If you’ve tried to contact me via my website over the last few weeks, my apologies for not getting back to you. I’ve just realised that the contact form that was on this website wasn’t working. I’m working on fixing this ASAP. Although I’ve had to remove the contact form, you can still contact me via slightly less new-fangled means.

There are also a couple of other website hosting issues that I’m working on at present, so if things around here aren’t working as they should be, it should all be fixed within the next few weeks.

P.S. And as a little gift to make up for these little problems, here’s a Godzilla Haiku from this poetically destructive Tumblr site.

This is a little post with some big news: Look Who’s Morphing has been shortlisted for the 2010 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book in the South East Asia and Pacific Region. It’s great – both for me and for my publisher Giramondo (which has been having a fantastic run lately with literary awards – go Giramondo!).

Edit: Here are the shortlists for the South East Asia and Pacific Region – for both Best Book and Best First Book (courtesy of this article from Bookseller+Publisher): (Read more)

Gigs, gigs, gigs. First, here in Melbourne this Saturday…

Applying for Arts Funding

Do you have an idea for an arts project that needs funding? Bring it along to this unique workshop. The workshop begins with a thorough overview of applying for arts funding – learn the essentials of applying for funding, tips for writing clear and persuasive proposals, developing budgets and more. You then get to test your arts project idea and build your skills in proposal-writing via some exercises.

Sun 6 Feb, 10:00am-2:00pm

Victorian Writers Centre
The Wheeler Centre, 176 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
Members $65, members concession $55, non-members $85 (book online)

Then, later this month, I’m in Perth for the Perth Writers Festival. (It’ll be good to go back to Perth. I went there for the first time last year for my Perth book launch.) First up, I have a reading at Cottonmouth, a rather excellent regular spoken word event in Perth that I was lucky enough to perform at last year:

(Read more)

A few years ago, Shane Warne – who at the time was retiring from cricket – was ruminating about his life and career. I recall he said something along the lines of “I don’t know who writes my scripts, but they’re doing an incredible job.” I instantly related to that comment when I heard it. Yes, yes, I know we can ultimately view ourselves as self-authoring types, but let’s not debate who’s writing the scripts or how they’re written (or interpreted). It’s my scripts in themselves that have been blowing my mind lately, especially this year.

Possibly the best of the most recent script developments in my life is that I’ve been successful in getting a grant from Arts Victoria to work on my second book. My new book project is incredibly daring and difficult and fun – both comic and of consequence, as I usually think Look Who’s Morphing is – and I’m so glad that the assessment panel wanted to support such a project. (Read more)

Look Who’s Morphing (or pieces from the book) continues to be studied in various university courses (not only in Australia but occasionally overseas). I often only get to hear about this by chance – although usually in great ways, such as when a student emails me to tell me they enjoyed my work (or – equally as satisfying – when a lecturer tells me how much they’ve enjoyed teaching the book).

Anyway, back in August, an undergraduate student from University of New South Wales, Sybilla Levenston, contacted me. She mentioned that she had reviewed Look Who’s Morphing for an assignment and had received a High Distinction for her review. I promised her that I would publish her playful, slippery and entertaining review here. It’s taken me a while to get around to doing this but, finally, here it is. Thanks for your patience, Sybilla! Bring on the Betty Crocker Easy Bake… (Read more)

Everything has been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to mention this until now: I am participating in three events at Feast Festival, Adelaide’s queer arts and cultural festival. This Saturday, I am involved in two events for the festival’s literary program. But the night before that, I will be giving a reading at a dinner for International Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Here are the details from the program: (Read more)

First up, a photo (click the image to get a better view):

I took this photo a few weeks ago at Borobudur, a Buddhist monument in Central Java, Indonesia. It was about 5am and the sun was starting to rise. After I arrived at Borobudur, I took a fair few photos. After a while, though, I put my camera aside so I could simply have my experience there, without any desire to capture anything. (Read more)