Science Book A Day Giveaway

Hop over to Science Book a Day before the end of the month to go into the draw to win a copy of An Ordinary Epidemic. While you are there, have a browse of the interview I did with Carrie Bengston.

Two Launches, Two Cities

An Ordinary Epidemic launched in both Adelaide and Sydney. It's now available in bookstores and as a ebook!

The Books Arrive!

Look what the postie brought this morning!

And I just realised the launch is exactly six weeks from today. Those words in my head are beginning to get real.

First Review of 'An Ordinary Epidemic'

'An Ordinary Epidemic' just received its first review! And I'm feeling pretty excited. Particularly because it's in Books+Publishing.

 Except from Review by Jessica Broadbent 

 "... It’s utterly fascinating, a little gruesome and impossible to put down ... the story is both familiar and completely strange ... Amanda Hickie’s second novel really captures the claustrophobia of quarantine, and the threat of someone clearing their throat or an accidental brush of skin. This is a slow-burn thriller that would make an excellent choice for a book club ..."

Short Story

I have a short story in this issue of Southerly's The Long Paddock. The story is based on a chapter of my novel which is being released next year and now finally has a title - An Ordinary Epidemic, but the story approaches it from a different character's point of view. So, a sample of the novel that won't actually appear in it (like the Dirty Rotten Scoundrel's trailer, only nothing like it).

My next novel, to be released by MidnightSun Publishing

I'm very excited to announce that MidnightSun Publishing will be releasing my next novel (to be named very soon) in May 2015. It may seem like a long time off, but just now it feels way too close.

I'm excited to be working with MidnightSun, it's great to find people who feel passionate about different voices. Now I have to get back to my balancing if I want to make that deadline....

The Next Phase Begins

This is the view from the park bench under the Harbour bridge where I signed the contract for my next novel with an independent publisher on Thursday. I had long ago stopped imagining that moment, but as it happened it was nothing like I would have envisaged.

It was the kind of balmy late autumn day that Sydney excels in, there was a quiet bustle of people in the park and along the road. Nothing extraordinary happened around us, no one noticed it. It was still and beautiful.

I spent the morning and most of the next day at the Sydney Writers Festival, working on my last (mild) sunburn of the year. As I walked back past this spot on Friday afternoon, and then down through Circular Quay and through the last minute construction for the Vivid Festival, I felt again why I love Sydney so much. For me, Sydney just is, it doesn't want or care about your approval, even without festivals and museums and harbour side cafes, it is beautiful.

It reminds me of a quote I can't quite remember from one of the Pythons. Whichever one it was said that they all had to work hard to be funny. Except John Cleese. He was funny just by existing.