So much to celebrate!

The Melbourne Writers Festival and AussieCon 4 both featured lively and entertaining panels with many an Onion-flavoured author, and are now done and dusted for another year. Hurrahs to all who organised events, participated in panels and attended in droves.

AussieCon 4 was capped off with the presentation of the Hugo awards, brilliantly emceed by Garth Nix, a man of destiny who recognised he had big shoes to fill.* And there was much hometown delight and pride when Shaun Tan got the gong (or Rocket-ship shaped trophy as it were) for Best Professional Artist. Hooray!

Speaking of delight and pride, how delighted and proud are we that Shaun Tan's Tales from Outer Suburbia and Justine Larbalestier's Liar both won their categories in the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards?
Extremely. Delighted. Very. Very. Proud.

But wait, there's more! Inkys! Inkys! Inkys! Inkys! What a lovely longlist it is, especially as it features:

• Going Bovine by Libba Bray
• The Poison Throne by Celine Kiernan
• Liar by Justine Larbalestier
• Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey

So let us have cake!

That's a gluten-free Orange Cardamom and Almond Cake with Orange-Blossom Yogurt, dear readers.

The Cake-maker Virtuoso reports that while the recipe instructed that two oranges be used, she only had one, so she boldly added two mandarins that proved to contain many, many seeds for removal. Being from Gourmet Traveller, the recipe also called for extremely fancy candied orange segments to be arranged on top, but she courageously said 'Pooh to all that Simon Johnson nonsense,' seized an orange, tore long, snaky strips off it with her zester, dipped them daringly (with tweezers) into boiling sugar syrup and coated them in caster sugar. They dried delightfully overnight, and the leftover orange-scented sugar syrup now awaits an opportunity for inclusion in an appropriate cocktail - waste not, want not, friends. Waste not, want not.**



* Check out Garth's opening address for revelations about the moment when his destiny became apparent, the actual owner of the shoes and a hobbit cameo.
** Speaking of wanting, is it cocktail hour yet?