Yellowcake (25 page)

Publication history

The stories in this collection were first published during 2006–2009 in the publications listed below. I thank the following people in particular for their help and support: Simon Spanton of Gollancz for championing
Black Juice
in the UK; Jonathan Strahan for his efficiency and straight dealing as an editor; Patty Campbell for her input during the editing of ‘Heads’; Sharyn November for accepting ‘Ferryman’ almost before I sent it; Nancy Siscoe for putting forward the possibility of adding some lovingkindness to the collection, in response to which I wrote ‘Into the Clouds on High’, which is published here for the first time; Kathy Gollan for the conversation that gave ‘Into the Clouds on High’ its final form.

‘The Point of Roses’,
Black Juice,
Gollancz, London, 2006.

‘The Golden Shroud’,
Picture This: 2,
edited by Annabel Smith and Helen Chamberlin, Pearson Education, Melbourne, 2009.

‘A Fine Magic’,
Eidolon I
, edited by Jonathan Strahan and Jeremy G. Byrne, Eidolon Books, Perth, Western Australia, 2006.

‘An Honest Day’s Work’,
The Starry Rift,
edited by Jonathan Strahan, Firebird, New York, 2008.

‘Night of the Firstlings’,
Eclipse Two,
edited by Jonathan Strahan, Night Shade Books, San Francisco, 2008.

‘Ferryman’,
Firebirds Soaring
, edited by Sharyn November, Firebird, New York, 2009.

‘Heads’,
War Is... Soldiers, Survivors and Storytellers Talk about War,
edited by Marc Aronson and Patty Campbell, Candlewick Press, Somerville MA, 2008.

‘Living Curiosities’,
Sideshow: Ten Original Tales of Freaks, Illusionists, and Other Matters Odd and Magical,
edited by Deborah Noyes, Candlewick Press, Somerville MA, 2009.

‘Eyelids of the Dawn’,
New Australian Stories
, edited by Aviva Tuffield, Scribe, Melbourne, 2009.

The Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Government’s arts funding and advisory body, funded my writing with a Fellowship in 2006–2007, during which time many of these stories were written.

Where the stories started

These stories were inspired, as far as I can recall, in the following ways.

‘The Point of Roses’ started when two things came together in my head: a BBC documentary, ‘Gypsy Wars’, about the community response to gypsies in Cottenham, Cambridgeshire; and my nephew Finn inventing the verb ‘to pumft’, and naming a soft-toy dog he owned ‘Pumfter von Schnitzel’.

The whole point of Pearson Education’s
Picture This
anthologies was to show school students how stories could grow from visual images. The picture they sent me to work from was of a stone stairway in what I took to be a castle interior. I’m not sure how Rapunzel’s hair managed to animate itself, but as soon as I saw it unlocking the door of the prince’s cell, I had ‘The Golden Shroud’.

‘A Fine Magic’ started off with a note to myself:
a carousel made of ice
. Also with my attraction to the word ‘fascinator’, used in the sense of a person who fascinates or bewitches people.

‘An Honest Day’s Work’ was inspired by a documentary about shipbreaking in Bangladesh—there’ve been several of these, and I couldn’t tell you which it was. When I did some follow-up research, I found Edward Burtynsky’s photographs of the Chittagong shipbreaking yards to be a further spur to the writing. These can be found at
www.edwardburtynsky.com
(follow the links works
SHIPS
SHIPBREAKING
).

‘Night of the Firstlings’ happened when I first heard Paul Kelly’s song ‘Passed Over’ on his album
Foggy Highway
.

‘Ferryman’ sprang fully formed from my reading a little article called ‘The River Ferry’ written by the eight-year-old son of a ferryman, Harrison Fridd, of Waikerie, South Australia, and published in
Living Landscapes: Writing and art by children of the Murray–Darling Basin
(Primary English Teaching Association/Murray–Darling Basin Commission, Marrickville and Canberra, 2005).

I’m not quite sure where ‘Heads’ came from, but news coverage of the effects of war on the citizens of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s was probably responsible.

‘Living Curiosities’ came from the same source as my junior novel
Walking Through Albert
(Allen & Unwin). I can’t remember where I read or heard about the idea that ghostly events play themselves out over and over again, like video loops but with added goose-flesh, but it’s prompted three stories already and it still isn’t worn out. Also, walking past Bullen Lane in Melbourne’s CBD, I started thinking about a character who was Circus personified (Bullen’s Circus toured Australia from the 1920s to the 1960s), and who hid himself away in just such a lane during the winter months.

‘Eyelids of the Dawn’ grew out of my commuting by train through Burwood in Sydney’s inner west, looking across to Burwood Plaza, seeing how big it was and how uncomfortable it looked crouched there among all the other shops and houses. Visiting Chennai (as part of the Asialink Literature Touring Program 2007) and walking from the Park Hotel to Marina Beach on our first afternoon in India, and later seeing Spencer Plaza, added significant detail to the story.

Also by
M
ARGO
L
ANAGAN

W
INNER

Victorian Premier’s Literary Award,
Young Adult Fiction

Ditmar Award,
Best Collection

World Fantasy Award,
Collection

Michael L. Printz Honor Book,
American Library Association

Black Juice
is a book of breathtaking stories that defy boundaries. They are dazzling, ruthless, tender, fierce, unique – ten deeply moving stories from an exceptional author.

‘
A good short story, a really good one, is deceptively difficult to write. Which is why
Black Juice
is such an outstanding collection. Because every single story in it is, quite simply, perfect. That’s what I said: perfect.
’

    
OUTLAND, UK

W
INNER
CBCA Book of the Year,
Older Readers

S
HORT
-L
ISTED
Commonwealth Writers’ Prize

L
ONG
-L
ISTED
Frank O’Connor International
Short Story Award

‘
Lanagan is in a class of her own.
’

THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

‘
The genius (not too strong a word) of Margo Lanagan is her ability to reach into darkness and return with something both different and powerfully convincing. It’s astonishing enough to be introduced so abruptly to a writer this good, but even more extraordinary is her seemingly effortless mastery of the short story form and what she proceeds to do with it.
’
LOCUS, USA