Exciting News!

Hi Everyone

First of all, apologies for the long silence since my time overseas. After arriving back from the UK and USA, I became caught up in various projects, teaching work, family obligations and other commitments. Time, as it does when one is really busy, flew quickly and six months passed before I realised I hadn't updated you all on my novel and other work. So, here it is.

Now for my exciting news! My poetry collection manuscript, entitled Libation, has been accepted for publication by Ginninderra Press in South Australia. I found out a couple of weeks ago and I am now reviewing the manuscript before sending an electronic version to Ginninderra. Once it is received, it goes into their production queue and eight to ten months later I'll receive the proofs. I'll keep you in the loop about the likely publication date, which I expect will be in about a year's time.

As for my dark ages novel, I only finished about 75% of the third draft while overseas, with the rest of the draft taking a couple of months. I then sent it out to a few beta readers and a month or two later received their feedback. As is always the case when people who are not as close to a text as the writer is, my beta readers gave me valuable information about what was working in the manuscript and what didn't work or needed more clarification. I had hoped to have the manuscript ready for the ASA Literary Speed Reading event in June but, after receiving the feedback, I knew I had much more work to do. I did attend the 'Pitching for Publishing' session at the Emerging Writers' Festival, at which I garnered ideas for submission strategies and a list of likely publishers to approach for my verse novel.

In other news, I also have had some smaller pieces accepted/published:

• An article, 'The Tension Between Authenticity and Validity', published in Into Another World, which can be read here.
• Two haiku published on the Asahi Haikuist Network, which can be read here and here.
• One of these two haiku, 'the birds and I', was selected and commented on by Simon Hanson for the Australian Haiku Society, which is available here.
• A haiku has been accepted for publication in Windfall #6, which should be available in a couple of months.

That's about it on the news front. I'm slowly working my way through the issues on the novel brought up by my beta readers and willl let you know how things go when I start the fourth draft.

I hope you enjoyed this post. As always, I welcome your comments.

Best Wishes

Earl