I've been incredibly busy this last couple of months. I was engaged in a lot of reviewing for The Perth Festival, the Fringe Festival and the Writers Festival, and I also managed to fit in a weekend belly dance intensive!

The busy-ness is not over yet - I have two more shows to review in the next ten days. (You can read my reviews, BTW, over at Artshub.) Then of course, comes Swancon, the annual Perth SF convention. It is always held over the Easter weekend and attracts a lot of fans from interstate as well as local ones. I am particularly excited this time, because my short story 'La Belle Dame' has been shortlisted for the Best WA Professional Short Written Work section of the Tin Duck Awards. (OK, have a giggle - but the Tin Ducks are WA's state awards for SF and to be shortlisted is considered quite an achievement.) I'm pleased to see several of my friends and writing colleagues shortlisted, too, in various categories. Juliet Marillier has two books shortlisted in the Best WA Professional Long Written Work section, along with Joanna Fay, Adrian Bedford and Dane Richter. Joanna also has a short story up against mine, as does fellow Egoboo member Sarah Lee Parker. There are two other excellent contenders in this section - Martin Livings and Stephanie Gunn. It could be a close call -  may the best story win!

You can read 'La Belle Dame' in Mythic Resonance, now available as an e-book on Amazon for only $3.99. The print run is just about sold out, but I still have a few copies for sale. Leave a comment below or find me on Facebook if you're interested. Mythic Resonance contains 13 top-class stories, mostly derived from myths, legends or folk / fairy-tales.

I'm also on the list for best fan production for my work as Reviews Editor for The Specusphere. This is a nice bit of recognition for the eight years I've spent in this voluntary post, and is especially poignant because The Specusphere closed down just last week. We were all worn out, I think, and especially our webmistress, Amanda Greenslade, who now has a business to run, with two young children at her feet!

Vale Specusphere. It served a very useful place in the Aussie spec-fic scene and won a lot of respect for its reviews and articles. However, there are several other webzines that will, I am sure, close the gap left by 'The Spec'.

Hard on the heels of Swancon come the 6th IPEd National Editors Conference and the national SF convention, this year to be held at Conflux in Canberra. I shall be on panels at both these events, and I'm really looking forward to catching up with interstate colleagues in both editing and writing.

So the year doesn't look like getting any less busy! I'll try to keep you posted by blogging all these events.