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It's about a month till Jewish New Year and I just made my first list of things I have to get done before then.

My first list.

Most years I just have one big one, three weeks before. This year I need to do a giant catch-up so I can do a giant-catch-up so I can make that list. I need to return things I have borrowed (which means finishing with them - or most of them). I need to catch up on all my reviewing (and early enough so that editors don't have to face them on the eve of New Year if they are also Jewish and are also driven to sort themselves out). I need to sort my kitchen out (hah!). I need to sort my novel out (double hah!). I need to write two articles (and my brain can't come up with even one hook). I need to update my webpage (code, aargh!). I need to help with the blog carnival (more code, aargh!!). And that's about it for this week and next, really, apart from my normal activities.

I've done two reviews out of the seven; read five books out of the fourteen; made big inroads into sorting the fridge and small inroads into sorting the pantry. This latter was my excuse for toasting lots of yummy seeds in tamari. By 'lots' I mean 2 kilos. Healthy nibbles, you see, to see me through this period of overwork. Also to feed friends, since obviously my friends won't want to chocolate macadamias I unearthed during the first layer of sorting.

The thing that's missing from my list is my dress for the Conflux banquet. I didn't realise that today was a sewing day. Goodness knows when the costume is going to happen, since it means that both Donna and I have to find time and she has her own costume to make.

(no subject)

Thanks to the generosity of a kind blogger named Scott, I have my very own food history lens at Squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com/foodhistory/

The trouble with having one's own food history lens at Squidoo is that it's far too easy to create another lens just to make sure this blog doesn't feel bad about being left out: http://www.squidoo.com/gillpolack/

The Monkey Invasion

I've been following the interviews of Chucklemonkey. It's been a great adventure. Lots of angst. Lots of anger. Not much in the way of deep intellectual insight. This leaves the path open for me to make my name as a serious interviewer of monkeys.

Chucklemonkey, may I start with how very pleased I am to see you reincarnate. May your second life be significantly longer than your first.

Why thank you and thank you. It will of course, as there are restraining orders and all manner of warnings placed upon that Deniz character and so I have nothing to fear!

I've been blamed with introducing Sharyn Lilley to Mark Deniz and causing Eneit Press to be born. This is not the sequence of events as I remember them. Chucklemonkey, wasn't it you I introduced to Sharyn's rather alcoholic friend called Granny? Can you tell us more about this meeting? (I've wanted to know how it went for a very long time.)

This indeed is how it happened and neither of us can take responsibility for how Mark and Sharyn came to be in contact.

Our meeting was very pleasant indeed, we opened a cyber bar almost immediately and within days wild_heart joined in. Granny made me lots of banana daiquiris, invited me to Voyager parties (where jaffa cakes were thrown) and the like… oh, those were the days!

This next question could be a bit traumatic, as it refers to the events preceding your untimely demise. As I interpret it, Mark was thinking of writing a series of evil short stories that explored ways of killing you and calling them "Dark Fantasy" to hide his real intentions. Then you disappeared and Sharyn persuaded him to follow the theme, rather than the actuality of monkeydeath, and so In Bad Dreams was born. What I want to know is how Sharyn reformed him, and how both of them persuaded such amazing writers to contribute to their little nightmare.

Unfortunately I wasn’t around when most of this happened, hiding in fear of my life on that island haven that someone bought for me.

What I’ve heard is that it was indeed scheduled to be an anthology of various monkey murders but that Sharyn persuaded him that it wouldn’t sell. The writers were then all asked to change their protagonists from monkeys into believable human beings, in order for the book to be a success.

I have no idea how they managed to get all these talented writers together either, although I heard a rumour that it had something to do with Mark offering them a lifetime’s supply of bananas if they were accepted.

I tell you there is some dark satanic stuff behind this, you ‘Mark’ my words!

Do you actually like any of the In Bad Dreams writers? Why?

There’s a few I like and I’m gutted they have agreed to work with monkey killers: Robert Hood is a wonderful writer and his Immaterial collection is a gem of a book. Kaaron Warren is another, established talent in your part of the world and one that I am amazed wanted anything to do with the Deniz fellow.

I did like RJ Barker too until he tried to get me to ride a baby llama, whilst wearing a mini-jockey outfit (but the least said about that the better)!

Stephanie Campisi was my tip for ‘next big thing’ until she agreed to this book. I believe she has committed professional suicide and no-one is ever going to want to read her after this!

And then there is Australian wannabe Pete Kempshall, who has written some wonderful stuff in his time. Unfortunately he agreed to write for Deniz and that is going to prove fatal for his career.

Did your nightmares pre and post death inspire the title? Or has Mark developed a conscience and suffered some bad dreams? Or was it all Sharyn's doing?

I know that Mark was very involved in this project before introducing it to Sharyn, and, as I have been lead to believe, the title comes from a song (hope he gets a libel suit for that one!). He has mentioned something about it concerning itself with the everyday, the true horrors that surround us every time we leave our home (or in some cases dwell there also) but I think that’s just a promo scam to get away with using other people’s words!

You've had some rather dramatic career changes recently. You've moved from being a monkey blogger to a monkey murdered to a monkey muse. Where will you go from here?

A good question and one I haven’t had time to think about recently as it’s all been a bit of a whirlwind. So far I have been concentrating on my anti-In Bad Dreams promo and that will be continuing up to and including Conlux 4 in Canberra this September/October.

After that I’ll be waiting to see when volumes two and three are announced and see what poo flinging disasters I can think up for them too!

I have one other project but that is top secret just now…

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For Canberra folks:

If any of you see 35 Ultra-Orthodox Jewish teenage boys walking the streets in the next two days, please feel free to go up to any one of them and say "Please tell Chaim that Auntie Gillian gives her love." He - of course - forgot my phone number. You can give him that, too, if you like. (Chaim is pronounced like the toast bit in Fiddler on the Roof ie Hayyim - if you turn it into one syllable he might turn scathing teenage looks on you.)