Jane Rawson's Blog, page 13

Australian Women Writers challenge 2014: not that hard

So this year I thought I’d take part in the Australian Women Writers challenge which is, thankfully, a reading rather than a writing challenge. I realised that last year I read 13 Australian women writers without even trying, so thought I’d promise to read 10 this year. It’s not even February and i’m through five already, and it makes me wonder why a challenge like this even had to be set up. There’s some damn good Aussie sheilas writing stuff out there! You might as well read some of it.

If you want to see what I’m planning to read, or have read, have a look here. If you want to sign up too, go here. And I’d love suggestions for other books I should read.

I am officially Sci-Fi

I could not be more stoked to have been short-listed for the Aurealis Award for best Science Fiction novel of 2013. Thanks, Aurealis! I feel pretty privileged to have “Wrong Turn” listed as a sci-fi book, and proud I held my fake universe together well enough that someone thought it worthy of inclusion. Hoping to write much more speculative stuff in future…

Such a kind review

Thanks so much to leatherboundpounds for a just really lovely review on her blog. Makes me want to press on! And that she is a lover of libraries too…

Other people’s books

I like to keep track of what I’ve read each year on Goodreads, because otherwise I tend to forget and accidentally read the same things twice. This year I read 62 books (and started another two that I didn’t finish). I think that’s probably too much reading, and I should consider doing a few other things, like writing, or playing my clarinet, or knitting, or seeing my friends… In November, when I said I wasn’t reading anything so I could concentrate on writing, I see I read three books (but they were all non-fiction, so that doesn’t count, right?). In August I read 10. That’s just ridiculous. Anyway, out of all of them, these were the ones I enjoyed most. In the spirit of end-of-year list-making, these are the books I had the best time reading in 2013:

- Bruno Kramzer by AS Patric (this guy should be on the lists of more important people: he’s superb)
- The Swan Book by Alexis Wright
- Eeeee Eee Eeee by Tao Lin
- HHhH by Laurent Binet
- Tenth of December by George Saunders
- The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
- The Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St Aubyn (cheating a bit there)
- Letters to the End of Love by Yvette Walker 
- Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser
- Summer of Hate by Chris Kraus

Because your kiss (your kiss) is on my list…

or my book is on your list, or something. I made some “best reads of 2013″ lists, and that is nice. Readings put me on their 50 great reads by Australian women authors for 2013 (were there more than 50 Australian women authors in 2013? I guess we’ll never know). The Australian’s delightful Ed Wright chucked me on his list alongside George RR Martin, Jennifer Egan and Poppy Gee, which was pretty damn fab. And a reliable source in the city of churches tells me I made the Adelaide Advertiser’s list, but sadly I can find no corroborating evidence online: could just be an ugly rumour.

the Big Time: Melbourne Writers Festival

I’m going to read a bit from my novel at the Melbourne Writers Festival on Friday August 30. It’s not the most glamorous time: 10am on a Friday, when you should either be at work or asleep. But I’ll be keeping some glamorous company, including Tao Lin: all his other

On tour in Canberra

I’m doing a couple of readings this week in Canberra. On Thursday night I’m at Electric Shadows Bookshop with Lucy Neave and Christie Thompson, talking about our debut novels and reading bits of each of them (maybe we should all read each others…). On Friday night I’m going to talk a bit about imagination at Paperchain Bookstore and do a short reading. It’s all free, but I think they both like RSVPs.

Want to know how to be a good Egyptian?

Come to Colour Box studio in Footscray on August 6. Once you’ve learned, you can also listen to me read from my novel.

I’ve said some mean things about The Australian in my time

but I may have to take them all back. Today Ed Wright compared me to Paul Auster, Peter Carey, Neil Gaiman and Cervantes and I have to say I am mighty chuffed.

A bookshop? In Footscray? Must’ve escaped from a zoo…

Footscrayvians and other westies, get down to Colour Box Studio before the end of August and enjoy their top-notch pop up bookshop. Oh yeah, they have my book. And I’m going to do a reading some time in August.