Indelible Marks

~ emmakosborne ~ 3 Comments

A friend of mine is getting a tattoo. I have one – a tree. It is black and is shaded grey and extends up from my left hip and over my belly. My tattoo is the mark of books read, of world trees. A silver tie pin. A refuge. A home that was built out of mud. My dog, barking at a thieving bird. Roots, clasping soil. Growth, always. It is a sunset that filled the world with transformative, bright orange flames. It is family. My father. My sister, lost. It is secret knowledge, mysteries. It is bare branches and strength.

It is an indelible mark that you can see, if I show you. But indelible marks are not always on the surface.

Indelible marks can be made up of songs. Slow songs, old songs, songs about drowning. Buildings. Churches. Cubbyhouses that are walled with old sheets. Marks can be walkways, pathways, routes to work. Colours can mark you. Flowers. Scents. Crushed herbs. Old wax. Biblical jasmine.

We all carry them and they all carry meaning.

People mark us. Lovers. Strangers. Family. The people who heal our hearts and the people who break them. They mark us with their kindness and they mark us with their fury. People mark us with recipes and memories and laughter. They mark us, forever, with that one conversation held deep in the night over a bottle of wine. People mark us more deeply than any needled ink. And we mark them. Sometimes, people show up in ink. And sometimes they don’t.

Sometimes it is a matter of marking ourselves anew.

News of the Positive Variety

~ emmakosborne ~ 3 Comments

A couple of lovely things have happened lately. I’m very pleased to confirm that Aurealis is taking my story Clean Hands, Dirty Hands! They’re currently on a quest to be considered a professional market by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, so if you have a spare $19.99 burning a hole in your pocket, you can subscribe and receive 10 whole issues of spectacularly good fiction. And one of them will have my story in it! And also, it might help me out for SFWA membership in the future, so everyone wins, really. 

In other news, my horror story The Box Wife is set to appear in Shock Totem #9. I’m thrilled to have found such a wonderful home for this one, as it is… well, I guess you could call it “unusual”. I’m quite sure that it is the most disturbing thing I have ever written. I can’t wait for this to hit the shelves. The cover art for Shock Totem (by the exceptionally talented Mikio Murakami) is always completely and utterly drool-worthy and the stories are top notch. 

I should also mention that I had a blast at GenreCon in October this year. The State Library of Queensland has got to be the most impressive modern library I’ve ever seen. It is stunning. My partner in crime Eliza Rose and I met some wonderful people over the weekend (you’re all awesome!) and, let’s face it, pretty much kidnapped the hilarious and dirty Chuck Wendig. Go read his books, that’s an order. I’d like to thank Kate Cuthbert for introducing us to the cool kids and also huge thanks to Alex Adsett, Patrick O’Duffy, Narrelle Harris, Imelda Evans, Kathryn Fox and Cat Sparks for being lovely and welcoming to this little newbie. We also did karaoke, which we will never speak of again (hot tip – don’t do rap).

I’m currently slogging through a novel this month, which is going more slowly than I would like, but faster than anything else I’ve done this year. So I guess I’d call that a win. Other than that, I am wishing fervently for a time-turner so that I have a chance to edit a couple of short stories that I’ve been working on lately. TOO MANY THINGS TO WRITE. 

November be crazy. Whew. 

Flash Fiction out at Daily Science Fiction

~ emmakosborne ~ 1 Comment

I am very pleased to announce that my first professional sale is now up on the web at Daily Science Fiction!

I cannot tell you how fucking excited I am that I finally made my first professional sale. I’ve been submitting a lot of work lately, and although I know that I am aiming high and that it is an incredibly tough market to crack, I can’t help but be ever so slightly disheartened by the rejections that roll in. Don’t get me wrong, I know that it’s the way it goes and I’ve had some exceptionally lovely feedback from editors (E. Catherine Tobler from Shimmer, I’m looking at you) but it’s just so hard to know if you’re actually good enough to play in the big kid’s sandbox. Getting a ‘Yes’ means the world to me to the point that, when my story hit the inboxes of 7000+ subscribers, I hysterically cried and laughed for about ten minutes.

And then? I got some great feedback via Twitter and Facebook. And it felt amazing. People read my story! People LIKED my story! People took the time out to find me on the interwebs and say so! Writing can feel so solitary sometimes, especially if you’ve only shown work to critiquing buddies (and I love every single one of you, very much). It was terrifying and overwhelming to think that a little piece of me was out there, in the most visible way I’ve experienced up until this point.

It was also a confronting moment in a very peculiar way, as I wrote Squeak during a very dark time. And if you know me personally, it probably makes a lot more sense. But all of a sudden, strangers can see something exceptionally personal and meaningful to me. Maybe those are the only stories worth writing, but it sure does feel bizarre to expose yourself in such a fashion. It makes me feel like I’m risking my insides to a crowd. And, you know what? It makes me feel brave, and that, I think, is a very good thing.

Epic Huggery

~ emmakosborne ~ 5 Comments

One thing that you should know about me is that I’m a hugger. I may have only met you once and had a fleeting conversation about Batwoman. You could be a friend of a friend tagging along on a night on the turps. You might even have been with me when some kind of First Aid disaster struck (more common than you may think – I’ll post about that sometime, too).  Either way, if I know you even vaguely and I don’t think you’ll pepper spray me (or unless it would be weird for whatever reason – hey, some people aren’t huggers and I’m down with that) I’ll probably give you an enthusiastic squeeze next time we meet. In my book, hugs are the best way I know to demonstrate camaraderie, or celebration, or affection, or comfort. It’s the best way to say ‘I am here for you, and everything is going to be OK’ to someone in a crisis. It’s the easiest way to say ‘I love you, you’re safe’ to someone who needs to hear it. Or, hey, you might have just won the footy. Have at it!

To me, a bad hug is like a bad handshake. If you’re going to hug someone, HUG THEM LIKE YOU MEAN IT. None of that bullshit ‘I’m going to lean in while patting you on the shoulder’ huggery. You can only get away with that if you’re British. Likewise the ‘I’m barely going to come into contact with you’ hug. A way-too-gentle hug is like the wet-fish handshake. Sort of pointless and even slightly creepy. Just hug! It’s OK!

If you’re a good friend of mine, or one of my family members, you’ll usually get a Rah Hug. This is basically a garden-variety bear hug, usually accompanied with a ‘Raaaah’ from one or both of us. It’s a happy little rah. An affectionate noise meaning ‘You’re amazing! C’mere!’ It’s the sound you’d make if you were playing monster and chasing around a little brother or sister.

The Rah Hug has only ever led to (near) disaster once. After recently arriving at my friend’s house, I went in for the hug. Now, the recipient of said hug is a very good friend of mine and gives a Rah Hug as good as she gets. We, as usual, embraced enthusiastically, probably making ridiculous noises as we did so. There was a bit of that sway-thing you do whilst hugging, which then threw off my center of gravity. I stepped backward to prevent us from falling over, but my foot hit the corner of a couch. We kept hugging as we both very slowly fell over together, neither of us able to compensate for the pendulous weight of our affections. We very nearly knocked over a flatscreen TV on the way down and ended up striking a collapsible coffee table.

Nobody was hurt. Ahem. These days, I check for obstacles. But I still hug properly, damn it.

Insert the sound of a smashing champagne bottle here.

~ emmakosborne ~ 2 Comments

Why, hello there, internets. Welcome to the site. I’m Emma Osborne. I live in Melbourne, Australia. I’m a writer of fiction and poetry, most of which is speculative in nature. I particularly enjoy writing science fiction and fantasy stories.

This blog will be used to talk a little bit about what I’m working on, and will hopefully also be a place to announce my successes in getting stories out there. My latest news on that front is that I have forthcoming fiction coming out at Daily Science Fiction, which I’m really excited about! First pro sale!

I’m also rather obsessed with music, so I’m sure I’ll be posting about what I’m listening to. The track I’m currently playing on repeat whilst writing is Ludovico Einaudi’s Primavera.

Have a listen.

I don’t know about you, but this is the kind of song that makes me want to stand on a mountain with my hair being swept dramatically by the wind, ready to take on the world. In a word? RAH.