Awards, a launch and an acceptance

So it has been a month since this blog received a post.  It has been quiet on the poetry front with only a couple of new poems in the works.  But I have excuses - I had been preparing and am now recovering from a couple of big events that coincided on the same weekend.

First I attended the Melbourne launch of the Stars Like Sand Anthology, one of my editors PS Cottier has written about the launches at length here.

I must say that on the night I did feel a slight bit of apprehension.  My poem was a Tanka ( or a couplet in Tanka form or both?) and about the shortest piece in the whole collection.  Thankfully Sean Williams was there with a slightly longer collection of themed Haiku. I did feel like I should perhaps add to my reading with interpretive dance just to stretch it out.

Phillip Salom did give a lovely intro and it was good to see to distinct communities (SF&F and the lit scene) meshing nicely in a collection, blurring genre boundaries. 

After that it was full steam ahead for the annual Natcon or the 53rd Annual Australian Science Fiction Convention.  Four days of panels and presentations on the Speculative Fiction community (including a Speculative Poetry panel chaired by myself).  If you write, watch or create anything in the Australian Speculative Fiction community this is THE event.

Part of that weekend was the Ditmar and Chronos Awards.  The Chronos Awards are the state level awards for achievements in Speculative Fiction while the Ditmars are the nationals, open to all residents of Australia who participate in the community.  As mentioned in my other blog, I managed to pick up two Ditmars -  a joint award shared with my fellow podcastees at Galactic Chat and a single for the best fan writer.

And just yesterday I received the nod on a Haiku that will feature in this coming September edition of A Hundred Gourds – you can check out the current edition now.