Elizabeth's Corner Archives

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.