Down at the Farm

I'm staying with Jack Dann and Janeen Webb at their farm in Foster, south of Melbourne. I got in yesterday at the city apartment around 10:30 am (after waiting 45 minutes for my luggage), took a shower, and went with Jack to buy a dongle for my netbook and a simcard for the phone I was lent last August. Had lunch and drove to Foster, where Janeen and Bertie (the English Beagle)greeted me. Unpacked, went to dinner. On the way back we spotted a fox, a wombat, and a koala--the only thing I really saw was the wombat--the other two moved too quickly.

Today Janeen showed me her in-progress rose garden-the whole property is spacious and beautiful. Rolling hills, ponds, cows.
J & J are building an extension to the house and they've already built a sunroom. It's going to be even more amazing to see the view from Janeen's office on the second floor (in-progress). I hope I get back here again within the next couple of years when it's done.

Lazy day today as I finished going through my two day's worth of emails. Breakfast in Fish Creek, a town nearby. Then back to the farm.
Bertie is laying on my foot as I type this. He's got a thick chest for a beagle. Janeen says its because he's not fixed and because he's been climbing the hills since he was a puppy. She says he runs so fast that he once cornered a fox.

The Shirley Jackson Awards and why I love them

It's not only because my anthologies and stories from them are often nominated but because invariably there's nominated material I've never heard of, let alone ever read.
For example, this year's list contains the following of which I was not aware:
Novel:
The Reapers Are the Angels, Alden Bell (Holt)

I have read Dark Matter, Michelle Paver (Orion)and A Dark Matter, Peter Straub (Doubleday)

novellas
The Broken Man, Michael Byers (PS Publishing)
# One Bloody Thing After Another, Joey Comeau (ECW Press)
# Subtle Bodies, Peter Dubé (Lethe Press)

Short Story
“Booth’s Ghost,” Karen Joy Fowler (What I Didn’t See, Small Beer Press) (this is a case where if I'd been sent a review copy of the collection, I'd have read the story).