Dear friends
It's been a mad couple of months here, so I hope you'll forgive a post that's more of an extended shout-out than a well-crafted and coherent thought piece. My short-story collection, The Measure of Sorrow, came out in June and I've been out and about—both literally and metaphorically—raving about it to my little corner of the world.
Blog tour
June kicked off with a string of articles and guest posts to support the launch, wrangled by the wonderful Meerkat Press. One of the reasons I've not been so active here on the old 'stack is all my thoughts on this and that have been channeled into these essays, memoirs, playlists and listicles. If you missed them the first time round, you may find something below to pique your interest...
Sounds of an Old House: A Haunting Memoir (Vol.1 Brooklyn). A (brief) memoir of growing up in a house that may (or may not) be full of ghosts.
Page 69 Test (TNBBC). A fun article about whether page 69 of The Measure of Sorrow is representative of the rest of the book. (Spoiler alert: It is!)
Time and the deep, black lake (Horror Tree). The title novella from The Measure of Sorrow almost didn’t exist, but is now one of my favourite stories, both in the collection and that I’ve ever written. The Horror Tree kindly let me share my thoughts on resurrecting stories from the dead.
Call of the wild and weird (T Kent Writes). A short article on the weirdness of not belonging.
Your Mind On Writing: a bedtime story about success fantasies and impostor syndrome (Writing Forums). I had mixed feelings writing this and even more mixed feelings about sharing it, anxious that it was maybe just a bit too personal. For anyone who’s ever been strung between the highs of success fantasies and the lows of impostor syndrome, here's a thing about a dog.
Trip The Dark Fantastic: five weird and wonder-filled single-author collections (BigIndieBooks). Five collections that literally changed how I think and how I see the world. If there’s something here you haven’t read, you should go rectify that immediately.
The Measure of Sorrow playlist (Largehearted Boy). I only wish I could share this playlist as an old-school mixtape, with no track list and no context, a TDK cassette filled with music, mystery and hiss. If you dig on weird sounds, you may well dig on this!
Launches
One the highlights of these last months was getting to hang for a few hours with the inestimable John Langan. John kindly agreed to host the virtual launch of The Measure of Sorrow, and made me feel very at ease, leading us on a winding conversation that included Ohio, Kafka, black lakes, book burning, famous dead people, deep-fried platypi, Tina Turner, passing references to the collection, and big-ups to other people's awesome books. If you missed it, you can watch the (mostly) unexpurgated version here...
Huge thanks to John for being a great host, an irrepressible conversationalist, and an all-round stand-up guy. If you’ve not yet read his latest collection – Corpsemouth and other Autobiographies – go out and fix that right now.
It was wonderful, too, to celebrate the launch of the collection IRL with a party at Blackbird Bar in Canberra, hosted by my good friends and Let The Cat In co-hosts Kaaron Warren and Aaron Dries. Thanks to everyone who came and made the night such a blast.
(Photo credit: CH Pearce.)
And there's more to come! I'll be in Melbourne this Friday 28 July, in conversation with author Rebecca Fraser. There will be swag, readings, discussion, chatter, shenanigans, books! and all manner of good vibes. Then, on Saturday 29th, I'm off to an author event at the Caroline Springs Library. If either of these are in your neck of the woods, I'd love to see you there.
The thing itself
If The Measure of Sorrow sounds like your kind of vibe, you can grab a copy at most good bookstores, or from the links below.
You can buy The Measure of Sorrow Direct from Meerkat Press | Bookshop.org | Barnes & Noble | Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon AU
Big thanks to all of you who've already availed yourselves of a copy. If you enjoyed it, you'd do me the greatest honour by leaving a rating or a short review up at Goodreads or the 'Zon, or raving about it to your friends, family, co-workers, neighbourhood watch representative, local councilor, Tupperware party host, or deity of choice. A little recommendation goes a long, long way.
This month on Let The Cat In...
The Cat gets confessional in this last episode of Season 2 with the triumphant return of star special guest… Aaron Dries.
While Kaaron looks beneath the surface and Joseph makes a snap judgment, Aaron touches his face thirty-two times. (Lah-de-dah!) Observations about strangers lead to an insight. Translation of quirks leads to obfuscation leads to ideas. Anxiety is processed into art. Also, Rebecca… again. The telling detail. The craft of observational comedy. Readers and the catalogue of reality. Aaron brings a bag of mystery. Kaaron and Joseph get literal chills. Get on the case with Episode 31 – Bag!
Thanks, all, for sticking with me thus far.
Till next time,
J.