ARCHIVES

30/01/2010 - Aurealis Award Judges Reports

‘Wives’ by Paul Haines in X6 is cleverly crafted to force the reader to adjust from known parameters to the story's world, starting with a very simple image of a man in love with a girl in a country town, then, with hints and whispers, revealing that this world is not our own. The story is of a boy's coming of age as he tries desperately to assimilate his upbringing and his mother’s values - that women are not simply property - within a society where property is everything. The real danger of the Australian values of mateship and mates before dates is shown in stark reality. The dialect and language are appropriate to the scene and set the distance between today's Australia and a future where we are more isolated and "countrified". It is a story of isolationism and the ease with which those who are cut off learn hate for "the other". It comments on the brutality of mutilation and the reaction of our protagonist when he discovers he has no pity or empathy, just bitter resentment for his own loss. It is a story of despair—a mother's despair and the despair of giving up hope when love fails. This bleak story is haunting, and the ‘realness’ of this unreality is truly horrifying.

'Slice of Life—A Spot of Liver' by Paul Haines was one of the boldest entries in the horror genre for 2009 and delves into the darker side of humanity. The story of a man with a good job, a mortgage and a sound-proofed basement is well written and readable. He lives alone, indulging in the pleasures of good red wine and freshly
cooked liver. The revelation of his secret is caused by his mother coming to stay for a few days. The unfolding horrific elements have a very high ‘yuk’ factor but are unashamed and raw. Haines has a wickedly dark sense of humour and has written a story that is immediately engaging with vivid imagery and clever word play.

Slice of Life, Paul Haines (author) & Geoffrey Maloney (editor), The Mayne Press
Bleak, blackly humorous and brutally self-deprecating, this is uncomfortable yet fascinating and engaging fiction from an author whose no-holds-barred, no-prisoners-taken approach to writing is on glorious display in this collection. Juxtaposing life with air travel, psychosis and Machiavellian talking cats, this is Australian masculinity and sexuality as fiction at its most dark and disturbing. Not for the faint of heart, read a "slice" at a time.

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24/01/2010 - Aurealis Award Wins

I'm delighted to announce that my stories "Wives" (X6, Coeur De Lion, 2009) and "Slice Of Life - A Spot Of Liver" (Slice Of Life, The Mayne Press, 2009) have tied to win Best Horror Short Story.

I think this is the first time in the history of the awards that an author has tied with themselves to win.

Here's a full list of Aurealis Award 2009 Winners.

And there's more on my blog: Winning and Speeches.

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20/01/2010 - Rjurik Davidson reviews Slice Of Life

Some nice words from Rjuirk Davidson, award-winning author and an associate editor at Overland:

There I was, trawling my way through George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones. I'd got through 200 pages, so I had a good ... 600 or so to go. It was hard labour. Breaking rocks. Sure the plotting is good. Sure the characters are ok. Sure it rattles along. But I was underwhelmed by the sense of deja vu. Knights and castles and gilded shields and ... you get the picture. So I put it aside and picked up Slice of Life and felt like I'd been thrown into a cold river. I came up, wide awake, eyes open, thinking, I'm alive. The stories were tight, carefully crafted, original (and also reminiscent of someone like Ellison), daring and funny. I laughed out loud three times in the first two stories. Do you know how rare it is for me to laugh out loud? I have some criticisms, but don't we always have them? Let's not dwell on them. But one of the things I thought was - these stories should be better known, fuck it. I mean, I work at one of the top literary journals in OZ, and it's rare we'd ever get anything as good as "The Devil in Mr Pussy."

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18/01/2010 - 2009 Chronos Awards Ballot Announced

I'm pleased that my collection Slice Of Life has been shortlisted for the Chronos Awards for this year.

And somehow the Sean McMullen fan club has knocked my "Wives" novella out of contention for the short fiction slot! What? How could this be? My heart lies broken...

I'm surprised how thin the categories are. I had hoped a lot of people would have been nominating, but I guess not.

The full ballot here.

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07/12/2009 - More Slice Of Life Reviews

Slice of Life is not for those who like pretty stories of love and derring-do. Look elsewhere for that. What it does contain is original storytelling with a strong and compelling voice that you sometimes may not want to listen to and yet you’re powerless to resist. You have been warned. - Aurealis (Full Review Here - scroll down for Slice Of Life)

Slice of Life is brilliantly nasty and engrossing. Haines may very well be the best writer of dark fiction in Australia today, and genre readers cannot afford not to pick up a copy of this collection. - HorrorScope (Full Review Here)

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05/12/2009 - Scary Minds Slice Of Life Review

A great review for Slice Of Life over at Scary Minds:

"Slice of Life contains seventeen original stories by Paul Haines that travel the dark back roads of horror. We're not talking mainstream horror here, we're talking confrontational in your face stories from the perspective of every day people. If you don't trust that weird old dude over your back fence then Paul Haines' collection could just give you the reason why.
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Paul Haines has compiled a collection that is a highlight on the 2009 short story calendar. It's not for the faint of heart, there's some deeply disturbing visions going down, but is well worth reading if you appreciated decent horror of the short story form. I was pleased I finally got around to reading Mr Haines excellent collection and am left wanting more." Full Review Here.

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05/12/2009 Aurealis Awards 2009 Finalists Announced

I'm pleased to announce that I've been nominated for:

Best Collection:
Slice Of Life (The Mayne Press, 2009)

Best Horror Short Story:
Wives (X6, Coeur De Lion, 2009)
Slice Of Life - A Spot Of Liver (Slice Of Life, The Mayne Press, 2009)

Best Anthology:
Keith Stevenson (editor) X6 (Coeur de Lion, 2009)

Well, technically X6 is Keith's baby, but I'm a brutally good part of that wonderful beast.

What is even more wonderful is that the only things I have had published this year have all been nominated.

Full Listing Here.

Congrats to all the nominees.

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19/11/2009 - Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror 4

I'm pleased to announce my much-nominated story "Her Collection Of Intimacy" has been selected for Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror 4 from Brimstone Press.

Also pleased to see fellow SuperNovarians Kirstyn McDermott and Miranda Siemienowicz in what is a very strong line-up.

See Horrorscope for more details on the forthcoming anthology.

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02/11/2009 - Slice of Life Review in Specusphere

Slice Of Life gets a great review over at Specusphere. Here is but a snippet:

Haines’ work is not for the faint hearted. Aficionados of all things quirky, intelligent, and dark will devour Slice of Life. It is horror, it is action, it is social commentary, it is savage fantasy and unrelenting realism, is it a psychological journey into a warped and familiar place. It is, truly, a slice of life.

Full review over here.

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28/10/2009 - Halloween Signing At Dymocks Southland

Paul Haines sliced through the Australian writing scene with his twisted and murderous black humour back in 2002, and his short horror and dark fantasy fiction has since garnered numerous awards, including the coveted Aurealis and Ditmar. Paul will be in-store this Halloween to sign copies of his collection, Slice of Life.

100% of the RRP on all copies of Slice of Life sold at this event will be donated to the Paul Haines Fund, which was set up by the local genre-writing community to assist Paul and his family in Paul’s current and ongoing battle with cancer.

Please do join us on the day to purchase a copy of Paul’s excellent collection, and in doing so support a very worthy cause.

Date: Sat 31st October (Halloween!)
Venue: Dymocks Southland
Time: 11.00am – 12.00 noon
Cost: Free
Enquiries: Phone: 03 9584 1245
Email: southland@dymocks.com.au

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13/10/2009 - Slice Of Life available for sale

The Mayne Press should have a website up and operational by the end of next week where you will be able to purchase copies of my new collection Slice of Life.

Until then, I have a limited number of copies available for sale over here.

If you don't have PayPal and would like to discuss other options, please contact me here.

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10/10/2009 - Praise For "Wives"

X6 is out and collecting reviews.

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"Wives," Paul Haines, X6 - this one doesn't come chronologically first, but I wanted to talk about it first to get it out of the way. For me, the brilliance of Paul Haines is that he writes stories I hate, about people I hate (and I don't mean mild revulsion, I mean actual HATE), and yet I can't pull my eyes away. "Wives" is his best work to date, an utterly hideous vision of the near future, exploring issues that are already very relevant to many people - the lack of women sticking around in country Australia, the sociological effect of preferring male children to female and, oh yes, the ingrained misogyny that hovers just out of sight in our culture. Haines exposes the ugliest sides of human nature in this epic story of "Bridal Services," rape and slavery, told through the eyes of a narrator so utterly screwed up by his circumstances that it's hard to blame him for the despicable, thoughtless way that he speaks, lives and acts. This is post-apocalyptic fiction at its best and worse, because there is no apocalypse. There's just us.

(in discussion with my fellow LSSers about "Wives," I said "I don't know whether I want to nominate it for the Tiptree or BURN IT TO THE GROUND." Yeah, that. Just that.) -- Last Short Story On Earth (full review here)

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‘Wives’ by Paul Haines is set in a future, rural Australia where women are scarce and treated as commodities––an ugly, brutal tale, but undeniably compelling. -- James Francis, Reader's Feast

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It's a fucking masterpiece. --Cat Sparks

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It is a masterpiece. -- Adam Browne

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X6, from Couer De Lion, available now.

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01/10/2009 - Slice Of Life Book Launch

This weekend I launch my second short story collection Slice Of Life at Conflux 09 in Canberra. It's on Sunday at 5:30 if you're in town and want to come along. Follow the links for more information on the collection and the convention.

This book has been a labour of love. Geoff Maloney, as editor, and Stuart Mayne, as publisher, have put together a great collection, focusing not so much on the dark side, but the twisted and crazy world we live in that has flavoured a lot of my work over the last five years. You'll probably still shudder at times, as you indeed should, but the collection is served with a thick sauce of black humour and if you're not laughing at some stage then you're probably dead. Or wondering just what the hell is wrong with the guy who wrote it.

Slice Of Life  was originally due to come out with the other fundraising activities the Australian Speculative Fiction community organised to keep me alive about a year ago, but due to a number of reasons (ill health and deaths in the family to be more precise) we have only managed to make it available now. All proceeds from the sale of this book go directly towards my funds for fighting cancer.

More information on how to buy a copy will follow on my return from the convention.

It could be one of those Last Chance To See books, seriously. So you all better buy a copy and get me to sign it, because it will be worth a fortune once I'm gone. Well, maybe worth 2 or 3 times the asking price, but in this day and age that's a lot better than any returns on superannuation.

And just so you know, the guy on the cover is eating his liver. Black enough for you?

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21, September, 2009 - X6 On Sale

X6 is now available for sale on the coeur de lion website.

And don't forget to come to the official launch on Thursday 12th November - 7pm for a 7.30 start at Berkelouw Books, 70 Norton Street Leichhardt, Sydney.

X6 will be launched by Richard Harland (Worldshaker, Allen and Unwin) and ALL the X6 authors will be in attendance.

The anthology includes my 40,000 word novella Wives, a love story set in an alternate-history, near-future Australia where it's hard to find a good woman. It's a masterpiece of self-loathing, lust and tortured male angst.

More info on the X6 anthology launch here.

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29/08/2009 - Slice of Life launch at Conflux 09

My new collection Slice of Life will be launched at Conflux this year. If my health permits, I hope to be there to help launch it.

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31/07/2009 - Genre and Gender

I  was recently contacted by one of the Victorian universities who are revising their reading syllabus in a unit called 'Gender and Genre in Short Fiction' and were keen to get local writers on the reading list.

So, with a little trepidation (you all know what I write, right?), I sent off several of my stories that heavily involve sex (no, not all of them do),and, um, hoped for the best.

I got a reply today saying they'd like to recommend a couple of them for the syllabus. I'm chuffed! The stories are:

• Lifelike and Josephine
• (It's Not Like) The Good Old Days (originally published as www.rebirth.!@#$)

Move over Ben Peek...

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05/07/2009 - Chronos Awards Shortlist

I'm pleased to announce my short story "Her Collection Of Intimacy" (Black Magazine #2) has been shortlisted for the 2009 Chronos Awards for Best Short Story.

The complete shortlist can be found here: HorrorScope.

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09/05/2009 - Ditmar Shortlist

I'm pleased to announce my short story "Her Collection Of Intimacy" (Black Magazine #2) has been shortlisted for the 2009 Ditmar for Best Short Story.

The complete shortlist can be found here: HorrorScope.

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20/03/2009 - X6 Cover

For those interested in cover design and conception, you can see the evolution here.

This is the wonderful beast that will be carrying my near-future, alternate-history Australian love story Wives.

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19/03/2009 - The Interferers On The Rise!

My story "A Tale Of The Interferers: Necromancing The Bones" has been nominated for the 2008 Sir Julius Vogel Awards (the New Zealand science fiction awards) in the category of  Best Novella/Novelette.

Published in Dark Animus 10/11 originally slated for December 2007 but not seeing the print of day until June 2008, I was VERY surprised and extremely happy that this twisted piece of my psyche has received more notice than it did on publication. And it should! It's dark, twisted and very funny. Uh, well, at least I think it's funny... more info on the story here.

I haven't yet seen who and what else is nominated in this year's awards. Hopefully their website will be updated soon.

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13/02/2009 - Australian Shadows Award 2008

The Australian Shadows 2008 Shortlist has now been released:

• Lee Battersby - "The Claws of Native Ghosts" (The Beast Within, Graveside Tales)
• Sara Douglass - "This Way To The Exit" (Dreaming Again, HarperVoyager)
• Jason Fischer - "Rick Gets a Job" (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #37)
• Christopher Green - "Lakeside" (Dreaming Again, HarperVoyager)
• Paul Haines - "Her Collection of Intimacy" (Black: Australian Dark Culture #2)

The winner of the 2008 Australian Shadows Award will be announced on 13 March 2009.

For more information about the Australian Shadows Award, please visit the AHWA website.

I'm very happy to have made the cut, especially with that story. Okay, Lee, the gloves are coming off for the next couple of weeks...

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28/01/2009 - Australian Dark Fiction 2008

Over at Horrorscope there is a review of Australian Dark Fiction for 2008. Nice to see two of my stories making the list of recommended reading:

• "Her Collection of Intimacy" (Black magazine #2)
• "Tanihwa, Swim with Me" (Midnight Echo #1)

Also great to see several SuperNOVArians (Matt Chrulew, Brendan Duffy, Andrew Macrae, Kirstyn McDermott - who also won the this year's Aurealis Award for Best Horror Short Story for her wonderful "Painlessness" - and Miranda Siemienowicz) also get mentions for their short fiction.

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21/12/2008 - Paper and Iron

My Wives novella, sitting at a pretty 26,000 words, sits on my desktop awaiting my fingers. I've got three weeks to hammer out the remaining 10,000 words needed to complete this darkest of tales.X6 dictator, Keith Stevenson, has kindly given me more time than Cat Sparks to finish my great Australian novella (oh, and it is, folks! it is!).

On other writing news, I've secured the cover image for my Slice Of Life collection due out early next year (Feb/Mar 2009). Design of course to follow. I love this piece of art -- it encapsulates perfectly the state of the protagonist in the Slice of Life titled stories, and even better that it is his liver he is cutting out and eating. Nothing like blurring the reality between the fictional and delusional Haines.

And the TOC for The Last Days of Kali Yuga is almost finalised, with very little cross-over between the two new collections.

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23/11/2008 The Sound Of Mr Pussy

Coeur de lion is proud to announce its sister podcast site www.tisf.com.au. Terra Incognita Australian Speculative Fiction podcast is a monthly podcast featuring the best Australian speculative fiction read by the authors who created it. Each show is podcast no later than the 15th of the month.

The first edition features Paul Haines’ 2007 Ditmar winning novella, ‘The Devil in Mr Pussy’.  Next month’s podcast will feature Adam Browne, Cat Sparks will read for the January podcast and Rob Hood for February.

You can listen online or download it direct to your itunes library (assuming you have itunes) by clicking here.

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31/10/2008 - Midnight Echo

The AHWA is extremely proud to present the inaugural issue of Midnight Echo: The Magazine of the Australian Horror Writers Association. You can get it here.

It includes a good number of SuperNOVArians: Matthew Chrulew, Brendan Duffy, Andrew Macrae and Natalie Potts, as well as some of the usual suspects of the Australian Horror scene including: Deb Biancotti, Stephan Dedman and Martin Livings.

Oh, and it includes my Kiwi-exploring-his-roots tale Taniwha, Swim With Me.

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20/10/2008 - Scary Food

The most wonderful Cat Sparks sent me some copies of Scary Food and I have to say the book looks fabulous. It has the feel of one of those Ripley's Believe It or Not or a turn-of-the-century Coles Funny Facts book and is nice and weird to boot.

Thanks to all the contributors (it's a top heavy Aussie horror banquet here too) and to Sparky and Rob Zombie Hood for putting this together.

It may be the smallest Agog! Press title out there, but by God, it's the best looking.

If you're interested, you can buy a copy of this limited print run here.

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13/09/2008 - Black Magazine

The latest issue contains an interview, a story (a teaser from the upcoming Macabre anthology) and some advertising for a writer called Paul Haines.

That's me.

And there's a whole lot of stuff about the Dark Side in Australian culture too. I hope that both me and this magazine stick around for years to come.

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01/09/2008 - Black Box

A Black Box arrived in my letterbox last week.


It looks great onscreen, the stories are pretty good so far (only a dozen or so read).  With flash fiction like this it is hard not to rush the read, which you really shouldn't do because every word is doing something and it can be easy to miss the real twist. The only real criticism is that some of the artwork can give away the punchline (Mark Deniz's story is a good example). The perfect thing to take to work and load up while you can't be fucked working. Or eating your lunch to.


I haven't got to the music yet, but there's some good artwork lurking in this box.

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18/08/2008 - Australian Men's Health

My article on bowel cancer "Trouble Down Below" has been published in the September 2008 issue of Australian Men's Health.

Although not my original title and not quite as colourful as I had intended (ie you probably won't laugh or go ugh as much) the editors have done a great job of making my non-standard article fit their magazine.

It's out now.

(Oh  yeah, woe betide, the difference in per word pay rates between the fiction and non-fiction worlds is staggering).

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27/06/2008 - The Interferers In Dark Animus 10/11

The latest issue of Dark Animus is finally available in print. It is the best looking and most professional edition yet and weighs in at the size of most Australian anthologies. It contains work by Richard Harland, Cat Sparks, and best of all, has published the first of my Interferer tales. James Cain has always taken risks with my stories, Doof Doof Doof being the previous example of a story publishers didn't want to touch, though James took it with relish and it received an Aurealis Award nomination for Best Horror Short Story that year. The Interferers story, Necromancing The Bones is little more extreme than that, originally workshopped at Clarion South to great distaste, then reworked and doubled in length to a small novella. One colleague suggested if I were going to continue to write such filth then I do it under a pseudonym to protect my career and good name. I didn't.

The cover of the latest issue is from a scene in the story, though I don't think Herve, the artist, quite got what my characters were all about, depicting a more Robert E Howard version of one of my boys, rather than the distinctly Haines creature that he is. Dion Hammil, however, nails The Interferers with his internal illustration.

Horrorscope has reviewed the magazine favourably. The Interferers garnered this:

A very amusing and ribald tale poking serious fun at D&D gamers and the stories they create. It seems the adventurers in this world live interconnected lives, with “the good” guys very much in league with the perceived “bad” guys, in an eternal cycle of swindling the common folk out of their money. Filled with acts of bestiality, brotherly love, and profanity, it is a very funny romp through the product of some very twisted gamers’ imaginations.

A previous rejection for the story stated that the magic system wasn't original enough and was too reminiscent of D&D, which was exactly my point. Why does every fucking fantasy trilogy/novel try to create its own magic system? Enough is enough! It should be part of the Turkey City Lexicon. We don't bother to describe how a dragon can exist in a fantasy novel anymore, do we, people? No.

This story, as all Interferer stories are, is dedicated to Mike Dowman, long time friend and travelling buddy, on whom the disgraced knight Scwythe is based.