The Eminent Resident of Old Canberra Town
For the month of September, I will be in Canberra as the 2016 ACT Writer-in-Residence, an initiative of the ACT Writers Centre in collaboration with the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House.
What does this mean? It means I’ll be lurking about the nation’s capitol, hanging with local writers, and researching a new book – a counterfactual involving Douglas Mawson, Australia’s Federation, and a Martian fighting machine that got lost on the way to The War of the Worlds. Fun!
There will be public events as part of the residency. Some are locked down (see below). Some of them remain fuzzily indeterminate. The latter include a public event at Old Parliament House and a chance to chat one-on-one, kaffeeklatch style. I’ll post the details here as they coalesce.
If you happen to be in the area, come say hi!
Book Launch – In Your Face
- Join the publisher and contributing authors (including me) for a celebration of Australia’s most bolshie anthology. Link: A Bite to Eat, September 17, 3pm
Stranger than Fiction – Light in the Dark?
- Come hear me, Kaaron Warren, and Sulari Gentill chat about balancing humour and grimdark to make fiction really pop. Link: Muse, September 25, 3pm
Talk at Old Parliament House
- Kaaron Warren and I chat about the 10.5 Commandments of writing, the life of a resident, and what I’m doing here in Canberra anyway: Old Parliament House, September 29, 4-5pm (conveniently before Garth Nix’s event at the National Library later that night)
Conflux
- I’ll be lurking about all weekend in a semiofficial capacity. More on that soon. Link: September 30-October 3
(Image: Old Parliament House enhanced by Google Deep Dream‘s Night Sky option)