2023.02
Awards News!!! Also: two appearances next month (Unquiet Spirits + Clunes Booktown), the IndyReads chat now online, my Escape Pod reprint, and...a deleted scene from EVERY VERSION OF YOU?
Stella Prize Longlist + NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Shortlist!
I’ve melted into a puddle! Every Version of You has been shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and longlisted for the Stella Prize. I’m so grateful to the judging teams for both awards (it’s such an incredible effort to critically read and evaluate hundreds of submissions). Honestly, I never imagined that my geeky, earnest sci-fi novel would stand a chance—and I’m just over the moon to see speculative fiction on these lists.
Every Version of You is also eligible for the People’s Choice Award. If you liked my book, please consider voting for me. It only takes a minute, and you might win a prize pack of all the shortlisted books!
Clunes Booktown Festival
I’m very excited to be at Clunes Booktown Festival in March. I’ll be on a panel with wonderful writers Angela Meyer, Else Fitzgerald, and Chris Flynn. We’ll be talking speculative fiction, through a dark lens.
Saturday March 25th 2023, 3:30pm
Clunes Town Hall
Tickets $20 (Please note you will also need a $10 festival pass purchased separately)
A Live Reading from Unquiet Spirits
Unquiet Spirits is out in the wild! Writing my personal essay for this collection was deeply challenging. I transported myself back to a childhood and adolescence spent in an evangelical Chinese church, a period of my life that simmered with guilt, yearning, bliss, communion, connection, spirits, shame, and sin.
At this reading, we’ll be sharing excerpts from our essays and talking about reclaiming voice, anger, and power. The link will be available one week before the event—please check my website or follow me on Instagram/Twitter if you’re interested! For those downunder, the event is on Saturday March 18th at 12 noon Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT).
IndyReads In Conversation
I honestly had such a great time chatting with the very kind and lovely PipMcGuiness—journalist and author of Skin Deep. The hour flew by. I only wish we’d had more time to get to the interesting questions at the end! I’m sharing the video recording here in case anyone missed out on the fun ;)
Escape Pod Reprint
He Leaps for the Stars (x2) is out now on Escape Pod and it’s everything I dreamed of and more! Andrew K Hoe’s narration is immersive and lively and just heaps of fun. Yennie is earnest, Micah is lovely, and Hespera is perfectly husky and wry. Thank you so much, Escape Pod!
Give it a listen if you haven’t. I mean, who doesn’t want a story about a K-pop idol on Enceladus, lonely yearning, deepfakes, and duplicity? :D
A Deleted Scene from Every Version of You???
Finally, as a token of gratitude to all you lovely newsletter readers, I thought I’d share a little something from the shadowy depths of my labyrinthine writing folder…a deleted scene from one of the early drafts of Every Version of You!
I’ve called it Quantum Wistfulness. It’s a scene from the middle part of the book, where Tao-Yi and Navin take a tour of Neuronetica-Somners headquarters. You get to see a bit more about the company and technology behind Gaia—and there’s some Tao-Yi/Navin sweetness in there too.
Do let me know if you enjoy it, and if you’d like to see more deleted scenes in the future!
If you’ve read this far—thank you for sharing in my good news! I’m truly grateful for the those of you who’ve been following this newsletter from its early days. And to those who’ve recently hopped on board, hello! Thank you for joining me on this wild writing thing.
Things I’m pondering as the weather mellows into autumn: hierarchies, devotion (to a cause, to another being), sacrifice, labyrinths of the mind, otherness, writing for younger audiences (two people have asked me about this in the last week!), the exquisiteness of mundane and tiny moments and gestures, and whether you can expand time with the force of intense awareness, consciousness, and presence.
Until next time,
Grace