Cool things part 1: Me anthologised

Am very excited. I have poems in not one, but two anthologies coming out this year.

The first of these is Our Own Kind: 100 New Zealand Poems about Animals, edited by Siobhan Harvey, and published by Random House/Godwit. My poem ‘In wolf’s clothing’, was selected for inclusion. Based on the section titles, I suspect mine will probably be in ‘Creepy – crawly’. Our Own Kind is being published late April, and launched early May.

The other anthology is Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, edited by Mark Pirie and Tim Jones, published by Interactive Publications. My poem 'Tabloid Headlines', previously only seen in the inside front cover of JAAM 2, is included. Interactive Publications has an online shop thingy, so if you're interested it can be purchased from the orders page: http://ipoz.biz/Store/orders.htm.

As the title suggests, the editors have trawled through pretty much all New Zealand poetry, and found enough science fiction poetry to fill an anthology. Tim Jones has blogged about this process over at his blog: http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/2009/02/voyagers-new-zealand-science-fiction.html.

The only anthology I’ve had work in before now was The NeXt Wave, edited by Mark Pirie, back in 1998, which was a very special anthology to be included in. It was an anthology of up-and-coming writers, mainly generation X– hence the big X in the title – almost all of whom have gone on to be significant in NZ’s literary scene. I’d kind of forgotten about The NeXt Wave, but looking at it again now, it’s a pretty cool anthology!