Tag: debut novel

2022 Round-Up and Awards Eligibility

by Grace, posted in Reflections, Updates, Writing

Just to change things up, I decided to pair my stories for 2022 with ~vibes~ and recommended drinks!

I published 4 short stories and 1 novel in 2022. (The novel, Every Version of You, was published in Australia and New Zealand.)

If you like the sound of any of them, I’d be honoured if you gave them a look and considered them for awards nominations.

NOBODY EVER GOES HOME TO ZHENZHU – Lightspeed

~vibes~: Interstellar detective noir; acid rain battering roadside stalls; love-hate relationships with your shipmates; punching up against the system

drink: rice wine, preferably hot with floral notes

TO THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON – Hexagon

~vibes~: melancholy love in a feminist utopia; dude in distress; brooding cyborgs and coy androids and shiny spaceships

drink: a warm, creamy matcha latte with a drizzle of honey

AS THOUGH I WERE A LITTLE SUN – Fireside Fiction

~vibes~: cosy; bittersweet; a tree remembers how she became a tree

drink: pear and red date soup (or any sweet, clear soup)

DEATH BY WATER – From The Waste Land, PS Publishing (paperback available, e-book forthcoming)

~vibes~: an abandoned space mission; underwater caverns choked with ice and water; threads of memory, love, hope, rebirth, regeneration

drink: shots of strong coffee, swigged with each scene break

EVERY VERSION OF YOU – Affirm Press

~vibes~: “how to stay in love and feel real after mind-uploading into virtual reality”

drink: make a pot of your favourite tea, sip it slowly, until it’s bitter and cold; when you reach the final chapter, you may brew a fresh pot.

The Epoch Engine, my story for Magic the Gathering’s newly launched Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty plane, was published in February.

I published poetry for the first time: Inertness in Going Down Swinging (illustrated by the otherworldly, fantastic James Alexander Martin) and Symmetry, in the Winter 2022 edition of The Victorian Writer.

I published two non-fiction articles: a personal piece in SBS Voices and a column for Meanjin’s What I’m Reading. I also did a few interviews and podcasts.

In summary? 2022 was a year unlike any other. It was exhausting, delirious, wonderful, overwhelming, fuelled by sugar and adrenaline. But I feel incredibly lucky–that Every Version of You is out in the world, and that I managed to publish a bunch of short pieces.

If you want more of a reflection about the joys and challenges of this year, I’ll be sending out my year-end newsletter soon, so jump onto my Substack if you haven’t!

As always, thank you for following my work. I hope the stories whisk you away to adventures surreal, fantastic, and futuristic.

Novel Announcement: Every Version of You

by Grace, posted in Updates, Writing

In a perfect, deathless world, what does it mean to love and let go?

OK so I kind of spoiler-ed myself a couple of weeks ago but I have some RIDICULOUSLY EXCITING NEWS.

Picture: primary-school-Grace, hunched over the dining table, scribbling stories in exercise books and dreaming of publishing a Real Book one day.

Now picture little Grace’s dream coming true. Yes indeed, the (electronic) ink is dry! My debut novel, Every Version of You, is going to be published by Affirm Press!!!

Every Version of You is a science fiction novel set in late 21st century Australia. It features a Malaysian Chinese Australian protagonist, Tao-Yi Ling, and her partner, Navin, as they grapple with the rise of virtual reality and mind-uploading technology. It explores continuity of identity, love, migration, consumerism, bodies, illness, change, loss, and cultural grief. It hopes to channel the spirit of Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, with a dash of Black Mirror.

Affirm Press is a wonderful, independent Melbourne-based publishing house who are behind Alice Robinson’s The Glad Shout, Pip Williams’ The Dictionary of Lost Words, and Christian White’s The Nowhere Child, amonst many others. Affirm Press are doing exciting things in the Australian publishing landscape, and their vision for Every Version of You closely aligns with mine. I’m so, so delighted to work with them to whip this thing into shape!

If you’d like to follow me on my writing journey, you can subcribe to this website for blog posts.

If you’d like to stan me in other media, I’m also on Twitter and Instagram, where in addition to word-wrangling updates I share my excitement about what I’m reading, watching, or, occasionally, munching.

For the ultimate fangirling experiencing, you can subscribe to my brand-spanking-new-shiny newsletter: Brains, Space, & Ghosts. If you like the sound of writing excerpts, behind-the-scenes info, inspirations, and occasional musings, I’d be honoured if you signed up! I promise not to contribute to loathsome spam, and will send out the newsletter no more than once a month, likely less often.

Thank you again, friends, for sharing in my excitement about my debut novel. Tao-Yi and Navin’s story means a great deal to me, and I can’t wait to bring it to life.

Every Version of You is due for release in early 2022.