Elizabeth's Corner Archives

With less than 48 hours now until the launch of Baggage we are coming to the end of the blog tour. I've got a few last stops to share with you.

 Matthew Farrer concludes his two-part series with Kaaron Warren. The pair take a close look at the creation and structuring of Kaaron's story "Hive of Glass".

Tessa Kum has done a lovely guest post for Deborah Kalin on differences between Australian and Tibetan landscapes and the effect that had on her. Gorgeous photos abound. 

 Lastly, Andrew McKiernan joins me today in Elizabeth's Corner for a brief discussion on the gorgeous cover he created for Baggage.

 Welcome, Andrew! Thank you for stopping by. Let me get to the most crucial question first--do you prefer tea or coffee?

I'm not sure I prefer one over the other, although I'm mainly a tea drinker (about three or four cups a day, mainly at night while writing) and limit myself to one cup of coffee a day... but it has to be good coffee. I can't see much point in drinking crappy instant coffee or decaf.

I understand what you mean--loose leaf tea all the way for me! Can you tell me a bit about the initial concept of the cover for Baggage? What sort of baggage was it informed by?

The initial concept for Baggage was much more complicated than the final. It was all based on the idea of cultural baggage being the thing that pigeon-holes us all, and that leads us to pigeon-hole others into neat compartments that best fit our perceptions. I was going to have all these odd shaped boxes on the cover, like an old-fashioned baggage claim area at a train station, and each box was going to contain an object or scene from one of the stories in miniature. (see the images for the initial thumbnail pencil sketch that Sharyn and Gillian approved, as well as one of the completed - but as yet empty - pigeon-hole boxes).

The more I worked on the concept, the more I realised that I was bringing my own baggage as an Illustrator into the equation when I should have been thinking more as a Designer. I still think that what I'd proposed would make a great final illustration, but it was too complicated for the book and trying to speak too much of the stories when I should be letting the stories speak for themselves. What this book needed was good 'design' and not necessarily a good 'illustration'.

That's when I went back, re-read all the stories, and tried to reassess what the book was really about and what I wanted to cover to say to people. I took off my illustrator's hat and starting looking at things purely from a design perspective.
 

 Where did you get the inspiration for the current cover?

 The anthology isn't just about cultural baggage, but also about how we explore that baggage. I realised I wanted to give that impression - of the stories within as being like the great unexplored continent of Australia; something you'd approach with both awe and caution, like the 'Here there be dragons' warnings on old maps. That's when what I was thinking became a strong image in my mind of how the cover should look and I set off to search the Australian National Library for old maps that I could use to convey that.

I was very lucky to find one that almost perfectly matched the image I had in my mind. The map is from an 1863 'pamphlet' by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, La Belle Sauvage Yard, Ludgate Hill, entitled "Cassell's Emigrant's Map of Australia". I'd already decided that this was the right map the instant I saw it, but the title - 'Emigrant's map of Australia' - just seemed so neat and perfect for what the stories in the anthology are essentially trying to reveal about us and about the authors.

What sort of cultural baggage do you feel Australian illustrators and designers have to deal with?

 That's a hard one to answer for me because I don't think too much about that sort of stuff. I try not to think at all most of the time and just let things happen, be intuitive and all that rubbish. I'm not a very introspective person, because when I am I tend to get morose and broody.

Most of the illustration and design world is lead by those trends (both old and new) from Europe, and from New York as the hub of American design - I think many Australian illustrators and designers outside of the art-world tend to follow those trends a little too closely. It would be nice to break away from that and explore our own territory a little more. Sean Tan is definitely an inspiration in being very successful in doing this. His work is very strongly infused with the idea of cultural baggage and I'd love to be more like him.

I've really only just starting to think about an Australian identity to my work. I've been fortunate enough to have illustrated a couple of stories for author Jason Fischer, and I'm finally getting an opportunity to more closely examine the Australian landscape. Jason's stories speak very much of an Australia way of life that is unique to the rest of the world and illustrating those stories has forced me to address the issue a little more. I've still got a long way to go, but it's a start.

Well, thank you for taking the time to chat with me Andrew. It has been a pleasure.

That's all from me here at Elizabeth's Corner for now. I look forward to seeing you all at the launch!

It's a lovely spring day here at the Eneit Press office. The sun is shining strong and warm, the blossoms are out and somewhere there's a hammock and a cup of tea with my name on it. Who am I to resist? So I'm handing over the reins briefly to K.J. Bishop. This seems oddly appropriate to me because "Vision Splendid"--her opening story for Baggage--contains a wonderfully evocative description of a day much like this one (only somewhat closer to summer).

Gillian Polack recently interviewed Ms Bishop, who has managed to turn the tables this time long enough to ask Gillian a question of her own.

KB: Maybe it's an obvious one, but why spec fic about Australian cultural baggage? Reading the stories, did you get the sense that the light shining from a fantastical angle had illuminated corners that mainstream fiction has left in gloom? Does spec fic add weapons to a writer's arsenal? Is the fantastical, the strange, somehow important to an understanding of life in this strange country, so that you might as well ask "why not spec fic?"

GP: For me, speculative fiction makes it easier to transgress and easier to travel and easier to confront dangerous issues.  I've seen any number of anthologies on the same issues as Baggage and most of them are uncourageous.  That's why I made the joke about mateship and neighbours on my blog (the joke that's crept onto the back cover of the book) - most anthologies deal with positive issues, or migration issues and keep everything mimetic and safe.

Even though some of the stories in Baggage were mimetic (yours, for instance) they're not safe.  Speculative fiction opens doors for deeper questions and new reflections.  It's not the only way to achieve those ends, but I'd seen so many other anthologies that had reinforced what we thought we knew, rather than questioned it, that I had a secret wish to see if speculative fiction writers would also play safe.  And then I cheated and my first round of "Would you be interested?" went mainly to writers who I definitely knew didn't play safe.  And then you all accepted the challenge and I never got to ask the other writers who I would have liked to have seen stories from, or to open it up to writers I didn't know.  That's another reason for speculative fiction writers being the right ones to ask.  There is such a depth of talent right now.  So many terrific writers.

 I find that speculative fiction adds tools, certainly.  For one thing, it's a genre with many sub-genres.  It's possible to write something that fits into literary fiction or into romance or into military fiction, using the tropes and the styles, and still make it speculative.  This means that every single work of fiction is potentially a source for tools for speculative fiction.  This gives a writer in speculative fiction an extraordinary range of choices and possibilities.  It's not all about quests and dragons and young heroes coming of age.

The other thing that speculative fiction does is enable us to question realities.  To cross borders.  That transgression thing again.  This is what I was doing with Life Through Cellophane, quite intentionally.  Most people talk about the defining characteristic of speculative fiction as 'What if?" (and that's certainly important) but what I love about it is that we're capable of coming out different.

The first time I read all the stories through, I got a sense of dark light. Sadness, loneliness, silencing, mishearing, death:  these are the colours of Australia that the writers painted.  I don't know if the fact that the stories were speculative fiction would have made a difference.  I think I was given damn good stories by remarkable writers.  The writers shone the dark light, not the genre.

 The stuff of Baggage isn't just a different way of approaching familiar material.  It's potentially a different way of seeing who we are and what reality we inhabit.  Of questioning the cultural constructs that keep us in place, smiling at the world.  Australia isn't very good (on the whole) at asking those questions and understanding the supernatural, the surreal, the fantastical.  We question cultural constructs very effectively in other ways, but we obscure certain subjects with dark murk.  And we just happen to have amazing writers who play with those subjects all the time, as part of their creative lives.  I wanted to see what happened when just a few of those amazing writers peeked into the darkness with their torches.

There may only be eight days left until the launch of Baggage (!) but the blog tour continues.

 I mentioned in my last post that Gillian has been conducting a series of interviews with the authors. Over at Bibliobuffet she chats with Janeen Webb, Jack Dann and Yaritji Green about the baggage writers carry. It's a bit of a long post, but well worth reading for the diversity of the authors' experiences. Monica Carroll has a guest post up on Gillian's blog about the baggage of Baggage and her numerous attempts at writing a story for the anthology. Finally the series concludes with Gillian's drinks cabinet being assaulted while Sharyn interviews Jennifer Fallon about superheroes, poltergeists and family tales about spaghetti. I'd recommend not drinking anything (alcoholic or otherwise) while you read that one--it's liable to end up sprayed all over your monitor.

Deborah Biancotti tells Angela Slatter that, like all good adventures, her involvement in Baggage came about because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know the feeling.

 Matthew Farrer shares what he thought of Heart of Glass, Kaaron Warren's story for Baggage. He'll be following up with an interview with Kaaron, so stay tuned!

It's cold and grey today in Elizabeth's Corner. The wind is whistling outside and the rain is tapping on the window, reminding me that winter is not quite over yet. It's the perfect kind of day to travel--the kind of travel that involves being wrapped up in a blanket with a hot cup of tea and some interesting reading. Fortunately, I have some interesting reading here to share with you, all of it involving Baggage.

To get things started, Gillian and the Warren children interview author Kaaron Warren. Kaaron talks about food in her writing, which I found appropriate since it came after my post on cake and Conflux yesterday. And why am I not surprised that Kaaron of all people has the cookbook of a mass murderer?

That particular interview is part of a series that Gillian has been doing with all the authors of Baggage. So far she has also interviewed Lucy Sussex about 19th Century female detectives and  Deborah Biancotti about how feeling at home is a decision. Laura Goodin has some fascinating things to say about the differences between American and Australian cultures (really. If I was going to pick one of this series of interviews to recommend, this one would be it). Finally, Simon Brown contributes a guest post wherein he reveals it once took him twelve years to write a short story--not, thankfully, the one he contributed to Baggage.

Gillian also manages to rope Deborah Kalin into her chat with Tessa Kum and K.J Bishop about writing. This one covers a lot of ground from the serious (using speculative fiction to canvass confronting subjects) to the not so serious (Deborah Kalin's desire for a TARDIS).

Tessa recently wrote a guest post for Jeff Vandermeer about how her travels through Asia have caused her to revisit the point of view she puts forth in "Acception", her story for Baggage. For the background to that particular tale, check out Tessa's post from last year about her struggle with writing "Acception".

Nor was she the only author who wrestled with their contribution to Baggage, as K.J Bishop writes.

Alan Baxter asks Deborah Biancotti, Kaaron, Laura and Gillian to tell him about the piece of physical baggage that they cannot do without (as well as discussing the anthology, of course!).

Kaaron Warren conducts a round table discussion with Gillian, Simon, Tessa and Yaritji Green on how their cultural background affects their writing. She also examines how Monica Carroll brings Canberra to life in "Archives, space, shame, love", Monica's story for Baggage.

Lastly, Nyssa Pascoe interviews Sharyn Lilley and her alter ego, Granny. It's not strictly to do with Baggage, but I couldn't resist. Consider it payback for the time Granny replaced my tea stash with wine.

There’s been a rather festive air in the Eneit Press offices over the last week. Sharyn has had the music cranked up just that little bit louder and you’ll notice the presence of cake accompanying the usual chocolate and tea over in Elizabeth’s Corner. Not birthday cake, mind, but celebratory cake. It seemed appropriate given the prevalence it has in Gillian Polack’s Life Through Cellophane, which has just recently been shortlisted for a Ditmar award. You may have already heard about it from Sharyn . Not only that, but cake had a very important role to play in the Southern Gothic banquet at Conflux last year—an event for which Gillian has also been shortlisted for.

The 2009 Conflux was the first (and so far only) convention I have ever attended. Though I have read science fiction and fantasy for most of my life and have been writing it on and off for almost as long, conventions never really seemed to make my radar. It never occurred to me that an event of this kind could actually be taking place in my backyard.

Last year, Gillian made sure I knew about Conflux. I had already assisted her and Scott Hopkins with Masques, which had been published by the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild and launched earlier that year. By the time the convention rolled around I was also knee-deep in proof-reading for Baggage. Gillian thought it would be a Very Good Idea for me to attend this year. Since it seemed like fun, I didn’t argue.

The banquet took place on the second night of the convention, a Saturday. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, even though the preparations had been swirling around me for months by then. Meetings for Baggage had often involved Gillian convincing me to stay for lunch so she could test out another historical recipe on me for the banquet. At one stage, I had been convinced to take a few recipes home with me to test out, despite not being much of a cook myself. Thankfully, I got to pick some of the more simple ones and in doing so came across the best recipe for scrambled eggs I’ve ever tasted. There was also one for Isabella cake which had me quartering the proportions—much as I love cake, anything with 16 eggs and four cups of sugar is a little excessive, unless you really are making it for a banquet.

My next clue as to what a Conflux banquet involves came on the morning of the banquet itself when I met up with some newly acquired friends to carpool into the convention.  There was a lot of bustle about bustles, leaving me feeling distinctly underdressed in my jeans and jumper.

But those brief glimpses of costumes were nothing compared to the actual event itself. There were gentlemen in tails, ladies in satin and pirates complete with eyepatches and toy parrots pinned to their shoulders. They gathered around the bar, drinking cocktails authentic to the time period. I couldn’t resist trying something called a Hurricane. It took me all night to get through half my drink, partly because of the size of the glass, partly to because of the sheer amount of alcohol in it and partly because of the fact I am somewhat of a teetotaller.

Each table was provided with a brief history of the place and time period that the banquet was set in. Best of all was the glossary of idioms, which led to many bad Southern accents saying “all y’all”. The night was filled with much laughter, treasure hunts, and, of course, cake—the pride of any Southern banquet.

Perhaps that abundance of fantastic cake at the banquet was the reason why there were so many cupcakes left after the launch of Life Through Cellophane the next day. It seems somewhat of a shame, too, because I remember them as being particularly delicious. It must be a well-known fact by now that Sharyn is an excellent baker.

At any rate, the sheer number of leftover cupcakes could not in any way be due to a lack of people around to eat them. I’ve attended a few book launches and the launch of Life Through Cellophane was far and away the biggest I’ve ever been to. There was standing room only and the space that the launch was being held in was far from a small one. Quite a number of people not attending the convention had come just for the book launch and the queue for Gillian’s signing was impressive.

Nick Stathopoulos was at his charming best as he interviewed Gillian in front of the crowd before the lucky door prizes were given away.

Sharyn was busy working hard behind the scenes and was surprised to be mobbed by people wanting her to sign their copies of In Bad Dreams 2, which was being launched at the same time. When the crowd was finally ushered out, I helped her load leftover cupcakes into her car for the drive home.

Those two events form the backbone of my memories of Conflux and I know there was an immense amount of work that went into making them happen. I am thrilled to see that work being honoured now through the Ditmar nominations.

Although it may be a bit dusty over here in Elizabeth's Corner, it has not been quiet in the Eneit Press office. For those of you who missed it, Sharyn recently announced the launch of Baggage. The anthology focuses on Australian cultural baggage and will be launched on Thursday 2nd September, just an hour before the opening ceremony of AussieCon 4. Borders at South Warf, Melbourne, graciously volunteered to host the event... or so the story goes. Personally, I suspect they just wanted some of the cake Sharyn is promising to bring, but since they are offering plenty of tea in return I won't object.

 Reviews of Baggage are beginning to pop up across the internet. If you are looking to get a good preview of the anthology, I'd recommend starting with Joanna Kasper's review on ASIF . She comments briefly on each of the stories before delivering her verdict on the whole.

 Charles Tan over on Bibliophile Stalker  comments on some of the stories that stood out for him, while Rich Horton from Fantasy Magazine  looks at how Baggage stacks up against a few other Australian anthologies that are currently being released. Definitely the kind of book you'll want weighing down your own baggage on the way home from AussieCon 4.

Having shifted the dust over here, it would seem a shame to let it settle again. I'll be back soon with a fresh pot of tea and a round-up of some very interesting interviews with Gillian Polack and the authors of Baggage.

You may remember that at the beginning of the week there was a certain significant pile of papers on the ottoman here. Well,  those papers have now disappeared and this morning have been replaced by the feet of Dr Gillian Polack. Don't worry--although this is Women In Horror Month, the rest of her remains attached and alive. She has kindly joined us this morning for the last of the interviews in this series. Dr Polack is the author of two novels, numerous short stories and is also the editor for Eneit Press's forthcoming anthology, Baggage.

Good morning, Gillian. Thank you for coming by today, although I know you're not really a morning person. Perhaps a hot beverage would help? Do you prefer tea or coffee?

I love both.  I cannot, however, stand instant coffee:  it makes my mouth feel as if it’s been soaped.

Well, since I already have a pot made I hope you don't mind tea. It's extra strong this morning.

 Now, I know you’ve had a long career in feminist activism and have worked as part of several councils, but have since come to concentrate on writing fiction. What prompted such a change? Do you think that there are issues you can better grapple with (or prompt other people to grapple with) through fiction?

Oddly, I didn’t shift.  I’ve always written and writing has always come first.  The change has been in my willingness to share my writing.  Also, now, I’m willing to accept some advice I was given by a very wise woman in 1986.

I had a conversation in a bar in London in 1986.  Lyn McDonald  - who was then a leftish-wing Canadian politician – was revisiting her student days and I was nearing the end of mine (I don’t know what happened to her after that – my life went pearshaped and I lost track, as it does from time to time).  We talked about stuff we both cared about, mostly to do with the need for better human rights and for social justice.  She had been elected against all odds and was able to finally achieve some of her dreams.  I felt powerless.  I told her about my fiction.  She told me to keep it up and to keep writing, because there are many ways of changing the world.  She pointed out that helping people doesn’t have to be done with regulations or in-your-face activism.  I listened to her, but I didn’t have the courage for a long while, to share my writing. 

Inside my fiction there are the ideas I used to workshop with women’s’ groups and the concepts I wrote policy papers on.  They’re not at the front, being shoved down peoples’ throats, because really, that’s not what I enjoy in fiction, so I don’t see why my readers should have to tolerate it.   
And that’s a really lousy answer.  It’s a very big question and hard to give a proper reply without shouting my world theories at everyone and making it look as if I want the world to be like me.  Wanting other people to think like me and be like me is really not something I’m looking for, so I try not to be preachy about my politics.

I'd call it a fascinating answer, rather than a lousy one.

Life Through Cellophane is your latest novel and features a middle-aged, unemployed, female protagonist who fears that she’ll turn out to be the sort of person who people see through, like cellophane. Do you feel that this is the ultimate horror?

Not at all.  I’ve been seen through and walked over and ignored and survived.  The ultimate horror is where one ceases to have had any importance. It eradicates the past and the inner self and all futures.  Lack of visibility is pretty bad, though.

 You have been very productive in recent times and are in the final stages of editing the anthology Baggage for Eneit Press. It focuses on Australian cultural baggage and features a number of strong female writers. What sort of baggage have you had to contend with as a woman writing dark fiction in Australia?

The biggest piece of baggage right now is dealing with the idea that it’s dark fiction.  In my mind I am a very funny person…

My favourite horror story of all time is one we told by the campfire in Girl Guides.  It starts “In a dark, dark forest there was a dark, dark house. “  It has no plot, no characters, and completely fails when it’s not whispered by the campfire at night.  This, too, is baggage.

 Speaking of favourite horror stories, are there any female horror writers or characters you particularly admire?

Mrs Radcliffe!!  In fact, most of the original Gothic horror writers.  They changed the borders of our worlds, made them more interesting in so many ways.  The vast majority of them were very pedestrian writers, but they pushed boundaries and made walls porous.

It's time for another cup of tea, so we'll leave it there for now. Thank you very much for coming by Gillian. It was a pleasure chatting with you.

With February just about over, that's our last interview for Women In Horror Month. It's certainly not the last from me, however. As the launch of Baggage draws closer, you can expect to hear a lot more from me about the anthology. That is, if Sharyn doesn't have her stereo turned up too loud.

It may be a weekend, but there's no rest for the wicked here at the Eneit Press offices. Today I'm in the company of a strong cup of tea and author Stephanie Gunn. Stephanie has published a number of short stories, some poetry and is also a keen reviewer. She has managed to sneak some time away from being a new mum to join me here this morning.

Hi Stephanie. Welcome to Elizabeth's Corner. Now before we get started, there is one vital question I ask all my guests: do you prefer tea or coffee (or do you prefer something else entirely...)?

I'm definitely a coffee girl, though I'm a fan of caffeine in general
(especially chocolate).

I've been really lucky to have served on the judging panel for the Australian Shadows Awards last year, and previously on the horror panel of the Aurealis Awards, so I've gotten to read a good amount of horror and dark fiction published in those years.  One thing that needs to be said is that the quality of dark fiction published in Australia has improved vastly over the years.  It's been particularly
amazing reading for the Australian Shadows Awards, since there was an incredible amount of good work published last year.

I've been a huge fan of Kaaron Warren's work for a while and was completely taken with "Slights", and I've recently been extremely impressed with Felicity Dowker's short fiction, as well as Gillian Polack's novel "Life Through Cellophane" and Deborah Biancotti's "Book of Endings".

While perhaps not strictly horror, Tansy Raynor Roberts' "Siren Beat" was also incredible.

I'd better let you head off now, Stephanie. Motherhood sounds like it's keeping you exceptionally busy. Thankyou again for taking the time to stop by.

It's great to hear Stephanie mention Gillian Polack in the list of authors that have recently impressed her because Gillian is our final guest for Women In Horror Month. Please stop by and have a listen as I ask her about her most recent novel, Life Through Cellophane.

I was so amused to hear Sharyn put Horror Movie by the Skyhooks on the stereo yesterday that I asked her to put it on again today for our next Women In Horror Month interview. This morning Amanda Pillar, editor extraordinaire, has stopped by to answer a few questions. Amanda has co-edited a number of anthologies, including Voices, Grant's Pass and, most recently, The Phantom Queen Awakens.

 Welcome Amanda! Thank you for joining me this morning. I'd just like to start with one vital question I ask all my guests: do you prefer tea or coffee?

I like tea... I am addicted to Pepsi Max, though.

Well, it's perhaps a little early in the morning for Pepsi Max, so I hope you don't mind tea for the time being. While we're waiting for it to brew, can you tell me what is it you love about the genre of horror and how it inspires your writing and editing?

I found my passion for horror fiction after branching out from urban fantasy. With horror fiction, it’s not just the scary aspect that intrigues me; it’s the questions it raises about the nature of humanity that captures my interest.

How would someone react when faced with a certain scenario? Could a human do something horrible and live with it? What happens when the so-called ‘horrific’ characters act more humane than the humans do?

Horror isn’t gore and blood. Grants Pass, a post apocalyptic collection I edited with Jennifer Brozek, actually branches into the horror genre through its discussion of humanity and human interaction.

 A woman after my own heart! I confess I adore the Black Jewels trilogy too.

Well, thank you again for taking some time out to chat, Amanda. Best of luck with the thesis and the new anthology.

 Tomorrow's guest for Women In Horror Month is author Stephanie Gunn. Feel free to stop by and listen as she talks about juggling writing and motherhood. I promise there'll be fresh tea.

It's a gloomy morning outside the Eneit Press office windows--the perfect atmosphere for hosting today's guest, horror writer Kaaron Warren. Kaaron is an award winning author who has just had her second novel Walking the Tree published by Angry Robot, a new imprint of Harper Collins. She's a fascinating lady with a streak of curiosity that's a mile wide, and I'm very excited to have her here this morning.

Good morning, Kaaron. Thank you so much for stopping by at Elizabeth's Corner. I'm a well known tea addict and loved your line in "Hive of Glass" about tea being instinctive. So, the most important question first: do you prefer tea or coffee?

I like coffee in the morning, tea in the evening. I also rather like warm milk with malt and honey!

Ooo... that does sound good. I wonder if I can get Sharyn to buy some malt for the kitchen...

Leaving beverage preferences aside for the moment, what about preferences in horror? You've said previously that the human form of dark fiction is your favourite. What is it about this that fascinates you?

I've never really been able to answer this question. My fascination is almost instinctive, it really is. I prefer a bad ending in a story to a happy one, perhaps because there is more surprise that way.

I've spoken before about a story which resonated with me when I was a child, about a young man murdering his sister. I can still remember the way it was described; her skull cracked open. These are the stories I remember and want to write about.

Celia Fremlin, Daphne du Maurier, Lisa Tuttle and Gemma Files are four favourite writers. Fremlin and du Maurier were greatly influential early in my career, when I was finding my voice. It was wonderful to read the horrifying novels they wrote, based in reality, about the depths of human nature and also the possiblities beyond the normal.

 Well, thank you for coming by, Kaaron. I know things are busy and I really appreciate you taking the time to stop by here. Sharyn's got your coffee ready in the kitchen. Don't mind the 70s Australian rock.

Continuing with Women In Horror Month, we have the lovely Amanda Pillar in to tell us a little about her work editing horror anthologies. Feel free to stop by for a listen. I might have some of that warm milk and malt ready to try.