lou anders looks like the coolest guy you could ever meet. even his comic-book likeness looks like the coolest guy you could ever meet. what’s worse, he pretty much is the coolest guy you could ever meet – smart, funny and all of the good stuff. he and his family just got some good news, and i just wanted to wish all three of them well. it’s a beautiful thing.

well, great news. robin pen & rob hood’s anthology daikaiju is the #1 bestseller over at projectpulp. go over, check it out, marvel at the sheer pulpiness of it all. most of all, buy it before it goes out of print. supplies are limited. honest!

i gave marianne a digital camera for christmas. it took us a while to get it hooked up. here are a few early samples… apologies, btw, for the dominance of photos of sophie. it just turned out that way today.

i didn’t see this when it first came out, but lisa goldstein has revealed that she has written two novels as isabel glass, the second of which is due in july.

it’s definitely begun. stories have started to trickle in, all sparkly and new, and ready to read. a pile is forming in the study. reading to do. sadly, the stupid email address isn’t working, so if you find it all coming unstuck email me at jstrahan at iinet dot net dot au with your submission. it’ll be cool, and i’ll take care of it. apologies for any inconvenience.

it’s definitely a lowercase kind of morning, though there have been nice things. read gavin’s story, and it’s very cool. gavin is such a nice guy, and is partnered up with an equally nice person who’s also a terrific writer, that it’s easy to overlook that he’s a great writer himself. checkiddout.

what else? the young adult sf book continues to morph, twist, change and evolve as the submissions come in. i started the book with a particular vision, but it began to change as i read each subsequent story. there are still a bunch of stories (hi writers!) due in, so it’ll change more. just typing that made me happy.

this has been an interesting year. i’ve been tired a lot, run down running after kids and so on, but i’ve become a lot clearer about what i’m doing and why, which is good. i think by the time i’ve fulfilled all of the contracts i have and set up the next round (fingers crossed) i may actually have my own thoughts on it under control.

the main thing i’ve been working on is keeping an open mind about what i’m doing. it’s easy to be overwhelmed, rundown and worn out reading. at times every new book through the front door feels like a threat, every story seems like a chore, and you feel like you know where it’s going, before you even start. but that’s going away, slowly. reading jeff ford’s girl in the glass helped, so does reading macleod’s the summer isles. how can you read ‘some zombie contingency plans’ and not smile? even analog is starting to look good. rich says it’s having a golden year, and that’s worth listening to.

if i were to summarise, i’d say that these are good times that haven’t quite felt like good times, but i’m getting there. and what’s coming up? well, i really want to get trish sullivan’s new book from orbit, and gwyneth jones’ new one. i hear death cab for cutie’s transatlanticism is good. i am going to get that ipod, go to melbourne, and wisconsin. it’s all working out. maybe i should read some hard sf. that’d be good. bye now.