AUSTRALIAN GUEST BLOGGERS: Sept. 19 - Oct. 11

Since I’m going to be away to Australia for three weeks, I thought it might be neighborly and of interest to readers of this blog for me to open it up to guest bloggers from Australia. For the most part, I extended the offer to those who did not have blogs, so you’ll get to hear from some people you may not have heard from before in such an immediate way.

Starting September 19 and ending October 11, the Aussie writers and editors mentioned below will be guest blogging in this spot. (Although I live in fear of somehow having left someone out—if so, you’ll hear from them soon enough when they post and curse my name...) And thanks to Luis Rodrigues for agreeing to administrate the proceedings.

Right. I’m just about off to Australia. Very much looking forward to meeting people and having a good time, along with all of the hard work. Should be great.

Of course, I am just following in my dad's footsteps. Last year he did a Fire Ant Workshop in, I believe, Brisbane.

Fire Ant Workshop in Australia:
On August 23-24, Robert Vander Meer, chemist, ARS Imported Fire Ant and Household Insects Research Unit, Gainesville, FL, attended the 2004 Imported Fire Ant Workshop in Brisbane, Australia. His presentation, called "Finishing the Job: The Final Stages of an Eradication Program," covered fire ant pheromone research and use of attractants in eradication and control of the Brisbane fire ant infestation.

Cheers,

Jeff

Guest Bloggers

Deborah Biancotti is an Aurealis and Ditmar Award winning writer based in Sydney, Australia. She currently has a story appearing in the Year's Best Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy. She has a web site and live journal.

Bill Congreve writes, edits and publishes science fiction and horror in his native Australia. His collection of vampire stories is Epiphanies of Blood, and he is the co-editor, with Michelle Marquardt, of the Year's Best Australian SF & Fantasy.

Grace Dugan is a speculative fiction writer who lives in Brisbane. She was a co-founder of the Clarion South Writers Workshop and is a Clarion East graduate. Her first novel, fantasy The Silver Road, will be published by Penguin Australia in 2006.

Kate Eltham lives in Brisbane, Australia. She works as a creative industries consultant, which is a fancy-schmancy way of saying she helps creative people to make a living from their creativity. She is a founding member of Fantastic Queensland, a ragtag band of adventurers developing and promoting speculative fiction in Australia, and co-convenor of Clarion South Writers Workshop. Kate is chairing the 2006 Australian National Science Fiction Convention in a most disorganized fashion. She writes short stories, mainly during West Wing ad breaks. Her most recent sale was to the Australian anthology Encounters.

Trent Jamieson lives in Brisbane with his wife Diana. His first collection of short stories "Reserved for Travelling Shows" is out through Prime Books in October. Most of the stories he wrote himself, but one was co-written with his cat.

Geoffrey Maloney is the author of Tales from the Crypto-System, a best of from the last ten years of his short fiction. His work has appeared in dozens of magazines and anthologies. Currently, he is working on a series of mundane and absurdist urban fantasy tales set in Brisbane, with titles like Fearless Flying Apartment People, Tale of the Little Hair Mermaid, Men with Squeaky Rat's Voices, Women Whose Perfume Smells Too Much, These Days Most People Are Having Their Insides Completely Removed and The Airplane That Nearly Killed Me. He recently helped edited the anthology The Devil in Brisbane.

Ben Peek lives in Sydney. His fiction has appeared in year’s best anthologies as well as Leviathan 4 and Ticonderoga Online. His novel Black Sheep will be published by Prime Books next year.

Cat Sparks runs Agog! Press which has produced five anthologies of (mostly) Australian speculative fiction. She is also a writer, graphic designer, photographer and desktop publisher. In 2004 she was a graduate of the inaugural Clarion South Writers' Workshop in Queensland. Cat lives in Wollongong with her partner, author Robert Hood. Highlights of her career so far include: winning a trip to Paris in a Bulletin Magazine photography competition; being appointed official photographer for two NSW Premiers; working as photographer on three archaeological expeditions to Jordan, and winning seven DITMAR awards. She was a third place winner in Writers of the Future, 2004, and was awarded the Aurealis Peter McNamara Conveners Award in 2004.

Anne Sydenham created and runs the Edward Whittemore web site and has contributed articles to the New York Review of SF and Fantastic Metropolis, among others.

Anna Tambour currently lives in the Australian bush with a large family of other species, including one man. She is the author of a critically acclaimed story collection and the recently released novel Spotted Lily.