It’s winter down here and most of the Orbit Antipodean’s are in writing hibernation.

Sean Williams , however, stepped out of his cave to accept the Peter McNamara Award for Excellence at The Australian National Convention in Adelaide. The Peter Mac is awarded at the discretion of the convenors for a particular achievement in speculative fiction or related areas. This award may take into account a body of work or achievements over a number of years; it can also be for a work of non-fiction, artwork, electronic or multimedia work, film or TV, or that which brings credit or attention to the speculative fiction genres. The award was originally known as the Convenors’ Award for Excellence and was renamed in 2002 after Peter McNamara (d 2004), publisher, editor and the original Aurealis Awards convenor, shortly after he was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Ian Irvine  is working furiously on the first book of his new fantasy trilogy for Orbit, which he will be delivering later this year. The first book of his Well of Echoes quartet, Die Geomantin, is now out in Germany with the others to appear at four-month intervals. And The Destiny of the Dead, the final in Ian’s Song of the Tears trilogy and in his 11-book Three Worlds sequence (for now) has been well received. This from SFX: “Unbelievably, Ian Irvine has managed to increase the pace in this final volume in the Song of the Tears series… For sheer excitement, there’s just no one else like Ian Irvine around at the moment.”

Glenda Larke says she is starting on the last book of The Stormlord Trilogy, and wondering if she will pull off the miracle of meeting a deadline. Fortunately, both her agent’s and her editor’s response to Book Two was so good, she is inspired… At least, she is hoping her desire to write seven days a week is caused by inspiration, and not appalled desperation at the thought of completing 180,000 words in six months.

We’re all terribly excited about Trent Jamieson’s signing. Trent already has a fine reputation as one of Australia’s premier short story writers, and his move to long form has been long awaited. This series will be a treat!

I’ve just got back from the Supanova Pop Expo road trip where I met a bunch of inspiring actors, writers and comic artists (including having a fan girl attack and scoring my own signed copy of Watchmen from Dave Gibbons),and am hunkered down finishing Transformation Space (book 4 of the Sentients of Orion)  for all those readers who came to the Borders stall and asked me about it.

See you next month

MDP