Lift offs

June 11, 2014

earl_livings

Here is an image of Earl Livings reading his poem at the Melbourne launch of The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry. Thanks to Breanne Rodda from Interactive Publications for this photograph. I’ll be posting more images shortly.

Philip Salom launched the book at Collected Works, and about ten poets read.

Tomorrow is the Canberra launch, and after that, I’ll have a lengthier post about the launches. I’m looking forward to hearing what Kaaron Warren has to say.

My fellow editor, Tim Jones, is in Australia and has been cruelly attacked by kangaroo poo down on the south coast of NSW. I was not worried by the marsupial droppings, which obviously target visitors from New Zealand. Tim’s blog also has a brief piece on the first launch.

I am looking forward to the launch tomorrow, and to hearing more of the poems brought to life. We’ll be distributing contributors’ copies at the launch, and copies will be sent to other contributors after that. You can buy copies from the publisher or from Amazon.

Sean Williams is counting to three here.  Honestly.

Sean Williams is counting to three here. Honestly.

So who is in it?

May 22, 2014

I thought people might be interested to know who is in The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry. So here is the full list:

David Adès, Zoë Anderson, Jude Aquilina, Emilie Zoey Baker, Catherine Bateson, Eric Beach, Judith Beveridge, Jenny Blackford, Peter Boyle, John Le Gay Brereton, Sara Bruxner, joanne burns, Michael Byrne, Caroline Caddy, me, Mike Crowl, Victor J. Daley, Luke Davies, C.J. Dennis, Jake Dennis, Benjamin Dodds, Joe Dolce, Michael Dransfield, Diane Fahey, Mary Hannay Foott, Carolyn Gerrish, Kevin Gillam, Alan Gould, John Grey, Lesbian Harford, Dimitra Harvey, Ron Heard, Eliza-Jane Henry-Jones, Matt Hetherington, Paul Hetherington, Dorothy Hewett, Marilyn Humbert, Lisa Jacobson, John Jenkins, Jill Jones, Raphael Kabo, Melinda Kallasmae, S.K. Kelen, Earl Livings, Chris Lynch, Emily Manger, Catherine Martin, M.F. McAuliffe, Victoria McGrath, Jo Mills, Peter Minter, Lizz Murphy, Les Murray, Jan Napier, John Shaw Neilson, Barry O’Donahue, Jan Owen, Moya Pacey, Andrew Barton Paterson, Simon Petrie, Dorothy Porter, Craig Powell, David P. Reiter, Philip Salom, Janeen Samuel, Miro Sandev, Tim Sinclair, Alex Skovron, Melinda Smith, J. Brunton Stephens, Alan Stewart, John Tranter, John Upton, Rod Usher, Susan Waddell, Rob Walker, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Samuel Wagan Watson, Mercedes Webb-Pullman, Les Wicks, Sean Williams, SB Wright.

Rapt, I am, to unwrap such a group. Lovely pagefellows to lie between such covers:

a thing

I am really looking forward to the launches now. I’ll post the invitation posters again soon, just in case the list has inspired you to come along and hear some of that group read at either of the launches. (I copied the list by hand and eye, just to refamiliarise myself, so please excuse any typos, which are not in the book!)