Selkies in the storm-tossed seas

Friends, readers, book lovers - lend us your eyes.

We like announcements. And some time ago we made an announcement about Margo Lanagan. So, delighted we were to see that Adelaide Writer's Week has made an announcement about Margo too:

It is a great honour to dedicate Adelaide Writers’ Week 2012 to Margo Lanagan, a writer of extraordinary intellect and imagination.

 Hurrah!

And look! Look how clever and articulate and utterly winning Margo is as she talks about her brilliant new novel Sea Hearts.

This has been the Alien Onions .... with, let's face it, a bit of a crush now, actually.

Monday Stuff and Items

1) According to the British Library, this is the earliest known picture of a time machine! The Out of This World exhibition at the BL looks fabulous. What a happy coincidence it is that at least two Onions will be in London in the next month or so. We'll send you a postcard.

2) Way back when it was much warmer than it is now, Margo Lanagan found her brilliant book Tender Morsels at the centre of an unexpected storm.

But as so often happens, the clouds dispersed and the skies cleared. Herewith very interesting discussions about Tender Morsels over at the Bitch Media YA Book Club.

3) Jonathan Walker offers a fascinating insight into his illuminated novel, Five Wounds, over at The Spectator.

4) Meanwhile at Readings Holly Harper is waxing fairytale about The Wilful Eye, while Hugless Douglas is cosying up to A Pocketful of Eyes.

5) And in awards news - HOORAY for Zombies vs Unicorns and for our Oscar-owning Astrid Lindgren Award winner Shaun Tan - both finalists in the 2011 Locus Awards.


6)

A library is many things. It's a place to go, to get in out of the rain. It's a place to go if you want to sit and think. But particularly it is a place where books live, and where you can get in touch with other people, and other thoughts, through books... Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together---just the two of you.

This is an excerpt from EB White's letter to the children of Troy, on the opening of their new library in 1971. He was responding to a request from the new (and clearly completely genius) librarian for a letter to enthuse the children. Read the full story, and some of the other fabulous replies (including from Isaac Asimov and Dr Seuss) at the Letters of Note blog.

Pick-me-ups

Sometimes in the aftermath of earthquakes and tsunamis and floods and countries or nuclear reactors teetering on the brink of meltdown, we all need a good pick-me-up. And often it's hard to identify exactly what pick-me-up might work.

The glorious weather in Melbourne at the moment might be enough - especially after the summer-that-never-was. Or maybe a slice of the Cake-Maker Virtuoso's spectacular Rhubarb upside-down cake might do it. Or a nice crunchy new season apple. Or a one-point win for your football team in the opening round of the season. Or a good book (I wonder if there are any of those around here?). Or of course, that old fall back, a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down.

But if none of these are working for you, here are some items that might just do the trick.

In Melbourne - what ho! A Children's Book Festival this weekend at The Wheeler Centre featuring loads of our favourite authors and illustrators. What an excellent idea that is. Hurrah!

In Sydney - Team Unicorn and Team Zombie are shaping up for a good old-fashion feud. Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld (Team Zombie) are set to showcase their debating prowess against the finely honed skills of Margo Lanagan and Garth Nix (Team Unicorn). So roll up, roll up to see if the score can be settled once and for all. Kick-off is at 6pm on Thursday, at Kinokuniya Bookstore.

On the interwebs - over at Meanjin Mandy Brett's wonderful essay Stet by Me: Thoughts on Editing Fiction. We are highly tempted to steal it and add it to our occasional series, What Do Editors Do All Day. Instead, we will simply say, thank you, Mandy. You made our day with this thoughtful, inspiring, eloquent and insightful essay about what it is we do all day, and why we do it.

And if for some unfathomable reason these items don't float your boat, perhaps what you need is a goodly dose of Maru.

Awardy goodness

The Aurealis Awards shortlist was announced today.

And my what a pretty shortlist it is.*

Kids' fiction (primarily through words)

The Keepers 1: Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner

Kids' fiction (primarily through pictures)

Precious Little by Julie Hunt, Sue Moss and Gaye Chapman

Best illustrated book/graphic novel

Hamlet by Nicki Greenberg

Five Wounds by Jonathan Walker and Dan Hallett

Best YA short story

'A Thousand Flowers' by Margo Lanagan

from Zombies vs Unicorns Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black (eds)

Best YA novel

Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey

WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Guardian of the Dead is a Young Adult Fiction Finalist in the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards - only the most prestigious awards in all of New Zealand!

BUT DON'T STOP THERE!

Guardian of the Dead is also a finalist for the Australian Shadow Awards presented by the Australian Horror Writers Association

Huge congratulations, to Karen - and to Lian, Julia, Sue, Gaye, Nicki, Jonathan, Dan and Margo!

Woo hoo!!

*Editors bat their eyelashes becomingly in the direction of the shortlist*

A bit of shush, please, we have an announcement...

Margo Lanagan is a superstar!

The World Fantasy Awards are the most prestigious awards in the speculative fiction genre. And Margo Lanagan now has four of them. Count them. Four.

What a good idea - let's count them then, shall we?

1. The 2005 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story

for 'Singing My Sister Down' which, as we have noted before, has a very special place in our hearts.

2. The 2005 World Fantasy Award for Best Collection

for Black Juice.

3. The 2009 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel

for Tender Morsels.

And 4! 4! 4! 4!

4. The 2010 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella

for Sea-Hearts.

Sea-Hearts was first published in X6 - A Novellanthology, edited by Keith Stevenson. It's a tender and beautiful selkie story, quivering with love, magics and heartbreak. As Margo says, it is 'soaked in tears and sea-water'.

OUTSTANDING! Congratulations, Margo. Huge congratulations.

But wait, there's more. Well, there will be. Margo is currently hard at work transforming the Sea-Hearts novella into a novel. We are so excited about this we can barely breathe. In fact, the only thing keeping us breathing is this gorgeous cover for Yellowcake which is Margo's next collection of short stories.*

* So so spooky and beautiful. And, yes, there's a little bit of waiting for this one too, because it's not published until March, but March is not far away, people. After all, it's almost Christmas time. Oh, dear, did we say that out loud?

Friday stuff and items

1. Fresh from last weekends Graphic festival at the Sydney Opera House, for your viewing and listening pleasure herewith a 13-part interview with the ever-popular author and storyteller Neil Gaiman.

2. Regular readers will remember that recently we issued a warm and appreciative shout out to Margo Lanagan's 'Singing my Sister Down'. Well, for all you Sydneysiders (or even for folks visitng Sydney in the next week or so), LOOK! LOOK! 'Singing My Sister Down' has hit the stage! Margo advises you take a hankie - we concur. We completely concur.

3. Fiction Focus has alerted us to some very good news indeed. Two years of WA Premier's shortlists for the price of one, featuring Shaun Tan's Tales from Outer Suburbia and Justine Larbalestier's Liar. Hoorays and hurrahs!

4. The French edition of Celine Kiernan's The Poison Throne gets some mighty royal book-trailer treatment.

Le Royaume empoisonné, Les Moorehawke*, de Celine Kiernan
Uploaded by Orbit_Books.

5. And speaking of All Things Moorehawke and Otherwise: Onions! On the internets!

A shout out to 'Singing My Sister Down'

Decision days. You know the ones. Those days that stop you in your tracks. Or propel you forward when you have stalled. Or keep you on track when you are contemplating a U-turn. The days where something really HAPPENS. Usually something unexpected, and when you cast your thoughts back to the time before the something happened, you wonder how differently life may have unfolded...

For me, Margo Lanagan's 'Singing My Sister Down' played the lead role in one of those days. It's the first story in Margo's superb collection of short stories, Black Juice.


To characterise 'Singing My Sister Down' as a gem is an understatement of grand proportions. It's a story that lures you in and then quietly tears you apart. It stays with you, haunting you with its beauty, its fine balance, and its breathtaking tragedy.

I first read it in manuscript form just over seven years ago. I was between jobs and toying with the idea of veering away from editing and into sports journalism. And then I read 'Singing My Sister Down'.

Everything else evaporated. It was a dramatic moment. I sat on the sofa in my friend's lounge room, with my recently reconstructed knee supported by a pile of pillows, and held the manuscript pages to my chest, and wept.

I read it again, hands shaking, eyes blurred. 'Singing My Sister Down' made it impossible for me to veer anywhere. It took hold of me and swept me into the House of Onion.

If you haven't read it, do. It may not be the catalyst for a decision day for you, but you won't ever forget it. Truly.

Thank you, Margo. For the gift of 'Singing My Sister Down', and everything that followed.

Tempus certainly does fugit

Onions: Oh hai. Look over there*!
Blog readers: Oh why. What’s over there?
Onions: Well, certainly more than what’s been over here lately.

We’d like to take this moment to apologise, dear readers.

We have neglected you. We have had very much of the busyness and the pressing deadlines and the post-Bologna-preparations catch-up of everything we had to let slide while we made dummies and updated blurbs and synopses and waxed lyrical about our forthcoming books so our wonderful Publisher & Rights people had plenty of gold to draw upon when they pitch our fabulous books at short sharp meetings with eager agents and publishers from around the world. Go little books go. Storm that castle.

Deep breath. And another one.

Because there is also this:




One Onion is on the eve of a rather intrepid outing. There will be mountains. There will be trekking. There will be much in the manner of new and exciting experiences.

And so, there has been much tidying of matters, meeting of pre-departure deadlines, peoples to contact, books to keep on track, lists to tick off, hiking boots to wear in.**

So, dear reader, we ask that you forgive us for our radio silence. We will recover our stride. Yes we will.

Yours faithfully,

Onions



*And over there you will find that Spike is discussing something dear to our hearts indeed - Tender Morsels (in its new Shaun Tan finery) and dark YA.
** And a certain amount of delegating to be done, too, we can't help but notice, mutters a stay-at-home colleague.

World Fantasy Awards Ahoy!

And the nominees are...

Look!
It's our Margo and our Shaun (twice!) and our* Neil (again with the twice!).

HOORAY! WOOT! HURRAH!



* Okay, so he's not officially ours, but as we do with Harry, we are ever-delighted to usher him into the always-welcoming hands of Oz readers on Bloomsbury's behalf.

Bragging, bestowing, baking, browsing

1) The Guardian is saying nice things about Shaun Tan!
(But they failed to add that Shaun is a master at Wii Tennis and Wii Skiing. A fact that we, with our competitive natures dented somewhat, know to be true.)


2) The Scarygirl competition prize will be awarded tomorrow so get your entry in - because who knows there might be a second prize...


3) In exciting cake news: there were a record number of entries in the mothership's Annual Sydney Bake Off. Nom nom! Drool, drool!



Unfortunately neither the Cake-maker-in-waiting nor the Cake-maker-in-waiting's understudy were able to enter as the courier company could not guarantee the cakes would arrive at their prize-winning best. So we could only drool from afar.

Looks like they would have had some stiff competition, and the judges from How To Shuck an Oyster* had a tough task deciding on a winner (possibly hampered by a sugar-induced coma).


4) Books I Done Read has a hoot interviewing Margo Lanagan about Tender Morsels.



* We believe that no actual oysters were shucked in the course of preparations of bake-off items.

Let off all the fireworks, ring all the bells, blow all the trumpets...

There is manifold Celebration in the House of Onion.

Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan has won the 2008 Aurealis Award for Best Illustrated/Graphic Novel.

The Judges said:
'Tales from Outer Suburbia was a standout that was chosen unanimously by the judges as this year's winner. The writing and artwork are tremendously accomplished and come together magically. A truly marvellous example of how text, image and layout can come together to make up a great deal more than the sum of their parts.'

We say: Well done, Shaun!



Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan is a 2009 Printz Honour Book.

The judges said:

'In utterly original language, Lanagan re-imagines “Snow White and Rose Red” and explores the brutality and beauty of life.'

We say: Hooray for Margo! *



The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman has won the 2009 Newbery Medal .

The judges said: 'A delicious mix of murder, fantasy, humor and human longing, the tale of Nobody Owens is told in magical, haunting prose.'

We say: Three cheers for Neil!

* And well done Melina Marchetta for winning the Printz. Go Aussie!