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I think I might try for the world record of dull blogging. Either that, or I'll write something interesting tomorrow, just for a change.

In the meantime (to distract you from lists about my life), Tales for Canterbury is out. Not the Chaucerian Canterbury, but the Canterbury inhabited by the people of Christchurch. Great writers with but a single aim: to raise money to help the earth-quaked Kiwis. Australians are the lucky ones - free postage and a strong Australian dollar makes it somewhat cheaper than your average paperback.

I saw Simon Petrie's copy on Wednesday and it's a nice book. Nice people. Also good writers. My mailbox will contain my very own, very shortly (I know I am saving for my Big Trip, but have you looked at that table of contents? Also, I have friends who were quaked. They're holding up, but I want to support them. Also, do you know how supremely cool NZ writers are?*)


*The coolest of all right now is Helen Lowe. Drop into her blog sometime.

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I've run out of books!

Not really. It's just that I only have 8 more books to read before I go. Not quite a book a day. And I only have about ten articles to read on top of that. And I only have about 4,000 words of drafting to go, everything else is polishing and cleaning and finding out where I've gone wrong. And, and...it all seems within my reach.

This can't be right.

Life through Cellophane

If any of you had been delaying purchasing Life Through Cellophane... you're too late. It may have been quiet, but it sold, and sold and, thanks to the curious business decisions of Borders, Eneit Press won't be reprinting. I get the rights back in October and I'll consider my options then*.

Right now I am very chuffed. I like it when print runs sell out. It makes me feel that maybe, just maybe, the publisher hasn't made a bad decision in investing in my writing. I think the reviews of it and the sheer number of comments readers made to me (over 40% of the buyers of that first print run got in touch with me and wanted to talk about the book - at conventions, here, on FB) mean that Sharyn doesn't regret taking my manuscript.

It's strange to think that it's sold out already, however. It's only been in print eighteen months, and it had some extraordinary bad luck along the way. It got lost on the way to the Aurealis judges. The copies never turned up and the judges never saw them. Everyone involved in the book had challenging times, which really affected anyone's capacity to get it into bookshops or arrange any kind of event (other than that amazing launch, last Conflux). Because of this, most bookshops never got round to stocking it (there may still be a couple of copies in Smiths' Alternative Bookshop in Canberra, by the way, and I have packed a copy for the BSFA raffle) so it sold by word of mouth at just a couple of conventions and from the website.

I keep wanting to say "Bye Liz!" I suspect, however, that I haven't seen the last of her.




*although I actually only contracted with EP for the Australian print rights - I am now in the land of "I don't know what to do" all over again.