Margo Lanagan's collection of short stories, Black Juice, is getting a lot of coverage around the traps: Rob Gerrand, editor of The Best Australian Science Fiction Writing, mentioned that he enjoyed both this collection and her previous one White Time; and just the other day my 12-year-old daughter asked after it as she has had the book recommended in her English class. Getting your book onto school reading lists must be a huge boon to any Australian writer.
A while back I found that Locus has included the collection in their list of Recommended Reading for 2004 in the sf and fantasy fields, and the following storieswere highlighted: "Earthly Uses", "Red Nose Day", "Rite of Spring", and "Singing My Sister Down". And now I find that "Singing My Sister Down" has been nominated for a World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction, and the book as Best Collection.
All in all this is an impressive sequence. But if that isn't enough, you can find out from the lady herself how she feels about all this on her new weblog, Among Amid Awhile. She's not actually there as I write as she's attending the Byron Bay Writers' Festival. Expect her back next week. The news she does impart is that she is working on a new novel, and that her next collection of stories will be titled Red Spikes.
