gothic

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‘Salvage’ available for preorder

My novella Salvage, a seaside Gothic, is available for pre-order in paperback from Twelfth Planet Press for $15 plus postage.

salvage by jason nahrung

“Seeking to salvage their foundering marriage, Melanie and Richard retreat to an isolated beach house on a remote Queensland island.

“Intrigued by a chance encounter with a stranger, Melanie begins to drift away from her husband and towards Helena, only to discover that Helena has her own demons, ageless and steeped in blood.

“As Richard’s world and Helena’s collide, Melanie must choose which future she wants, before the dark tide pulls her under … forever.”

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The novella, Salvage, surfaces at last!

salvage by jason nahrung

Twelfth Planet Press has announced the forthcoming publication of my novella, Salvage — big smiles all round. The novella was written primarily over three consecutive years, at my writers’ group retreat on Bribie Island, and then finished off in a fourth retreat on the shore of Lake Weyba at Noosa. The cover art is by Dion Hamill, who also provided covers for TPP’s Horn, amongst others (and not, as previously written here, TPP’s edition of Marianne de Pierres’ Glitter Rose). Now, the edits…

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Dead Red Heart and More Scary Kisses: books with bite!

more scary kisses cover

Here is the cover of More Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga’s anthology of paranormal romance stories due out in April. The table of contents is here.

And Ticonderoga’s Australian-themed vampire anthology, Dead Red Heart, has had its table of contents announced, and it’s a monster: 32 yarns, more than 130,000 words, due out towards the end of April.

I hope this means both will hit the shelf in time for Swancon, Perth’s annual spec fic convention which this year is also the national science fiction convention.

It’s particularly exciting to have a couple of stories coming out this year after such a long hiatus.

after the rain ebook edition

There’s also a story of mine, a cyberpunk one just in contrast to the New Orleans hot-and-sweaty of MSK and cane-and-dust vampire action of DRH, in Fablecroft’s forthcoming After the Rain anthology, also due out in time for Swancon. A special e-edition of ATR is available with proceeds going to the Queensland flood appeal. More than $1200 has been raised so far. Awesome!

For me, after the rain should probably be after the drought, it’s been so long since I’ve written a short story. But last year, after much kicking around and failing to succeed with novel-length manuscripts, my subconscious apparently found a window for some short stuff. Dark Prints Press’s Surviving the End anthology started the ball rolling — that book’s due out in 2012, and I quite like the story of mine in it: a dirty, post-apocalyptic Australian Gulf-country yarn.

I’m back in drought mode, now, but it sure feels affirming to have been able to dredge out some yarns!

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Brisbane Madigan Mine signing

kirstyn reading from Scenes from the Second Storey at Aussiecon 4
Kirstyn and I will be at Brisbane’s Pulp Fiction in Edward St from noon on Wednesday (Sept 15) where she will be signing Madigan Mine. She also has stories in the anthologies Macabre and Scenes from the Second Storey, both launched at this month’s Aussiecon4 (the World Science Fiction Convention). Please do pop in to say hello if you are able 🙂

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Madigan Mine: launched!

kirstyn mcdermott at the launch of her novel madigan mine

Madigan Mine has been officially launched! A most excellent crowd attended at Melbourne’s Carlton Library (three cheers for the brilliant staff) to see a metaphoric bottle of bubbles broken over the bow of Kirstyn McDermott’s debut novel. Lucy Sussex (who has her own launch coming up) did the honours, fitting the Melbourne-set thriller into the wider context of Australian Gothic and saying some very nice things about Kirstyn’s prose.

It was grand to see such support for a local writer, with publisher Pan Macmillan sending representatives, including the artist who designed the superb cover.

Kirstyn provides the author’s perspective of the event, and there are more pictures here.

Lucy Sussex launches Madigan Mine

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‘Goth looking but genius’ – WTF?

pauley perrette as abby in ncis

I was reading this article about a mummy exhibition, sadly in the US so I can only admire from afar, when I was struck by an assinine comment, in relation to the wundertabulous forensic tech Abby (played by Pauley Perrette) in NCIS. A mummy expert is saying how she loves the character, a positive role model for women seeking careers in science. And the journalist added this note of explanation:

“Perrette plays the Goth-looking but genius Abby Sciuto on the top-rated television drama.”

“Goth-looking but genius”.

Why BUT. Why not AND? Why is it even relevant to this piece about mummies that Abby’s gothic? But it’s the ‘but’ that gets me. As if goths can’t be clever.

Phooey to your but.

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Aurealis Awards, judges’ reports now online

Further to my musings about the nature of horror, as a literary genre, as evidenced at the recently announced and fabulously conducted Aurealis Awards in Brisbane, the judges’ reports are now up at the awards site. I’m still grappling with the horror content of the winning novel, I confess. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the bush, but I don’t share the sense of menace supposedly posed by the landscape in Red Queen at all. And I wasn’t aware of the characters reacting that way. Why would country boys respond like that? The only thing they were frightened of in the Australian bush was other people — in this case, plague carriers. I think it’s very cool that a book like this can nudge ahead of a field with comparatively quite strong horror tropes; it certainly broadens the horizon. Anyway, food for thought, and I’ll continue to digest. (I certainly concur with other comments in this report, though not all.) (My musings shouldn’t detract in any way from the decision, by the way, nor the fact that Red Queen is a solid debut novel with plenty to recommend it; that’s not the purpose of this blog. I write ‘horror’ stories, call them what you will. I’m always interested to know what other people think of as horror.)