Feel that you’d like to write but can’t face a 1500 word short story, let alone a 60,000 word novel? Try 50 (yes, fifty) words. No more excuses! http://www.tangents.co.uk/50words/.

Unfortunately the site is no longer accepting submissions, maybe we should start a similar idea on Wellington Writers? What do you think?

Hah, I knew that snappy line would catch you eye. I hasten to add that it’s not my sentiment, it’s the title of a play coming to the Downstage Theatre in Wellington in September. Billed as an ‘anarchic and insightful satire upon contemporary politics’, it sounds like a timely state of the nation rant with PowerPoint providing the mise en scene. Apparently it played to full houses in Bats Theatre which means about ten people saw it every night but don’t be disheartened. If the production is half as compelling as the title then it must be worth seeing. And in the pre-election bore-fest, all comedy should be encouraged and endorsed. Endorse! Starting Sept 20, $25 per hale and hearty voter. Click here for more info. And the protagonist is a male, in case you were wondering.

Here’s a thought. Goodbooks offer you a chance to indulge your favourite pasttime and do some good at the same time (it’s a bit like Fair Trade coffee I guess). Every time you buy a book from them, they donate all of the profits to Oxfam (and there’s free delivery). They also sell music and audiobooks.

I was delighted to find an advance copy of AUP New Poets 3 (in a vibrant apple green) in my letter box yeserday. I’m one of the authors, along with Katherine Liddy and Reihana Robinson. Copies should hit the shops on 11 August 2008.

Here’s a synopsis:
“This is the third book in AUP’s New Poets series, which began in 1999 and has launched an oustanding range of poets. The new poets in this third volume, Janis Freegard, Katherine Liddy and Reihana Robinson, all have vastly different yet complementary styles. Freegard writes quirky and often surreal poems about a Wellington inhabited with strange animals, art and people; the humorous prose poem is a favourite vehicle but there are also serious, luminous moments in this selection, called ‘The Continuing Adventures of Alice Spider and Other Tales. Liddy is a promising young poet with an unusual interest in and ear for rhyme and rhythm. While some of her poems are texturally dense she has an impressive range and there is a pleasing variety in her selection, ‘Artefacts Exhibiting Love’, which is ordered chronologically from the Bronze Age to the space age. Finally, Robinson’s poems are tropical but gritty, set as many of them are on Pitcairn Island ‘A Hum for Pitkern’ is her strong centrepiece - and elsewhere in the Pacific. She intersperses touching lyrics about family and identity with sharper poems written in a fractured English.”

I note that my envy rating is sheduled to hit a new high. After Sebastian Faulks racing across the genres to create the latest James Bond, I see that SF Signal have announced the nominees for the 2008 Hugos - and guess what? Michael Chabon’s Yiddish Policeman’s Union is in the running. Now I enjoy well written sci-fi - and rate Neal Stephenson as one of my all-time favourite writers - but I always thought that the Hugos were where the “gold lame wearing vixens” stories were applauded. Shows how times are changing.

The question is, ‘Is it possible to finish that novel while you’re on maternity leave?’.

My maternity leave started eight weeks ago and so far I’ve managed two chapters of the first draft of a novel I’ve been working on for a year. This isn’t bad when viewed in the context that it’s about the same output as when I wasn’t on maternity leave, so no change there. Now that he’s settled into a routine though - albeit a gruelling one for me - I’m hoping to ‘get back into it’ and wonder if it’s going to be possible. Ok next feeding time due soon and still have dinner to make and eat and the kitchen to organise. Has my unfinished novel had it?

Just recently I have gone through a spate of Michael Chabon - my Christmas `books included The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, following which I just had to read The Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (his Pulitzer Prize winner). What a joy. Luminous prose and an ability to be moving but never maudlin or saccharine. Highly recommended.