Wake-Up Calling
Sleepers Almanac No 4 is not your typical airport genre. But then again, it’s a damn fine collection to sneak onto your next red-eye flight, or even the 86 tram to Bundoora. And I’m not saying that because my kelpie cross called Abo is sitting (kinda obediently) amid its pages.
Jammed with two dozen stories, from erotica to exotica, from drinking games to mouse-hunting, the book is the brain-baby of Zoe Dattner and Lou Swinn under the guise of Sleepers Publishing. Big names and rising names (present author excluded) have submitted brand-new narratives from around Oz. You’d be mad to ignore it.
To hint at the tome’s holdings I can throw you some of the stranger story titles: The Miracle of the Beer and Tim Tams (by Jeff Hoogenboom), Her ______ - _______ Stained Eyes (Sean Condon), The Russians Are Leaving (Emmett Stinson) and – my personal fave in the name game – They Shoe Horses, Don’t They? (by Kalinda Ashton).
This week the launch overflowed Trades Hall in Carlton where only the pure-livered will recall the evening in detail. Still too early to read the volume cover to cover and give you a proper review. And maybe a tad premature to score a copy at your local biblioteca – but learn more about who’s who and what’s cooking lit-wise at http://www.sleeperspublishing.com/almanac.html