…seriously. For about half its length, it’s also overly concerned with the really creepy obsession of a teenage character for an adult teacher, and I really could have done without the implied rape scene in episode 14 (and the psychotic bixesual. Sigh). But then, about halfway through, you earn exactly what the Takakura parents did, and it shifts gears–into a meditation on fate, loss and whether guilt can be passed on from person to person (and yo…

…Locus kindly interviewed me for their August edition. You can find an excerpt from the interview here (and a neat picture that handily disguises the snakelet bit of the equation). Many thanks to Liza Groen Trombi, Francesca Myman and the rest of the Locus team (and wow. If anyone had ever told me I’d share a cover with Kim Stanley Robinson…)….

…The view from our window So, we have survived the move,–except that we live among a pile of boxes at the moment, and spare time is pretty scarce. There is an internet connection, but we’re busy unpacking and setting up. Hopefully more soon……

…Just a quick note to inform those who don’t know already of the birth of the snakelet last week–which in turn explains my continued radio silence. We’re all well, but overwhelmed–as those things happen 🙂 Blog’s going dark for a while, though I may update with the occasional rant……

…n. Wow. She’d never thought they’d lose him–that in one bloody, confused night as the neighbouring House of Hawthorn tore itself apart, he would take his sword and his wings, and walk out of the House he had founded; and never come back, leaving almost nothing behind–a scattering of things he’d infused with his power, a handful of ill-prepared students at the helm of a faltering House; and Selene, his heir by virtue of having been the closest to h…

…nning anthology. The stories I loved most were Rochita Loenen-Ruiz’s “What Really Happened in Ficandula”, an angry tale of retribution and revenge that stretches across generations, Dinesh Rao’s “Bridge of Words”, an elegiac story about diaspora and losing one’s language, and Benjanun Sriduankaew’s splendid “Vector”, about the rewriting of history and the fight of the oppressed to impose their own voices over those of their oppressors. Do give it…

…s, the phoenix, the vermillion bird, was a sign of peace and prosperity to come; a sign of a just ruler under whom the land would thrive. But those are the days of the war; of a weak child-Empress, successor to a weak Emperor; the days of burning planets and last-ditch defences; of moons as red as blood and stars as dark as bile. # When Thien Bao was thirteen years old, Second Aunt came to live with them. She was a small, spry woman with little to…

…I’ve just discovered that there’s emails I haven’t answered to, so if you sent anything to me from 1st Sept to 10th Sept and are still waiting on an answer, would you mind poking me? I didn’t have email access while in hospital and obviously misplaced a couple things when we got home with the snakelet……

-The awesome Rochita Loenen-Ruiz and her sister interview Benjanun Sriduankaew: I think of short stories as presenting a question, even if it’s something as simple as ‘how will the characters get what they want?’ It’s my hope that readers will be engaged by that question even if the story isn’t presenting a direct answer – so that’s what I hope they take away: a question. But I also hope to excite a sense of wonder and a sympathetic interest, whe…

…In case you had any doubt, not much writing is happening–snakelet is a bit of a full time job… Desultorily planning my novel (I know how to fix my plot problem, I just don’t have the time to tackle the chapter–each time I sit down too write there’s a scream from the bedroom…)….