The lovely folks at Overland have opened the back gate and let me sneak into their 250th issue celebrations. Congrats! This is a ghost story about pokies, and builds off the very real Woolworths scandal we should never forget: https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/systemic-two-woolworths-owned-pubs-facing-penalties-for-supplying-pokie-players-with-free-alcohol-20190619-p51z4l.html
Read it online here.
Really excited to have my first story in Overland’s physical pages. It’s a bizarre story (what’s new), so I’m thankful they took a punt on it. Am I as pessimistic about the future of this country as the story suggests? No comment.
Read it here: https://overland.org.au/previous-issues/editorial-team/fiction-australians-at-work/
Got a new story up at Island online, where they’re always up for something weird.
Well, this story fits the bill…
Read it for free here: https://islandmag.com/read/get-joy-from-getjoy-by-alex-cothren
Been lazy, and missed posting my latest reviews in Australian Book Review, who I always love writing for.
Two good books, too: ‘The Magpie Wing’ by Max Easton; and ‘The Sawdust House’ by David Whish-Wilson.
Read the reviews here:
This is a real treat: my story, ‘A Short History of Guns in America’, is in the latest Griffith Review. The story is a re-imagining of the United States’ toxic relationship with guns, and you can both read it and listen to me read it, here.
Big thanks for the GR team for taking the punt on a bizarre story. And special thanks to RMIT’s Dr Rose Michael, whose praise for the story convinced me to send it out into the world.
After enjoying the experience of reading and thinking about Michael Winkler’s utterly unique Grimmish, I was hoping Australian Book Review would keep sending me all the weird books that appear on their desks. And guess what? They did! In the latest ABR, I review three debut novels with bonker premises. It was a lot of fun, I hope my role as Weird Book Guy is forever established.
Check out the review here.
The best part about submitting to U.S. journals and prizes is that you get their rejection emails in the middle of the night. Nothing like being woken up at 3 a.m. to learn you suck. But this time…no suck! Kelli Jo Ford, an incredible writer btw, somehow decided I was the winner of Ruminate magazine’s short story prize.
My winning story, ‘The Florist’, was meant to be a satire on political polarization. It turned into something else, though; in all honesty I’m at a loss about what this one actually means. But I’ll still take the check!
By the sounds of it, the story will published in the U.S. autumn.
As usual, way late with this, but I reviewed Michael Winkler’s Grimmish for the April 2021 issue of Australian Book Review. The ‘novel’ is an absolutely bizarre mix of fact and fiction about a little known boxer, and I loved it. Give me the weird, weird, weird ones any day.
Before the U.S. election (which aged me about a decade, by the way), The Conversation asked me to talk about Borat 2, and how I thought it might effect voters. The article is fun, but for real giggles check out the comments section, where the HUNTER’S LAPTOP MATTERS brigade are in full force. You can check it out here.
The Conversation asked me to choose something that I turn to for comfort in troubling times.
My answer: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
This show has been an obsession of mine for years, so it was a pleasure to write about. The hardest part was choosing which clips to include in the article!
You can read my take on the show here.
alex cothren 