Yes, it’s true, we have a podcast. Alisa (aka  girliejones) ,  random_alex and myself have been talking for quite a while about doing this. Our ears pricked up when the Sofanauts (BRILLIANT podcast) died. We considered volunteering to take over that particular podcast, but then figured that something we did would end up so different, it might be better to be our own thing from the start.

It’s basically the three of us chatting, about what’s going on in the spec fic world, what we’ve been reading, and other topics of interest. An excuse to chat on Skype once a fortnight with two people I love to talk to! How awesome is that?

The title came from all the reading of and about Joanna Russ we’ve been doing lately – it was a term used to deride the science fiction women wrote which was a bit too feminine in subject as well as style. All three of us are researching/reading about feminist SF right now, and while that isn’t directly the theme of the podcast… who are we kidding? It’s us. There’s going to be feminist discussion in there along with the spaceships and flash fiction rants.

Warning: episode one of Galactic Suburbia does not contain a flash fiction rant. I suspect this will not be typical.

Anyway, my honey Aifin offered to produce, and we finally found a night we can all talk to each other (only a 3 hour time difference but so tricky to juggle that and children’s bedtimes!). It’s a bit rough around the edges as to be expected for a first ep (I listened to episode one of my beloved Radio Free Skaro to inspire me beforehand, and it was really, really bad) but we are planning to do one of these every fortnight so I expect a steep learning curve.

Check out Galactic Suburbia, episode one!

is here.

I am on it, under Novelette, for Siren Beat. This makes me happy. One of those major career goals ticked off the list, then.

Other people I like are on there too. I am happy for them. Especially for Alisa of Twelfth Planet Press (aka  girliejones who has worked so hard to bring Australian authors to an international audience.

I have been a tragic Locus Recommended Reading List fangirl for many years. Among other authors, it is responsible for me discovering the works of Kage Baker, Dan Simmons, Lucius Shepherd, Gwyneth Jones, Michael Chabon, Karen Joy Fowler, Ian R MacLeod, Cornelia Funke, Jeff VanderMeer, Charles Stross, Sean Stewart, Jennifer Stevenson, Leslie What, Holly Black and Kelly Link.

I am quite stupidly pleased with myself right now. That is all. Carry on.

I’ve been seeing the table of contents for upcoming Twelfth Planet Press anthology Sprawl pop up on various author blogs. I feel particularly invested in this anthology, not just because I’m in it (with the only short story I’ve written since Jem was born!) but because GJ was staying with us as she sifted through the stories, finding the ones that would fit together to form the anthology (or something like it) that she had in her head. And yes, I managed to peek at some of the other stories as she considered them, and talked about them.

The question that GJ seemed to chew over most often – and it was a question I had about my own story, back when I was writing it – was “is it suburban enough?” The idea of an Australian genre anthology that focuses on suburbia rather than the more often-seen country/bush/outback and even urban settings of Australian spec fic was an important one, worthy of being embraced rather than skirted around as a theme. We ended up having many conversations about Australian identity, and suburbia, as well as the kind of fantasy people are writing in Australia and internationally. The most interesting thing is that there is no single universal experience about suburbia – some are more urban, some more rural, some are stories about drugs and sharehouses, some are stories about families and maternity. Suburban fantasy, in other words, is not something that can be summed up in a single story, but the anthology is the perfect medium for it – building the idea through many stories, many characters, and many settings.

Australia is just so damned big – and so different, from place to place. There may be common themes in stories told about Brisbane suburbs, or Perth suburbs, or Hobart suburbs, but there’s a lot different too. It seems to me that one of the best ways to talk about cultural identity in a wider sense than just an individual’s experience is to gather a variety of stories and hope that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

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In honour of it being awards season, Twelfth Planet Press is offering free e-copies of Horn, A Book of Endings and SIREN BEAT through the month of February.

If you’re eligible to nominate in the Hugos or the Ditmars, obviously we’d love it if you thought any of the above works were worthy of your nomination. (not sure when the Ditmars are opening for nominations but it’s sure to happen eventually)

Even better, if you enjoy reading your free e-copies, consider buying a hard copy of your favourite Twelfth Planet Press book. Indie press appreciates your support!

Charles Tan at Bibliophile Stalker has put up a list of his ‘best ofs’ for 2009, and as well as showing some very good taste in novels (Slights for the YAY) he has declared Siren Beat/Roadkill as having Best Book Design.

Amanda ( vodkandlime) did a marvellous job of combining the nostalgia-friendly Ace Doubles style of the book construction with a modern, fun look, and her design showed off the two pieces of art by Dion Hamill to great effect. I currently have a couple of big stacks of the books in my spare room, awaiting a public reading that will be happening shortly, and they don’t get any less cute once you get used to them.

 girliejones comments on the book design here, with a new paypal button for anyone who wants to purchase their own copy of this exceptionally cute book.

A fun, chaotic weekend most definitely ensued.  flinthart arrived yesterday afternoon, bearing children and returning  girliejones to us in one piece. There followed a rollicking house party involving champagne, Seabreezes, limoncello, baked potatoes and merry, merry times. Raeli bonded tightly with the Mau Mau, and the other two junior Flintharts inhaled a whole season of Justice League Universe along with a treeful of plums, while the adults made up for a year’s worth of missing conversations. We also got to witness GJ updating her Facebook status to officially announce her relationship, which all felt very post-modern. Later, as the tweets became rather more drunken and raucous (and um not actually making sense) I stepped up as the most sober adult in the room and confiscated a laptop and an iPhone to prevent further ramblings. All were grateful in the morning…

Dirk blogs about the weekend here and Girlie Jones blogs about it here in the last of her blog series about the entire trip.

Raeli and the Mau Mau experience their first sleepover, not only together but at all, and I’m sure it’s the first of many for them both. Naturally they dissolved into near-hysteria at the prospect and spent hours giggling maniacally before finally losing consciousness. (I thereby won, my prediction that ‘they have to lose consciousness eventually’ beating out Flinthart’s prediction that ‘you know, they may not’)

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The great thing about having a houseguest (especially the awesome kind that you want to talk to all the time), is that it has all the benefits of going away for the holidays (especially ‘I can’t possibly get any work done so this is enforced leisure time’) but with the comforts of home. Yesterday we had the girls around for a sewing circle for them to meet or catch up with GJ. I haven’t been able to go to sewing group since I had Jem, so that was rather lovely. I finally dug out my needles and yarn to start making the iPod cozy I desperately need, after spending most of the session trying to demonstrate to Raeli how awesome French knitting is (mostly she likes unravelling it).

Today, we capped off the main part of  girliejones‘s visit with a trip to the Mt Nelson signal station, in order to watch the boats come up the river for the Sydney-Hobart and share some more lovely Tasmanian scenery with GJ.

Then we put her on the bus and sent her off to the land of dodgy internet (aka Flinthartsville) for the second half of her holiday. It’s sad to see her go (“I miss Alisa,” Raeli said sadly, two minutes after we had left her at the bus station) but we are looking forward to the weekend at which apparently  flinthart will be bringing her back early and setting up an overnight camp in our garden with his kids. House party!

It’s hot and the house feels empty without Alisa, so we are zoning out in the living room, inhaling a Christmas DVD of Justice League Unlimited. The belated turkey is cooking in the oven (we got distracted!) and there’s still plenty of chocolate in the house. Life is really not that hard.

Back in the world of the living (which is to say, the internet), Justine Larbalestier wrote a blog post post in response to my review of Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, confirming my theory on the book appealing to a different (though overlapping) audience to Scott’s other YA books. Definitely worth a read!

The best thing about having a visitor from interstate is that you get to play tourist. Yesterday we took  girliejones to the Salamanca Markets so she could get some pre-emptive present & souvenir shopping done, and today we went out to the Sorell Fruit Farm, one of those places we’ve been meaning to go but never got around to.

Not that we actually went and picked berries or anything, but we could have done if we’d wanted to! Instead, we reclined in a lovely garden, eating amazing food and chatting nineteen to the dozen. (yes, we could have talked at home, but it was PRETTY and there were WAFFLES)

For the record, strawberry, cucumber, mint & pepper salsa on a crepe stuffed with brie and smoked salmon is a very good thing indeed.

We have also managed to take our guest to many literary high points, notably several locations for Siren Beat. This afternoon, while I stayed in the car with the baby,  aifin took GJ for a walk around the docks and showed her the boats, and a particular set of Antarctic statues. “You mean where the bodies were found?” I said when they returned.

The visit so far has been lovely, but  flinthart is stealing GJ from me for five whole days which seems completely unreasonable since he apparently wishes to spend most of that time teaching her to hunt and fish, which doesn’t seem like a productive use of anyone’s time. Having mostly provided her with coffee, desserts and gluten-free dinners, I feel I have already won this particular contest.

Tomorrow there will be fabric shops. Because I play dirty.

Meanwhile GJ has had a remarkably good influence on Raeli, who listened seriously to descriptions of what an engineer was, and how important they are to building things, and reported gravely that she thought she was going to be a builder when she grew up. Score!