Lanagan Free To Write Now

A ustralian World Fantasy Award nominee Margo Lanagan told SCI FI Wire that her recent writing fellowship from the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts will free her to focus on writing. The fellowship—paid in two installments of 40,000 Australian dollars (about $30,000 U.S.) each—was created to support excellence in Australian literature by providing financial assistance to writers.

"What it means to me is that I can give up technical writing for the next two years and be a full-time creative writer," Lanagan said in an interview. "Which means that life now moves on to a different juggling act from the one I was performing before: The day-job part goes (yee-hah!), but the human-contact, out-in-the-real-world component will require a bit more work. I'm looking forward to this period immensely!"

Aside from the financial benefit of the fellowship, Lanagan said that receiving it was a huge confidence booster. "This is the most substantial grant the Literature Board gives out, " she said. "To put in the application and claim that your works are 'major' and that you've achieved 'substantial critical recognition' is one thing. To have the board agree makes it seem much more solid and real."

The Australia Council for the Arts isn't the only group of people who think highly of Lanagan's work. Her collection, Black Juice, won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award, two Aurealis Awards and two Ditmars and has been nominated for a number of other awards. But the real feather in her cap came this year in the form of two World Fantasy nominations: one for her story "Singing My Sister Down," and one for Black Juice in the best collection category. Lanagan described being nominated for two World Fantasy Awards as "big, breathtakingly big," then went on to say: "I look at the other nominees and just shake my head to see my name there. I feel so new at this! And when I was writing Black Juice, my brain was so far from aiming for anything like this! I had blown so many deadlines on so many books. I was just battling to get something—anything—finished. Short stories [were] all I had room in my life to write. They were all that would fit into my schedule. So I guess I poured everything I had into them. I am just delighted that they have done so well."

Lanagan has now moved on to a new novel project. She said that she finds writing short stories and writing novels extremely different, and she continues to work on short fiction when she can. "Having just finished a novel draft and plunged into a bout of short-story writing, I can tell you that short-story writing is an absolute snap by comparison," she said. "It's like the difference between trying to lift a basket—short stories—and a house—a novel—using hot-air balloons. A short story deals with one single change; the world you create only has to hold together for 20 pages. When it has to stay stable for 200, the battle for internal consistency and interesting action and getting all the levels to operate simultaneously is a big one. Mind you, it has been a while since I completed anything to novel length, and I guess I'm in a bit of a crisis of confidence about it. I returned to short stories with relief, but I might just have got the hang of that novel, and I'm looking forward to the next pass."

Книги, написанные любителями, требуют читателей-профессионалов. (С. Б. Переслегин)