St, North Sydney, 7.30pm. Here's the Facebook event and the Facebook event description:

IT'S THE NIGHT OF THE MASKED BARDS' BALL! (Bring one to wear if you want). KYLA LEE WARD will perform her book 'Land of Bad Dreams'. DAVID REITER will present 'MY PLANETS' .There is the Sydney launch of 'STARS LIKE SAND" Anthology of Australian Speculative Poetry, featuring many of Australia's best - from Interactive Press. Plus: Open Section - recite, sing, tell a story or play an instrument.There will be dancing in the courtyard. It's the Warm Winter Words Festival! Doors open at 7.30 pm. $7 admission includes hot supper and drinks. Readers from the anthology come in free. Further info/bookings: Convenor Danny Gardner (02) 9896 6956 Mobile 0422 263 373 or via dannylivepoets (at) yahoo.com.au

Come and commune with our guests in the cosy confines of historic Don Bank. Why not bring a friend?

Circadian Rhythm Reading, 23 July 2014: 8-10pm, Circadian Rhythm Cafe, 72 St Andrew St, Dunedin, with MC Shae McMillan, open mike, and guest poets Rhian Gallagher and Tim Jones. Here's the Facebook event.

"The Stars Like Sand" Highly Commended In ACT Writers' Centre Awards

The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, the anthology I co-edited with Canberra poet P. S. Cottier, published in 2014, was thereby eligible for the ACT Writing and Publishing Awards - and, while it didn't win its category (Publishing Awards: Poetry Category), it did receive a Highly Commended and some nice words from the judges:

P S Cottier and her New Zealand co-editor Tim Jones have assembled an ebullient landmark anthology that attempts to embrace a very broad church indeed. An impressive matrix of 'big names' in Australian poetry allows plenty of space nevertheless for the minor poets, who contribute some of the best pieces in the diffuse speculative genre. The poems surprise and delight, lending the anthology a broad appeal.

Whether the speculative poetry category is "diffuse" is an interesting question, but it's great for The Stars Like Sand to get this recognition. Congratulations to John Stokes for his win in this category, to all the other winners and placegetters, and thanks to the ACT Writers Centre for the opportunity! Here are a couple of photos from the ceremony - the "Highly Commended" certificate, and Penelope with the certificate (thanks to Penelope Cottier for the photos).

Stars, Sand, Shelved: An Australian In New York

Part of the Australian anthology collection at Poets House in New York City.
Photo used by kind permission of Alice Allan.

It's been a while since I mentioned The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, the 2014 anthology published by IP that I co-edited with P. S. Cottier, but I enjoyed seeing that the anthology has taken its place in a collection of Australian poetry at Poets House in New York - and quite right too! (But could it be that this is an Australasian collection?)

Many thanks to Alice Allan for the photo and the heads-up: check out Alice's Poetry Says podcasts for some very interesting and thought-provoking conversations.

For more on The Stars Like Sand, see this great review in the Sydney Morning Herald, and check out my previous posts about The Stars Like Sand for more information and a couple of sample poems from the book.

My Poetry Re-Featured On Helen Lowe's Blog, Plus New International Spec Fic Poetry Competition

This year, Helen Lowe has refeatured four of my poems on her excellent blog - that is, she's re-posted four of my poems that she has previously featured on my blog as Tuesday Poems. Here they are:

The First Artist On Mars

Thinning

The stars, Natasha

Angela Carter

Thanks, Helen!

New International Spec Fic Poetry Competition

I've recently found out about a major new international competition for speculative poetry, now open for entries (deadline 1 May): https://interstellaraward.wordpress.com/interstellar-award-for-speculative-poetry/

What's particularly cool is that this competition was partly inspired by the anthology I co-edited with P.S. Cottier, The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry - which gets a nice mention on its "About" page: https://interstellaraward.wordpress.com/about/ - and that it is judged by Jo Mills, one of the contributors to The Stars Like Sand.

If you haven't already, check out the excellent review The Stars Like Sand received in the Sydney Morning Herald.

The Tuesday Poem

While I'm not posting a Tuesday Poem myself this week, I'm this week's Tuesday Poem editor over at the hub Tuesday Poem blog, and I've selected "This Is Love" by Gemma White. Check it out!

What I Read In 2014: Highlights from The Year of the Memoir

As in 2013, I read 53 books in 2014, and recorded the details on the social bibliographic website LibraryThing. The highlights of my year's reading are below, and if you have a deep desire to find out everything I read for the year (albeit I didn't manage this time to review all the books I read) you can check out my 2014 reading thread on LibraryThing.

As you'll see from the post below, 2014 was the Year of the Memoir for me.

Best book, best non-fiction, best memoir

Clothes. Clothes. Clothes. Music. Music. Music. Boys. Boys. Boys. by Viv Albertine

Here's what I tweeted when I finished the book:

"Finished superb memoir #clothesmusicboys by @viv_albertine last night. Wonderful book - entertaining, moving, sad, amusing, profound"

And I don't need to say a lot more - it was really was that good. Viv Albertine was the guitarist of iconic 1970s English punk band The Slits. When that band broke up, she disappeared into a marriage in which her creativity wasted away. This is the story of how she got to that point and how she resumed her creative life after 25 years' obscurity. It's also the story of some very bad (and some very good) choices, taken with a fierce commitment to independence, and the emotional price she has had to pay for that independence.

Along the way, there are fascinating portraits of Sid Vicious, John Lydon, Mick Jones, Ari Up and many other famous figures of the punk era; unexpected connections with musicians and actors as diverse as Steve Howe of Yes and Tom Hiddleston; and the voice of a fine storyteller. This is, so far, my favourite book of 2014.

Memoir runners-up (4 of 'em!)

Bedsit Disco Queen by Tracey Thorn

Earlier this year, I read Viv Albertine's Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. and enjoyed it very, very much - in fact, it was and remains my favourite book of the year. In reviews and interviews, it was often compared to Tracey Thorn's Bedsit Disco Queen, so I was keen to read that as well.

And I enjoyed it, but not as much as #clothesmusicboys. Partly that's because Viv Albertine came of age musically in the 1970s, the same decade in which most of my ongoing music interest began; Tracey Thorne is the best part of a decade younger, and the music genres she has passed through are of less interest to me.

But it's also because Viv Albertine has led (for both good and ill) quite an extreme life, and her autobiography reflects this - whereas Thorne is a much more reserved and contained character, and so her autobiography is much less dramatic. For all that, it's still a very worthwhile read.

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

The core of this book is Vera Brittain's account of her service as a nurse during the First World War, during which time she lost her lover, her brother and another close male friend in the fighting. It's an account that points up the horrible stupidity and futility of that war - men dying in their hundreds of thousands for the sake of a few miles of trench - and of war in general. Not an easy read, but highly recommended.

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh

If you’ve ever seen the Internet meme that features a half-woman, half-fish hybrid triumphantly holding a broom while saying something like CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!, you owe it to yourself to meet that meme’s originator. This is an autobiography with the emphasis on graphics, as Allie Brosh treats dog ownership, depression, ill-fated family excursions and other rites of passage with strong doses of both humour and common sense, leavened by her amazingly expressive drawings – the people may be stick figures with a hint of the aquarium, but the simple dog and the helper dog come marvellously alive.

Li Na: My Life by Li Na

Li Na, winner of the 2011 French Open and the 2014 Australian Open, is my favourite tennis player - I'm not a huge tennis fan, but I do like her on-court skill, determination and power, and her memorable off-court interviews.

Li Na is a stubborn individualist, and that has frequently led to conflict with the all-encompassing state sports system in which she grew up - conflicts documented in this book. But the core of the book is her relationship with her husband Jiang Shan, a former top Chinese player who gave that up to be the tennis equivalent of Li Na's caddy - and also, for a time, her coach, something that wasn't great for her marriage and which they wisely brought to an end.

There are probably stories Li Na could have told about her childhood and her battles with the Chinese tennis authorities that she has chosen not to, but nevertheless, this is an interesting and moving autobiography that you don't have to be a tennis nut to enjoy.

Other non-fiction runner-up

Dirty Politics by Nicky Hager

Best fiction, best novel

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

"Cloud Atlas" isn't always an easy read, and it's rarely a comforting one, but I'm willing to go as far as to say that it's a great novel. I found some of the multiple storylines, which range from past through present to future and cover a range of genres, easier going than others, but connections between those storylines made the book a satisfying whole. As is often the case with science fiction by authors more strongly associated with literary fiction, the science fiction portions of the book don't offer anything strikingly new in conceptual terms, but in common with the rest of the novel, they are deeply and densely imagined. If you are prepared to give it time and attention, "Cloud Atlas" offers rich rewards.

Runners-up, best novel

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

Best short story collections

ShameJoy by Julie Hill

I read ShameJoy on a recent trip from Wellington to Auckland. Reading on planes isn't usually my thing - I get bored and distracted easily - but that wasn't the case with ShameJoy - I very much enjoyed both the style and the substance of this book. Julie Hill's sense of humour and the deftness of her story construction both kept me entertained throughout. Well worth reading!

A Quiet Day and other stories by P. S. Cottier

P.S. Cottier is best known as a poet (and also anthologist - full disclosure: P.S. Cottier and I co-edited The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry.) But this collection shows she's a very good short story writer as well. What I like best about these stories is the way the contemplative tone which introduces the collection shifts smoothly to accommodate the real and the surreal, the happy and the sad. The combination of restrained style and unexpected content means the reader is never sure which way the stories are going to tip, and that's a good place for a writer to be.

Best poetry collection

Cinema by Helen Rickerby

Wellington poet Helen Rickerby just keeps getting better. Her best work is moving, funny, and thought-provoking without being “difficult” – and Cinema is full of her best work. This collection is all directly or indirectly about the silver screen. It includes poems about the art-form itself, poems about the effect cinema has had on the poet’s life, and a series of poems about the lives of Helen’s friends as if directed by various famous directors. (I’m still hoping for one about my life as directed by a tag-team of Sofia Coppola and David Lean.) Great stuff!

(Note: I read far fewer poetry collections in 2014 than usual because of all the poetry - not listed here - that I read during the selection process for The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, but Cinema would have been a highlight in any year. I have a whole bunch of unread collections I plan to get to grips with over the summer holidays.)

Annual Report: What I've Had Published in 2014 And Where You Can Find It

"Strange time for an Annual Report", you say? Maybe so, but I'm not expecting any more work to be published between now and the end of the year, so I thought it was a good time to do a quick summary of what I've had published this year - and where you can get our sticky hands on it. (All of my work comes with a non-stick cover just for you.)*

Books

This is the big one! The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry is an anthology of Australian speculative poetry (you guessed that, right?) - science fiction, fantasy, horror, magic realism, surrealism - co-edited by P.S. Cottier and I and available in so many formats you'll scarcely notice the lack of a T-shirt edition. 

The Stars Like Sand includes poetry from the 19th century to the present, and the poets involved include such well-known names as Dorothy Porter, Samuel Wagan Watson, Les Murray, Judith Beveridge, Diane Fahey, John Tranter, Peter Minter, Jan Owen, and many, many more.

Don't let the grass grow under your feet on your way to buy this book - walk smartly off the grass, and then it will be able to grow more freely.

Short Stories

Building the Tree - it's Christmas time in a near-future Antarctica, but what happens when the kids want a Christmas tree?Available in The Best Of Twisty Christmas Tales.

Tracks - you'd better keep away from the train tracks if the guy in the kiosk catches your eye. Available in Disquiet.

My Occupation - what's there to do for an army officer stationed in Gore other than get yourself blown up by the locals whose land you're occupying? Available in Disquiet. 

The Prime Ministers - after he loses a General Election, the Labour Prime Minister is banished to the night house while the National Prime Minister moves into the day house. Till there's a knock at the door... Available in JAAM 32.

The Big Baby - how would you feel if you were trapped in a cage at Te Papa with kids pulling your levers all day? Available in Lost in the Museum.

Poems

None! Nada, zilch, OK this one on my blog. But true to form, the less of something I've had published recently, the more of it I'm now writing, so poems (which will fit either into two collections distinguished by their thematic unity, or one collection with a great deal of dynamic tension) are what I'm working on at the moment.

In Which I Totally Cheat And Include Stories Published in Late 2013

Protein - In a drowning future, fresh protein is the most precious resource there is. Available in Fresh Fear: Contemporary Horror.

Rescuing the Airmen - He fell from the sky. She took refuge in the sea. And there's a war on. Available in Regeneration.

* Disclaimer: No it doesn't.

The Stars Like Sand - Canberra Launch: Orbital Separation Achieved

Well, I'm back - back in Wellington from my trip to Melbourne and Canberra, where my co-editor P.S. Cottier and myself launched the anthology we've been working on for almost two years, The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry.

Each of us (Penelope | Tim) has already blogged about the Melbourne launch. The Canberra launch last Thursday, held at historic Manning Clark House, was also a success, with 40-50 people in attendance. The photos below show poets Lizz Murphy and John Jenkins reading their poems from the book, although most of the crowd is out of shot in these photos.

UPDATE: Penelope has now posted another eloquent post about the launches and how she feels at the end of them.

I enjoyed my trip to Australia a lot, thanks in very large part to the hospitality of my co-editor and her lovely family. Now I have a couple of solid weeks ahead of me as the judge of the Open Section of the 2014 New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition, and then I have some writing to do!

Finally, watch out for some more publicity for Lost in the Museum this coming week - that's the new fantasy anthology with a touch of horror, set in Te Papa, that includes my story "The Big Baby".

The Stars Like Sand: Awaiting Second Stage Ignition

The first launch of The Stars Like Sand has happened - and very good it was too! As my co-editor reports on her blog, we had a good group of poets from the anthology reading at the Melbourne launch - a double launch with poet Gemma White' first collection Furniture is Disappearing.

About 70 people attended the launch at Melbourne's Collected Works bookshop - you can see part of the crowd below, including one of the poets from the anthology, Sean Wright (with hat); publisher's representative Breanne Rodda (seated on floor) and Collected Works owner Kris Hemensley (at right) (image courtesy Satya Helen Patrice).

Now we're gearing up for the Canberra launch tomorrow night, and expecting another good crowd and another set of anthology poets to read!

If you'd like a copy of the book, it's making its way into bookshops such as Melbourne's Collected Works, and you can also buy it from the publisher and from Amazon.com.

Phew!

It's done - the manuscript of The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, co-edited by myself and P.S. Cottier, has been sent to the publishers. There's now what will doubtless be a fairly epic proofing process to go through, but it's a major milestone nevertheless.

It's been a massive job: reading submissions, finding previously published poems, coming up with longlists, coming up with shortlists, settling on the poems to include, dealing with publishing permissions, and doing everything else that goes with putting an anthology together.

It didn't really occur to me until I was making some late fixes to the Contributors' Notes that we have a very impressive lineup of poets in this anthology, most of whom I'd never heard of before work on the anthology began. I doubt that I'm the only New Zealand poet to have a very limited knowledge of Australian poetry: one of the pleasures of working on The Stars Like Sand has been getting to know the work of some tremendous Australian poets, and another has been the enjoyment of working with my most excellent co-editor.

One big deadline met. Now for all the little ones :-)

Tuesday Poem: Kraken, plus entry details of the Interstellar Award for Speculative Flash Fiction

TL;DR version for flash fiction writers: head on over to https://interstellaraward.wordpress.com/interstellar-award-for-speculative-flash-fiction/ for details of the competition.

I'm very pleased to say that my poem "Kraken", reproduced below, won second prize in the Interstellar Award for Speculative Poetry, the results of which were announced on Friday. You can read the excellent winning poem, by Kevin Gillam, and the judge's comments on the Interstellar Award results page. Congratulations to Kevin and to all the Highly Commended and Commended poets!

(Incidentally, Kevin is one of the poets whose work is represented in The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, which Highly Commended poet P. S. Cottier and I edited.),

Kraken

Millennia of sunlight passed the Kraken by.
He slept where he had fallen, each molecule
bound up in water ice, kept safe by permafrost
or the pressure of the deep. Kraken lay
unmoved beneath the waves, deep in his dreams
of fire and air, while the ice sat heavy on the poles
and the clever, clever apes, fizzing with language,
trudged northwards out of Africa.

Unperturbed slept Kraken as the glaciers withdrew.
Lapping at their tongues came the clever apes,
furred, speared, striding on. Wintering in caves,
they met and mated with their slow-tongued cousins,
gaining their immunities, their thicker skins.
Tinder sparked to flame in the wolf-howled night,
each tribe protected in its ring of fire,
but Kraken took no notice of such things.

Light disturbed Kraken’s millennial dreams,
sunlight no longer reflected by protective ice
but slanting down into the depths, unchecked,
warming the shallow seas, permafrost
proving to be less than permanent. In his sleep,
Kraken rolled over, farted, belched. Siberia trembled,
craters forming where none had been, methane
bursting skyward across the Arctic night.

The clever apes looked, and shrugged, and looked away.
They had bigger fish to fry: death, war,
their endless clawing at the Earth for fuel. Kraken
had been banished from their world. He was a relic of myth,
terror of the Greenland Sea, muse to Tennyson,
John Wyndham antagonist, large-boned
inhabitant of green-screened Greek epics,
set free to give Perseus something to kill.

The old Norse knew his nature well. Hafgufa
they named him, sea steam: and so he rose,
bubbling up beneath the circumpolar seas,
so much methane rising to warm the skies
that it roused him more, the loop reinforcing,
unstoppable, his coils releasing, sea floor gaping open,
undersea landslides lashing crowded coasts with waves,
the clever apes at last obliged to pay attention —

but too late. The Kraken is awake.
Flares light the Arctic night to write his name.
His is the fire that heats the deep, that scours the land
clean of everything that flies and walks and crawls —
the few survivors, vainly fleeing south,
hearing his voice forever louder at their backs.
The Kraken roars, and as he roars
soon every trace of clever ape is burned away.

This poem refers to “The Kraken Wakes” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1830).

Credit note: This poem was published for the first time on the Interstellar Awards website on 12 June 2015.

Tim says: Competition judge Joanne Mills makes some very kind & perceptive point about "Kraken" in her Judge's Report, so I suggest you check those out. I'll just add that, while I still have hope that the apocalyptic scenario of this poem can be avoided if the right steps are taken - and in particular, if fossil fuel use is swiftly reduced - it is nevertheless the case that the destabilising effect of climate change on Arctic methane deposits is cause for major concern - whether one takes a mainstream climate scientist or very worried indeed perspective.

The Tuesday Poem: The Tuesday Poem this week is "Grave secrets" by Helen Bascand, selected by Andrew Bell: http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.co.nz/…/grave-secrets-by-helen-… - a fine tribute to this stalwart of the Canterbury poetry community, who died in April

The Interstellar Award for Speculative Flash Fiction

This competition has a generous word limit, for flash fiction, of 1200 words. Entries open on 1 July and close on 1 October, and the prizes are also generous: $500, $150 and $50. Head over to the Interstellar Award site for all the entry details.