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)

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)

The image below shows the Hindu god Krishna with some gopis (female cow-herders).  I was influenced by stories of Krishna and the gopis when I was writing “Cock Rock”, the last piece in Look Who’s Morphing.

Click the image to get a better view.

Soon, I’ll be going to Bali, where over 90% of the population practices a Balinese form of Hinduism. As I mentioned in my last post, I’m going for the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, and then I’ll be staying on to have a break and do some research for my next book. The above image is suggestive, actually, of the kind of territory into which I’ll be heading for my next book, so it seems perfect that I will be making my way to Bali.

Here’s some exciting news: Look Who’s Morphing has been short-listed for an award called the Best Writing Award 2009. This is awarded by the Melbourne Prize Trust “for a piece of published or produced work of outstanding clarity, originality and creativity by a Victorian writer, 40 years or under.”

And here’s some more exciting news: by making that short-list, Look Who’s Morphing is also in the running for a related Award – a Civic Choice Award in which the public gets to vote for their favourite. So if you’d like to make it your civic duty to vote for Look Who’s Morphing, you can do that here.

Here’s the full short-list for the Best Writing Award: (Read more)

I’ve been very fortunate to have had plenty of reviews of my book. More reviews have been coming out lately. When I get a moment, I’ll link to them in the Reviews section of my site. But, for now, here’s a recent review that I’m including here since it can’t be found online. This is from the Australian Literary Review. The reviewer, Catherine Ford, reviewed four books – my book, as well as books by Wendy James (who is briefly mentioned below), Patrick Cullen and Karen Hitchcock. Below is the extract that pertains to Look Who’s Morphing. Check it out and you’ll see why it was a pretty pleasing read for me:

Tom Cho’s Look Who’s Morphing was written, as were all the books discussed here, as part of postgraduate study, which prompts questions about why so many people choose to write fiction now in the care of academe. Perhaps it’s to validate the embarrassingly non-vocational aspect of writing, bestow some respect on the caper, or maybe it’s to enlist a professional interest, a curiosity, in the process when none would otherwise be forthcoming?

Or is it that academics have been lumped with giving nascent manuscripts the painstaking attention they need when editors, once responsible for the task, are more commonly out lobbying on behalf of their business interests and the country’s literary livelihood, or pumping hands at book fairs? (Read more)

My book was recently reviewed in The Age by Louise Swinn, one of the publishers at Sleepers Publishing. I had been expecting the review to come out some time around the Melbourne Writers Festival but didn’t know of the actual date. Anyway, last Saturday, some friends on Twitter began congratulating me about the review and that was how I found out it had been printed. I was in the middle of helping Tara (my partner) move house but, after I had finished dropping off another carload of stuff, I went to a milkbar, bought the paper and had a read:

Becoming what you watch

A child in a new country, when faced with ridicule, may respond by closing the gap – becoming more like the persecutor – or retreating to a fantasy world. In a sense, perhaps, to migrate is to transform, to morph.

Look Who’s Morphing is the first collection of stories from Tom Cho, a name familiar to readers of journals and literary anthologies. This bunch of stories hangs together through a protagonist – frequently referred to as “Tom Cho” – and his family and friends morphing their way intertextually through a multitude of nods to popular culture.

(Read more)