February Update

Life comes at us fast sometimes. One minute I’m putting together slides for my workshop at the Queensland Writers Centre next week, and the next I’m arranging for my daughter to come up for a couple of days to assist me while I have a procedure done in hospital under twilight sedation.

Long story short it’s nothing terminal or morbid or anything, it was just a very early melanoma. But I wasn’t aware that this tiny circular piece of pigmentation on my cheek would require a massive incision to avoid nasty scarring!

So it’s been skin check, biopsy, booking into surgery, and at the same time the optometrist referred me to an ophthalmologist because I may have glaucoma and need laser surgery or cataracts (that didn’t happen, my eyes are fine. For now.)

I have the juiciest black eye you have ever seen. My friends and family rallied around me but it’s been a tough couple of weeks negotiating this while I was getting the self-publishing business back into motion, and preparing for Genrecon.

All good now! To work!

Genrecon Giveaway Prize Winners

Queensland Writers Centre were kind enough to give me a couple of tickets to Genrecon to give away, so congratulations to Sue Johnston and Stephen Scott on their wins. I wish they’d given me more tickets!

Genrecon is next weekend the 21st and 22nd of February at the Thomas Dixon Centre in West End, Brisbane, and it will be a great deal of fun. I’ll be hosting a discussion as well as appearing in a couple of panels – black eye and all.

Rights Reversion Issues

When the rights for ‘Dark Heavens’ revert to me, I will have to rush to re-jacket, re-edit, re-typeset and re-publish the entire series. Until then, the books will completely disappear from all outlets – and all of my reviews will disappear as well.

Unfortunately the upshot of this is that it will probably take me about six months to release new editions, and in the meantime I won’t have anything to sell at Perth and Adelaide Oz Comic-Con. I’ll definitely be attending the cons later in the year (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane) but I don’t think I’ll have any books to sell for the first half of this year!

I will keep you updated on the process. Wish me luck I can find a cover designer who is both good and affordable.

The University of Canberra students will be returning in March, so watch this space for updates on their progress in Professional Practice 2.

New Novella: ‘Her Two Kings’

I’ve started a new novella about Jade’s shameless flaunting of Celestial protocol by dating two men in a new novella called ‘Her Two Kings’, and anyone with a $1+ Patreon account is already reading extracts!