Cheryl's Mewsings

Today Kevin and I took the train up to Kuranda, a village in the rainforest in the mountains above Cairns. We have ridden on one of the world’s great scenic railways, communed with fruit bats, eaten kangaroo pie, found a zoo dedicated to all things poisonous in Australia, and hung around with some exceptionally beautiful [...]

Can I be exhausted already? Thank you! It has been a good day thus far. My panel on trans characters in YA fiction went very well. Lots of people have said nice things about the iPad edition of Salon Futura, and I have been out to dinner with Cat Valente and Seanan McGuire. But I [...]

I am typing this blog post from my room in the Melbourne airport Hilton, looking out at the International Terminal. I spent a little time this morning wandering around checking things out. Here are some things you may find useful. The Arrivals area on the ground floor is fairly sparse. However, if you need to [...]

As you may recall, this year’s Ditmar Awards have a special category for Best Fannish Cat. I’m still a bit peeved that the rules required Australian residency, so I wasn’t eligible, but the nominees have just been announced and I think you’ll all agree that they are very fine felines indeed. The nominees are: Tabby [...]

With only a week or two (depending on your travel plans) to go before people start leaving for Melbourne, questions are being asked. Yesterday Jay Lake inquired about mobile phone rental, as a result of which I discovered that the Vodafone phone rental store in Melbourne airport, which many of us used in 1999 and [...]

A few people have been asking me when I will be where on my tour of the South Pacific. I don’t have final panel schedules as yet, but here is a rough guide. From August 27th-29th I will be in Wellington at Au Contraire, the New Zealand NatCon. The preliminary program schedule is available, but [...]

Today I applied for, and was granted, an electronic visitor visa for Australia. I can now book flights to Worldcon. This is a great relief to me. It does remind me, however, that pretty much everyone traveling to Australia for Worldcon will need a visa of some sort. Getting it is generally very easy. You [...]

The 2010 Australian Natcon, which exists, friendly-flea-like, upon the back of the ravenous beast that is Aussiecon 4, now has its very own web site. If you would like to find out how you, yes you!, could be Guest of Honour at an Australian Natcon, and many other exciting things that you didn’t know you [...]

We are off around the world. – Justine Larbalestier has guest post by a writer who is an Australian Aboriginal. – Joe Gordon notes that the fabulous comic creator, Asia Alfasi, along with the equally talented Daryl Cunningham, is being interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland. – World SF News interviews Brazilian writer, Jacques Barcia. – [...]

So the planned protest march took place in Melbourne, and Amanda was there to give support. She made it into The Age as a result. You can read the article here. I just want to draw attention to this comment she made: ”I was telling my friends in Sydney about this rally and they were [...]

Amanda Palmer is on tour in Australia at the moment, and through her I became aware of this protest movement. Apparently, in an effort to crack down on drunken violence, Victoria’s government is imposing stringent new licensing restrictions on clubs and bar. Offering live music is a major trigger in deciding that a venue needs [...]

Let me get this straight: the British National Party is happy to amend its “whites only” membership rule in order to comply with equality legislation, but our glorious bishops demand that the Church of England be exempt from such legislation so that Christians can be free to hate whomever they please. Isn’t there something wrong [...]

It is a good job I leave my iPhone by my bed at night. This morning I switched it on to check Twitter and found that the Aurealis Award ceremony was in full swing in Brisbane. I got the announcements all re-tweeted over SF Awards Watch, so managed to look very professional. Watching the reaction [...]

At SMOFcon the AussieCon 4 folks expected hotel bookings to be open on January 15th – that’s this weekend. I have just spotted this on the A4 Travel LiveJournal. Apparently there’s some delay and the new ETA is between now and the end of Feb.. For those of you about to start on a rant, [...]

Thinking of traveling to Melbourne for Worldcon next year? If so, check out the new LiveJournal Community created by the Aussiecon 4 folks to allow members to share travel tips.

Next year Australia is hosting Worldcon. Of course it also needs to hold a national convention where it can give out the Ditmar Awards. Different countries have different approaches to this. – The Americans don’t bother to hold a natcon when Worldcon is in the USA, or when it is in Canada. – The British [...]

Thankfully I don’t get a lot of loony right wing spam, and when I do it is mostly not worth bothering with because it is American in origin and therefore follows the same tired tracks of blaming the international conspiracy of godless Communists, gays, feminists and latterly scientists for all of the evil in the [...]

Kevin and I are both very tired this morning. We have no idea why. However, breakfast and caffeine should fix that. In the meantime, in the great hobbit tradition of Second Breakfast, I offer up a big plate of link salad. Cyprus and Turkey are at loggerheads over cats The Guardian dishes the dirt on [...]

I see from this morning’s blog reading that Jay Lake has booked up to do the Grand Tour of Down Under next year. That means he will be attending Au Contraire in Wellington the weekend before AussieCon 4. This is a great opportunity for writers to get to see New Zealand as well as Australia, [...]

Heads up, America, the world’s best chocolate biscuit is now available at a grocery store near you! Yes folks, Pepperidge Farm has done a deal to import Tim Tams from Australia. (And I do mean import – it says “Product of Australia” on the wrapper, which I don’t think it would say if they were [...]