Hi everyone! Somehow, it’s JULY already, and I’m back!
How is everyone’s summer going? I just had my 34th birthday, and tourist season is in full swing over here in Croatia. The difference this year from our 2021 summer here is that all businesses appear to be open, unlike last year when many remained close in the face of pandemic-related safety precautions. Now, there are more boats, sailing and swimming lessons, food truck festivals, and music festivals and concerts practically every weekend.
I haven’t started yet, but I’m going to start covering fun highlights over on my Mediterranean & Me publication on Medium. I’ve been so busy getting used to living here, and the country’s still been so closed down from the pandemic, I felt like there wasn’t much to write about. But there is now, and I’m looking forward to sharing!
Speaking of changes, you’ll be seeing more of me here, again, going forward. I’ve thrown myself back into the deep end (positively) with reading, writing book reviews, and writing poetry, and I’m looking forward to sharing. You’ll also see a change in how this website is organized next week, which I hope will make it easier to navigate.
Before I get into the news for this week, I want to go back to a poem I published with Thank You for Swallowing in 2017. I find “My Dream Post-Election Day,” unfortunately and heartbreakingly and frighteningly, incredibly fitting right now.
Now on to the BIG news:
I am SO PLEASED to share that Global Perspectives on the Liminality of the Supernatural: From Animus to Zombi, edited by the wonderful Rebecca Gibson and Jay VanderVeen, is now available as an e-book (with physical copies coming in July!).
I contributed to the concept by focusing on vampire lore that originated in Australia and addressed how Oceanic literature was impacted by Western popularity – until recently. Gone are the days of sparkling vampires and Australian vampires planted in cityscapes like New York and Chicago; and in are the legends of real vampires, bunyips and drop bears, classic Australian landscapes and wildlife, and of course (a creature I’m now sort of obsessed with), the Yara-ma-yha-who.
Find me in Chapter 4: “The Yara-ma-yha-who, ‘Real’ Vampires, and Aboriginal Erasure: The Uncovered and Retold Vampires of Australian Horror Fiction.” I LOVED writing it, and I hope you’ll enjoy it, too.
And, I’ve had a sneak peek at the rest of the book, and oh my goodness, call me biased, but it is GOOD. It’s theoretical, it’s horror-focused, it’s smart, and it’s wildly interesting and entertaining. I can’t recommend it highly enough, whether I’m in it or not.
You can find the e-book on Rowman & Littlefield’s website, as well as on Amazon, and the physical copies will be available later in July. Thank you for following along, and thank you for the read.
I think that’s everything I have for this week—brief, I know—but I’m looking forward to sharing more writing, as well as the website update, next Friday.
I hope you have a wonderful week ahead of you.
More Soon—
McKenzie
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