I’ve been getting quite a few new readers visiting my web site after having read Hokkaido Green, my story on Strange Horizons.

I visited Hokkaido in the summer in 2007.   It has some really beautiful places.  Otaru and Sapporo are both nice cities and Arashiyama has a great zoo.

The hot spring waterfall I described in the story is a real place.  It’s in Shiretoko, in the north-east of Hokkaido.

The five lakes is a popular place to go for a walk.alk.

When I visited some of the trails were closed due to bear sightings.

I didn’t encounter any bears offering secrets though.

Japan Guide Shiretoko Travel Guide

Stone Flowers, my tale of Japanese gods has just been published at Fantasy Magazine.

http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/2010/09/stone-flowers/

Salary Ninja, my short story about a salaryman ninja is now up at Port Iris.

Complete with cool cover.

http://www.portiris.com

My contributors’ copy of Worlds Next Door arrived recently.  It’s always a thrill to have a book with your name in it arrive in the mail.  My story Inksucker is one of the 25 stories for kids contained within.  I read the book and there are a lot of fun stories in there, along with some cool illustrations.

Another cool thing is that I’m sharing the table of contents with some very talented Australian writers, including a couple of my fellow Clarionites, Angie Rega and Angela Slatter plus others such as RJ Astruc.

Some stories take a long time between when I get the initial idea to finished result, but the ideas for Inksucker worked out quite quickly for me.  I still had to struggle to meet the deadline for contributions to the anthology.  The majority of the story was written on a 51-hour ferry ride from Osaka to Shanghai.

I have been press released.

http://www.aussiecon4.org.au/files/257.pdf