Ah, the humanity

Chuffed to hear my story, Six Suicides, one of the newbies in A Book of Endings, has scored an Australian Shadows Award for best short fiction! Says judge Bill Congreve, “I eventually chose “Six Suicides” because of its character, style, structure and simple humanity.” Aw, shucks! Finally someone notices I have some humanity. See? It’s not all death & destruction at chateau deborahb.

I’m really chuffed to see Six Suicides take out an award. I figured of all the stories this was the least ‘genre’, & therefore the least likely to get any attention. (I had an entire scenario in my head where someone would point a finger & cry, “This story has no genre!” And all through the empire people would roar, “The child is right! This story is WITHOUT GENRE!” And there would be hell to pay. Thankfully, this hasn’t happened. If anything, it’s been pointed out to me now that I was wrong: the story had a fine genre all along!)

A Book of Endings was also mentioned by judge Martin Livings in the long fiction category — ably won by the excellent Kaaron Warren! — as “an absolute treat for anyone who likes their short fiction dark and unique, simultaneously intellectual and visceral, sometimes so opaque to be all but impenetrable, but always satisfying and enjoyable“.

And kudos to Jennifer Brozek & Amanda Pillar for their award-winning editorship of Grants Pass from Morrigan Books: an indie press we want to see more from!

A Book of Endings. Be part of the story, buy a copy now. Help me sell this sucker out!