Soldiers Hill Artist Collective and Words Out Loud Ballarat have collaborated with art and writings for their Winter Solstice 2026 ekphrastic exhibition (co-convened by SHAC chair Cliff Adeney and Words Out Loud co-curator Jason Nahrung). This will be the third such collaboration, this time supported by a Creative Inspiration grant from Ballarat City Council, which was gratefully sponsored by Ballarat Arts Alive. The exhibition opens on Friday 19 June at the Ballarat North Bowling Club and will run until Sunday 21 June. My story “Lost”, inspired by Donna Crebbin’s evocative photograph, is included in the exhibition. Come one, come all. It will be a fantastic event. Here’s a Ballarat Times newspaper piece which just happens to include my mug in the pic!

A big ‘thank you’ to The School Magazine for reprinting my story ‘Busy as a Bee’ with super cute illustrations by Aśka Storytelling in the March 2026 issue of ORBIT for a new generation of kids. Orbit captures the imagination of skilled readers through crafted texts and engaging illustrations for readers aged 10 to 11 years. Out now!

I am thrilled to learn that seven stories from Nosferatu Unbound (edited by Christopher Sequeira and myself) have been included in Ellen Datlow’s prestigious The Best Horror of the Year Volume Seventeen recommendations. The stories selected by Ellen are:

Jack Dann: “Celebration”
Kirstyn McDermott: “These Pale Shadows”
Jason Nahrung: “The Late Stage”
Deborah Sheldon: “Last of the Sacrificial Women”
H. K. Stubbs: “When Stakes are High, Stay Sharp”
Steve Rasnic Tem: “V is for Vermin”
Sal Ciano and Peter Rawlik: “The Vampyre’s Shadow”

Not forgetting Datlow’s inclusion of Steve Kilbey’s “Pages From a Diary” in the BH #17 anthology itself.

This is a fantastic achievement and we are very proud of these writers! They are all excellent stories and we are grateful they wrote them for us.

See Ellen Datlow’s full list of recommended read here: https://ellendatlow.com/category/news/

I’m very proud to have been shortlisted by the Australasian Horror Writers Association, along with my co-editor Christopher Sequeira, for the 2024 Shadows Award for best Edited Work for Nosferatu Unbound. But an anthology is only as good as the stories it contains, so congratulations and thanks to all the amazing contributors. Thanks also to Gerry Huntman and the IFWG Publishing team for supporting and publishing this book.

I am delighted to learn Steve Kilbey’s prose poem ‘Pages from a Diary’ from Nosferatu Unbound has been selected by Ellen Datlow for inclusion in The Best Horror of the Year Volume 17 anthology, and Kirstyn McDermott‘s story ‘These Pale Shadows’ has been shortlisted in the 2024 Aurealis Awards for Best Horror Short Story. Congratulations to both writers! I might be prejudiced as co-editor, but I think all the contributors to Nosferatu Unbound should be recognised for their fabulous stories and articles 🙂