Alan Baxter's Blog

Below is an open letter to the Queensland Writers Centre in response to their recently announced changes to the Aurealis Awards. We have collected a handful of signatories already and invite anyone who would like to add their name to this letter to please comment below. In one week we will collate all additional signatures and present this letter officially and directly to the CEO of the QWC. Many thanks!

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An Open Letter from members of the speculative fiction community to The Queensland Writer’s Centre regarding the recently announced Aurealis Awards
This letter is in response to the announced changes to the Aurealis Awards, and the widespread concern this has generated. We are writing in the hopes that the below will be taken on as feedback and the suggested changes, or versions thereof, made accordingly. Major concerns expressed are several and as follows:

The change to the fees is onerous, and a large change compared with the full history of the awards. This is perceived by many as a ‘pay to play’ situation that favours those able to absorb the cost, and disadvantages self-publishing authors and small presses as well as authors whose publishers won’t take on the costs. The new structure will ensure that many works worthy of consideration will not be submitted, and favours larger publishers and well-established authors.

As well, the reduced fees for QWC or GenreCon members is perceived as a clear conflict of interest between award management and the financial operation of the Centre, as well as a disadvantage to authors in regional, remote, or interstate areas for which the above is not practical nor feasible. No costs to enter an award should be passed onto the authors, and especially no preference given to some authors over others.

While we recognise there are costs to running an award, the Aurealis Awards has always been a community effort open to everyone. This can be maintained through QWC engaging with the passionate and willing community as the Award always has previously.

Related to the above, there has been mention of payment to judges. This has not been the case nor an issue before, and the general feeling is that this is unnecessary. If there are considerations of administration or management fees to be covered, this needs to be made transparent, or other options considered. Along with engaging volunteers within the community as has always been done previously, sponsorship from interested parties and a donation-based system to support the awards would greatly alleviate the above issue. There is also money to be made from ticket sales to the Awards presentation night that can offset the costs of trophies and so on, along with various fundraising drives throughout the year in support of the Awards.

There are also strong concerns around the changes to rules. There is lack of clarity around judge autonomy, particularly with the new references to shortlisting and awards being at the discretion of QWC. This removes impartiality and introduces at the very least the perception of internal and opaque preference being given, or ‘controversial’ works being removed by administration. This is a conflict of interest between management and judging, as is the use of the in-house readers to first screen works. This should not be considered within the remit of a state-based organisation working on a national award. Any work eligible for an award should be read by all judges convened for that category and only the judges convened for that category. Again, empanelling volunteer judges from across the community has always been the way this has been managed previously and one way to reduce the overall workload on those judges would be to limit the number of entries by any one author in any particular category (i.e. a maximum of 3 short stories per author in any individual category.)

The stated changes to the number of judges in each category and lack of clarity over the use or not of convenors in each category has also raised concerns. Historically, after the call out for volunteer judges, one of those volunteers has been nominated to convene that judging panel and take on the administration work of the panel. There is no reason this can’t continue to be the case, alleviating any need for QWC to manage that.

Another concern is the change of rule to make works only able to win in one category regardless of shortlisting. This is an impeachment on judge impartiality and artificially restricts works that blend genre or that cross categories. It is unnecessary and places ‘evenness’ above writing excellence, undermining the integrity of the awards. If separate panels deem any given work the best in that category, there is no reason it shouldn’t be able to win in more than one category.

Last but very much not least, there is no clear statement on the exclusion of AI nor how such works would be investigated or dealt with, which is a very large current issue that needs to be addressed. Any award that recognises the best writing can only recognise writing by people, not computers. A clear statement that AI-generated work is not eligible for the Awards should be clear in the guidelines. Several other awards (such as the Australasian Shadows Awards) have implemented policies like this and would no doubt be happy to share their policies and methodologies with the QWC to help them implement something similar with the Aurealis Awards.

The Aurealis Awards have been a long-standing and highly respected part of the speculative fiction and Australian literature scene, and we, as a community, believe the proposed changes undermine the perceived integrity and accessibility of the awards. We hope the concerns raised here will be considered seriously and the solutions we’ve suggested equally considered. We would be happy to meet with the CEO of QWC and anyone who is involved with running the Awards to further this dialogue and work towards solutions for the issues raised.

Please note that a very large number of the signatories below are previous Aurealis Awards winners, nominees and judges (in many cases all three). We look forward to a response from the Queensland Writer’s Centre.

Signed:
Alan Baxter
Matt Tighe

Co-signed (so far):
Angela Slatter
Cat Sparks
Garth Nix
Joseph Ashley-Smith
Robert Hood
Tansy Rayner Roberts
Zachary Ashford

The post An Open Letter from members of the speculative fiction community to The Queensland Writer’s Centre regarding the recently announced Aurealis Awards appeared first on Alan Baxter.

Let’s stick it to the man. The man in this case being Jeff Bezos (and his ilk). Apparently prime day runs from the 7th to the 13th July. That’s a fucking week not a day, but whatever. All my books will be their usual prices in stores, because let’s be honest, a good book is well worth the money you pay for it. But! Just because I can, I’m making the titles below all super cheap for the same period, but only direct sales through my website here. So until July 13th, you only pay 99c each for the ebook of: The Gulp Hidden City The Roo Served Cold
And Fire Poured Forth Click on any of those titles above to add them to your cart (and then use the Back button if you want to add another one). And please do tell everyone about it. Excellent books, amazing price, one week only. Get in!

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When I write anything new, I always save it locally and to a cloud account. Being super paranoid, I also send a copy to a web-based email address. I keep a folder of all those copies throughout the process in the email account. It used to be that I would subsequently delete all the backups from the webmail account once a piece was published, in order to save on the limited space allowed by those email accounts. In the latest example of AI poisoning everything and fucking everything up, however, it’s becoming clear that there are times when writers will need to prove they didn’t use AI.Therefore, I’m now going to have to keep every iteration of those backups in case my own writing is ever questioned. The recent debacle with the Commonwealth Short Story Prize is the latest example of this. Thankfully they didn’t use AI to track AI because that’s patently fucking mental. AI is trained on our writing so it just flags everything as some percentage AI. Someone recently showed the start of chapter 5 of Shelley’s “Frankenstein” where a fucking bot had declared it 100% definitely AI. It’s like asking someone who only sees in black and white if something is in black and white. It really is that fucking stupid. All gen-AI really is that fucking stupid. Yet here we are doing more labour to avoid the flood of slop from fuckwits. Yes, I’m getting angrier.The Commonwealth prize “examined evidence related to the development of their stories, including working drafts, time-stamped documents and notes”. This is good, at least, and it SUCKS that it’s necessary. But the integrity of actual writing MUST be maintained.So while it means extra work for us (thanks, Techbros, you useless shits) at least we have a potential way to address the issue. So regardless of how much email space it ends up taking, I won’t be deleting all my working draft backups any more. I’ll have a record, dated and very clear, of the development of every work I do. It pisses me off that it’s necessary, but it is necessary. So I encourage every writer to start doing something similar and having a solid, dated trail of drafts.Simply emailing yourself a copy of any work every time you do anything with it is a pretty good method and I’m not sure there’s a better way. At least, not a better way that’s as simple. Here’s a screenshot from my backup folder from when I was working on The Rise, for example. Anyway, I recommend you seriously consider the issue if you’re a writer. For artists, backing up sketches and progress would be the equivalent. Even timestamped phone photos of the work in progress might work. Something all creative people need to consider now.Anyway, absolutely fuck AI all the way into the sun, I hate it so much.

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This is a book that never really went away, in fact, but some books just don’t seem to get the attention they deserve on publication. This is one of them. I’ve recently taken back control of the title and I’ve re-released it independently. To be clear, there are no issues with the original publisher (who is still publishing some of my stuff), but this book has a rich and fucked up history. If you see me at a con or something, ask me and I’ll tell you the story over drinks. But meanwhile, this title has now rejoined my self-published stable of titles.

“Creepy. Visionary. Catastrophic. Apocalyptic. These are words occurring frequently in discussions of horror. But Alan Baxter’s Hidden City encapsulates them all to an unusually high degree.” – Michael R. Collings

Given that this book is eight years old, I figured it would be better to do it this way while I concentrate on finding good publishers for new titles. Hidden City will probably continue to flounder to some degree, largely unnoticed, as that’s the nature of this business without a decent publisher marketing team pushing things along. And also because it had its initial flurry of sales back when it was released. What I’m hoping is that new readers since the original release date might become aware of it now, and older readers who’ve been with me a while but maybe not pulled the trigger on this one might give it a go now. Mainly, I want it still out there and I might as well keep control of it. This way I know it remains in print, which is important to me.

“Action-packed from start to finish, layered with levels of subtle but deep backstory, lively, fast-paced, gripping, and fun, Hidden City is a definite winner. I’m thinking Netflix series. Somebody should get on that.” – Christine Morgan’s World of Words

I think Hidden City is a bloody good book. It’s a standalone novel that kinda bridges the gap between my dark urban fantasy stuff like the Alex Caine trilogy and the more straight horror stuff I’ve written like Sallow Bend and Blood Covenant. Or you might consider it an urban, city-based cousin to the Tales From The Gulp. Of course, everything I write is an Alan Baxter book, so while I always try to be original, I’m aware that I also have a voice and a style. I’d like to think that’s broad and never repetitive, but it’s fair to say that if you’ve liked any of my stuff, you’ll like this one too.

So what’s it about? Well, here’s the blurb:

When the city is sick, everyone suffers.

Steven Hines listened to the city and the city spoke. Cleveport told him she was sick. With his unnatural connection to her, that meant Hines was sick too. But when his friend, Detective Abby Jones, comes to him for help investigating a series of deaths with no discernible cause, Hines can’t say no. Then strange fungal growths begin to appear in the streets, affecting anyone who gets too close, turning them into violent lunatics.

As the mayhem escalates and officials start to seal Cleveport off from the rest of the world, Hines knows the trouble has only just begun.

“A grim and gritty fantasy noir with razor-sharp humor. I loved it!” – Tim Waggoner, author of Teeth of the Sea

If you haven’t given this one a go yet, I really hope you will. If you did read it and you enjoyed it, please help me spread the word and let folks know it’s back in the world. It’s available in paperback, ebook and audiobook, wherever you normally go for books. And, of course, you can get the ebook or a signed paperback directly from me. All the links you need and an excerpt to whet your appetite can be found here: https://alanbaxter.com.au/my-books/hidden-city/

“A tense, edge-of-your-seat ride through the streets of a city in chaos.” – Hush Hush Biz

Cover art by Christian Bentulan

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I see the gender fluidity in fiction discourse has raised its head again. I think this time it’s thanks to Rick Riordan’s old Twitter post doing the rounds once more. I’m not linking to the nazi cesspool of Twitter, but the post reads:

“Ah, yes, the occasional “Why did you put gender fluidity in your book your agenda is ruining the story” comment. Perhaps what is ruining the story for that reader is their insistence on believing that a non-cishet character’s right to exist in a story is an “agenda”? And of course, if the reader is wondering why I put gender fluidity in a Norse mythology story that reader doesn’t know much about Norse mythology.”

And, of course, he’s absolutely right. There isn’t any kind of agenda and Norse mythology is no stranger to gender fluidity. Loki approves of Riordan’s stance. But it goes further than that, because this always brings out the corollary arguments from supposedly well-meaning people that go something like, “Well, yes, if the gender fluidity serves the story, it’s okay.”

Which is really saying, it’s ONLY okay if it directly serves the story. Which is bollocks.

Since when does a character’s cis gender identity directly serve the story?

This thinking gets projected out to trans people as well and, beyond gender, to queer people too. And to people of colour or people with disabilities. Which perpetuates the assumption that cis-het, straight, white and able-bodied is the norm and everything else is somehow odd and needs to serve the story in order to have a right to be in the story. Absolute bullshit.

Since when does a straight, white, cis-het character have to somehow justify their straightness, whiteness or cisness for a right to exist in a story?

A character can be portrayed as trans, for example, and their transness can have absolutely nothing to do with the story at all. They’re in the story for other reasons and they just happen to be trans. Just like all the other characters, presumably, just happen to not be trans. The same applies to characters of colour, to queer characters, to disabled characters. We don’t just include them in our stories in order to mine who they are for story. We include them because they exist. Because the world is full of wonderful diversity and that should be celebrated.

If anything, it’s more important to include traditionally marginalised characters in roles where their gender, sexuality, race and so on is irrelevant. Because that’s what the world around us is actually like. And those folks deserve to see themselves in stories just like cis-het straight white people see themselves in stories all the time. Not because of their marginalisation, but because they exist.

Certainly a person’s gender or sexuality or whatever might inform things about their character and personality, it might affect how they interact with the world of the story, but there is absolutely no requirement that their existence somehow serves the plot beyond their role in the story itself. We need to write stories with the rich diversity we see around us because that’s what’s real. It’s a simple as that.

People absolutely can and should write stories featuring marginalised people where whatever the cause of their marginalisation might be is central to the story. Those stories are vitally important and ideally written by people with lived experience. But they should absolutely not be the only stories featuring traditionally marginalised folks. It’s on all of us as writers to include rich diversity in our stories and help to remove rather than perpetuate marginalisation.

We can all be better.

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Weathering the Doldrums

Hello, fiends. Been a while, my apologies. But as my dear old mum used to say, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Which is bollocks, of course. Sometimes saying something unkind is really important. But I’m rambling already. It’s not that I didn’t have nice things to say, I just didn’t really have anything at all to share. I don’t want to ramble at you with no point, so I haven’t sent anything recently. However, there are a few things to talk about now.

First off, I’m sending this at the start of June, so I want to wish everyone a happy Pride. This isn’t something we should only celebrate for one month a year, but we won’t let the month pass without mention. Everyone is valid, everyone is valued, no one should be discriminated against for their gender, sexual orientation or anything else. Trans rights are human rights. Especially now we need to stand up for marginalised communities more than ever, and I will always do that. I saw this online recently, made by science communicator Rachel Lense, using only NASA images, which I thought was pretty cool.

(There’s a hi-res version here if you’re keen – ​https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Tqlg9nt4KiKyM8hiYLrT8vPGr3uCq8Q4​ )

But in terms of having anything personal to share, to say I’m in something of a slump in terms of writing and publishing would be an understatement.

Sailors used to always fear the doldrums. If you’re not a complete pirate nerd like me, you might think that just means being blue in mood, generally depressed or whatever. But it’s actually a nautical term. In modern usage, it describes a spell of listlessness or despondency, which we’re all prone to every once in a while. I mean, this fucking world right now? It’s hard not to spend long periods in despondency. But specifically and originally, the doldrums refers to a part of the ocean near the equator where strong winds are largely absent. When you relied on wind for propulsion, that was a terrifying prospect. If your ship was becalmed for too long, fresh water and food rapidly ran out. It wouldn’t be long before pretty desperate and horrendous decisions needed to be made.

Now, before anyone panics, I’m drawing a long bow with this analogy. I’m not about to start metaphorically throwing people overboard or anything.

These days, the doldrums can also, according to Merriam-Webster, refer to a period of inactivity or stagnation, like the ocean with no wind. That’s the part that certainly applies to my personal publishing life and the publishing industry in general right now. Lots of stuff is happening for some people, which is always great, but lots of stuff… isn’t, as well. I trust that things will pick up again. They always do, one way or another. My agent currently has two adult novels, a novella, a short story collection and a middle grade novella in various stages of submission. I haven’t been lazy. But, if I’m honest, I haven’t been writing much new stuff this year. It seems the winds of publishing are low, the industry in the doldrums. Everyone is talking about longer than usual wait times for a variety of reasons—chief among them, it seems, is lack of staff because of cuts and the fetid pollution of generative-AI causing all kinds of crap. Regardless, shit is slow, fam.

So I really hope I do have some news on the new book front sooner rather than later. We’re definitely putting the work in to make that happen. Meanwhile, I’ve been on a bit of a short story trip lately. A couple of places asked me for stories, which is always a thrill, and there’s a couple more out on submission right now. I have a couple of other new novel projects in various early stages and I’m not sure which way I’ll be jumping with those just yet. I’m letting things percolate while I work on short stories.

All of which is to say, nothing new yet, my friends, but I’m super grateful to anyone who sticks with me. The doldrums preventing propulsion applies to publishing as well and I know I’m not the only writer who has low key panic when it seems like it might be a while between books. Momentum is so important in this industry.

But ​The Rise​ was out in February and there’ll be some new short fiction before long, so all is not lost. Please cross your fingers, pray to your gods, make whatever sacrifices you see fit that some of those bigger projects out in the world land somewhere cool before long. All good and positive thoughts on that front gratefully received.

In other news, for the writers among you, I’ll be running my popular workshop Write the Fight Right online with the Queensland Writers Centre on June 25th from 5.30 to 8.30 pm AEST. Being online, it’s open to anyone and I believe there are a few spots left if you’re quick. All the details and booking here: ​https://queenslandwriters.org.au/events/write-the-fight-right-with-alan-baxter​

What I’ve Been Enjoying

I’ve been a huge comic book nerd forever. I mentioned Preacher last time, which I originally enjoyed as a comic and then started watching the TV adaptation. They took some liberties with the original story to say the least, but it was a hugely satisfying series for all that. I really enjoyed it and the end was well done. Which leads me The Boys. Man, I loved that original comic and wondered if they’d ever manage to make it a decent TV series. Again, huge liberties taken with a lot of the storylines, but they did a fantastic job in my opinion. There were certainly messed up parts that didn’t quite work out (I’m really disappointed they didn’t make more of Gen V, for example) but overall they nailed it. An absolutely bonkers show with a hugely satisfying conclusion. The fact that it’s also really upsetting the absolute worst people in the world only adds to the enjoyment. Homelander was always the bad guy, was always a horrible, weak, hate-filled manchild, and the fact that some people still didn’t get that even after the finale is wild. It’s why you end up with Trump in charge of America, of course. Anyway, The Boys was amazing and Anthony Starr’s performance as Homelander was award-worthy. Just brilliant.

I’m also currently really enjoying the final season of From. It’s been a powerfully enjoyable show and I really hope they nail the landing with it. My other current watch is a Netflix original series from Norway called Ragnarok. It’s a really good take on Norse mythology with some great performances. There are three 6-episode seasons and I’m just starting season 3. It’s really tightly edited, things move at a frantic pace, but it’s really well done. Also great to see something Norwegian—anything not American is refreshing.

As for reading, huge congratulations to Daniel Kraus for winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with his latest, Angel Down. A horror novel got the Pulitzer! Fantastic. It really is a remarkable book too. Kraus’s prose is outstanding. I’m not entirely sure it needed the device of one endless sentence, I think it could have worked just as well without that, but it’s a relentless, propulsive read. I also really enjoyed recently Shadow Season by Tom Piccirilli. Tom was recognised as a horror writer, and rightly so, but he was a brilliant crime writer too. This book was excellent. I’ve also recently enjoyed House of Idyll by Deliah S Dawson and Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce. I’m currently reading The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle ahead of the TV adaptation of that, which I’ll definitely be watching.

Right, that’s all from me for now. May you not get caught in the doldrums for too long, my friends. Be kind, to yourself and others.

Al

The post Newsletter 3rd June 2026 appeared first on Alan Baxter.

I’m so excited to have another story out in podcast form with the awesome Pseudopod. Graeme Dunlop does a stellar narration and Alasdair really nails some truths in his summation. What an honour. Thanks all!(C/W: child abuse, domestic abuse)Listen and read along here.

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Hey fiends

There’s another silly book rumble going on over on Facebook. These things are pretty good for getting books noticed and I’d love to go through to the next round. So if you’re in the Haunted Minds Book Club group ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/hauntedmindsbookclub ) please do consider giving Blood Covenant a vote on Monday, as per the graphic below. The group posted this explainer:

“Feast your eyes, Rumblers! This is the gauntlet these authors have to make it through to even TASTE the final 24! Oh YEAHHHH! The dirt starts flying MONDAY, MAY 4th! One group a day, ten votes a day! The top 15 from each group advances to the second eliminator round on May 9th! I hope your affairs are in order, Authors! OH YEAHHH!”

No idea if I’ll get anywhere close to the final 24, but would love to get through a round or two at least. Thanks!

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I’m teaming up with the Queensland Writers Centre to run my Write the Fight Right workshop online in June. Places are limited, of course, but it should be a lot of fun. You can find all the details and sign up via the link below.

https://queenslandwriters.org.au/events/write-the-fight-right-with-alan-baxter

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This is my latest newsletter that just went out to subscribers on 24th March 2026.

Hello fiends.

How the fuck are ya? Things aren’t really getting any better, are they? I do my best to stay optimistic and positive, but these are trying times. Someone said recently that the human brain wasn’t designed to know what the worst people in the world are thinking every fifteen minutes, but the internet forces us to know it, and there’s truth in that. Just the same as there have always been horrible people and fucking idiots in the world, but they used to be separated by geography. The internet has allowed those pricks to find each other and get organised. Like all things, the internet has been a force for incredible good and also incredible bad.

I was commenting recently how the internet is the last democratised media we have left. Oligarchs are buying up literally every other form of media, unrestricted by monopoly, content or even truth-telling laws, and the internet is the last place we can converse and share ideas outside of billionaire psychopath influence. Of course, they’re trying to control that too, with algorithms and Elon turning Twitter into a cess pit of hate and everything else. And it’s no coincidence that the absolute slurry of AI polluting every inch of the digital sphere is working exactly as intended. You can’t trust anything any more, be it images, video, text – the erosion of trust has been insanely rapid and is almost complete. Some of are continually railing against the rot, but so many people are either lapping it up in a post-truth haze (“I don’t care if it’s AI, it’s cute!”) or they’re turning away from the internet completely. Which might seem like a smart move – which is, in fact, a smart move in many ways, especially for mental health – but it all plays into the hands of the oligarchs who want to control all messaging.

Sorry, didn’t mean to get all heavy on your collective arse. The point I was planning to make, and there is optimism here, is that we need to take back the democratised internet. Things like this newsletter, our own personal websites, online groups that aren’t polluted by an algorithmic feed of idiocy and hate. All of which is to say that I can’t tell you how grateful I am to have you good folks subscribed and interested in hearing from me. It’s nice to think you’re here because you want to be and I’m not yelling into an abyss. So much social media lately feels like that, and all too often the abyss yells back.

So, thank you for being here and let’s all do our best to maintain these genuine human connections in a sea of artificiality and bigoted rhetoric. Real people get hurt by online bigotry in genuine and long-lasting ways, but real people can also stand up for those copping the worst of it. It’s essential, in fact, that we do stand up for what’s good and right. We stand with the most marginalised because we’re all in this together and no one is expendable. No one is acceptable collateral damage.

Okay, let’s move on. Before anything else, I want to thank my pal, author and all around good egg, Damon Young (yes, he is an actual egg, which is weird because he looks like a person, but there you go) for correcting something I said last time. I was talking about how summer was finally striking here in Tassie and I said:

Hot and dry with that uniquely Tasmanian sun that’ll sear the skin off your bones if you stand in it too long. That’s more to do with the state of the ozone layer above than anything about Tassie in particular, but there it is.

Well, interestingly, Damon pointed me to this article: ​https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-15/tasmanian-heat-feels-hotter-than-on-mainland/10705112​ which explains that the ozone here is really not an issue and it’s more likely “the quality of Tasmania’s air, which means the sun’s rays don’t have to compete with pollutants”. Which is kinda awesome, really. The air here is amazing. But just like every cloud has a silver lining, so does every silver lining, by definition, have a cloud. Clean air = harsher sun. Eh, I’ll take it. Just have to remember to cover up and use sunscreen.

Thanks, Damon!

In other news, things are moving along with The Rise. It’s been really well-received so far, which is a huge relief. All the early reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Please do help me spread the word about these books – your influence as readers is huge and word of mouth is powerful magic.

Otherwise in my publishing life there’s not much going on right now. Loads of irons in lots of fires, of course, but none ripening yet (it takes an award-winning author to mix a metaphor that thoroughly). Of course, I’ll let you know any news as soon as I can. I do, however, have some news regarding public appearances. You heard it here first: in April and May I’ll be a guest at events in the Gold Coast, Melbourne and Hobart.

It’s an absolute thrill to be joining the awesome Supanova tour once again. I’ll be a guest at Supanova Gold Coast on April 11th and 12th, and then at Supanova Melbourne on April 18th and 19th. That’s my birthday weekend, so hopefully it’ll be extra special.

Then there’s an event much nearer home. I’ll have a table at the Tasmanian Indie Author Book Fair in Hobart on May 9th and 10th. Details of those events can all be found here:

Supanova Gold Coast, April 11th and 12th

​ https://www.supanova.com.au/events/gold-coast-2026/event-home/​

Supanova Melbourne, April 18th and 19th

​ https://www.supanova.com.au/events/melbourne-2026/event-home/​

Indie Author Book Fair, Hobart – May 9th and 10th

​ https://tassieindieauthorbookfair.com.au/​

I will also be heading to Sydney later in the year, but more on that nearer the time.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

I was a huge fan of the Preacher comics back in the day (by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, with incredible painted covers by Glenn Fabry). I only discovered recently that they’ve made a TV show of it. So I’ve been bingeing that. I’m currently halfway through Season 2 and really enjoying it. It’s close to the comics in some ways and quite divergent in others, but it’s hugely entertaining viewing.

I also kept seeing ads for a new movie called Ready or Not 2. I hadn’t even heard of the first one, so I tracked it down and watched that and it was brilliant. Genuinely bonkers fun with some really good lore behind the mayhem. And Samara Weaving is fantastic – I plan to track down all her horror outings, she’s a scream queen/final girl of the highest order. I can’t wait for number 2 at the movies now.

When it comes to reading, I’ll give that egg, Damon Young, another shout out. He’s a fiction and non-fiction author, an actual philosopher, and his latest book is Immortal Gestures. We’re invited to join Young as he “sheds light on thirteen curious gestures. Drawing equally from classical poetry and science-fiction, heavy metal and ballet, Young illuminates our varied humanity from prehistory to today.” It’s a really good read, delivered with intelligence and wit. I enjoyed it.

I mentioned Dungeon Crawler Carl last time, and that series is just going ballistic at the moment. I’ve read the second one now as well and it’s also great.

I’m a huge fan Luke Arnold’s Fetch Philips books. You might know Luke better as Long John Silver in Black Sails or Michael Hutchence in INXS: Never Tear Us Apart, but he’s a bloody good author too and writes a series of fantasy noir novels not to be missed. The fourth is the latest and it’s called Whisper in the Wind, which I will be getting to soon, but I’ve just read the third in the series, One Foot in the Fade, and it’s excellent. These books really do get better with every volume.

Lastly, I got to read an advanced copy of Joanne Anderton’s new novella, due out at the end of April from Bad Hand Books. It’s called Pixerina: A Haunting, and it’s absolutely fucking fantastic I genuinely can’t recommend it highly enough. Go in without knowing too much and be transported.

Okay, that’s enough from me for this month. Big love to you all, and remember, there are more good people than bad, the bad people are just really loud. So we stand up to be heard at every opportunity. Keep in touch, keep reading the good stuff and spreading the word about it, and I’ll catch you next time.

Al

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