Shortlisted for The Kitschies Golden Tentacle Award (Debut)…!

The Kitschies, it has to be said, are pretty cool awards for ‘speculative and fantastic’ fiction. They were launched just five years ago by Jared Shurin and Anne C Perry founders of Pornokitsch. I’ve followed The Kitschies since they began. So I’m absolutely thrilled that my dystopian story, A Calculated Life, is a finalist for the Golden Tentacle Award for debut novels. I’m in fabulous company and I can’t wait to meet the other finalists – for the Red, Golden and Inky Tentacles – at the awards ceremony (12 February) at London’s Seven Dials Club. There’s an impressive line-up for the Red Tentacle including Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge.

Jared Shurin told Allison Flood in The Guardian yesterday:
“We’re certain that all the finalists will attend the awards ceremony. Who would miss out on their shot at a gigantic stuffed Tentacle?”

Not me! That’s for sure!

Here are The Kitschies shortlists for the most “progressive, intelligent and entertaining” fiction of 2013.

Congratulations to all the finalists! And many thanks to the judges – Kate Griffin, Nick Harkaway, Will Hill, Anab Jain and Anabel Wright – for their extreme reading of 234 submitted novels.

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Other stuff… the US award-winning fanzine SF Signal very kindly accepted a guest post from me on the subject of my dystopian influences (starting with an early encounter with Animal Farm).

And, SF Signal’s Kristin Centorcelli fired some great questions at me and the interview is published today. I finally admit in this interview that I always aspired to being Girl Tintin.

And, finally, there’s an international Giveaway for a signed copy of A Calculated Life on the excellent blog My Bookish Ways.

Once again, a huge thank you!

… to everyone who has read my novel and offered encouragement over the past year.