Slowly the days are clawing back both warmth and daylight as we escape the darkest times of the year. For those of us with seasonal affective disorder, or for people who value getting to see daylight outside of working hours, the good news is that there are literal brighter days ahead. While things have hunkered down for the winter, here at CSFG things have been full steam ahead.
Member News
Long time Guild member Vel (Lee Cope), self-described “one half of Whimsy and Metaphor and local-ish purveyor of fine falsehoods” has just released the fourth and final hard copy book in its series, ‘The Ferryman’s Apprentice’, and is promoting the book with some special-offer bundles.
Vel says: “I hear the CSFG likes books, and also that they may like stickers. You guys like stickers, right?”
Vel is offering discounts on bundles of books at various sizes, from just one book with a free sticker sheet, to all four books at a significant discount (plus a sticker sheet). You can also add on extra stickers, or one or both of its novellas. To see all the bundles, please visit the Whimsy and Metaphor Ko-fi shop at http://ko-fi.com/whimsyandmetaphor/shop/promo
To see further details about the bundles, please visit the Whimsy and Metaphor blog at https://whimsyandmetaphor.com/2025/07/16/release-announcement/
We also are excited to announce that Guild member Dawn Meredith is launching her new book Runaway, book 2 of the Flight trilogy. Immerse yourself in the world of Avendor! This is epic fantasy – reluctant heroes, brutal enemies, spectacular scenery, ingenious gadgets, flying people, dragons with telepathy, three languages and cultures, secrets,
dangerous journeys, a love triangle, a lost queen, and unexpected humour, tragic loss, mysterious weapons & more!
Runaway will be launched at 2pm, Sunday August 24th at STUDIO 2, Hive, 50 Main Street, Ulverstone TAS 7315. Copies of all Dawn’s 14 other books will also be available on the day.
Cash/Eftpos. Light refreshments offered!
For more information about Dawn’s work, check out here website: https://dawnmeredithauthor.blogspot.com/
Monthly Meeting Recap
Our July monthly meeting featured special guest speaker Brendon Dann to talk about his comic store Dee’s Comics as well as his publishing house Midnight Factory comics. Brendan’s explanations about how comics go from idea to printed product, and some of the logistics of publishing comics in Australia, was greatly illuminating, and we hope inspired members to think about the places they can go with their ideas.
This month, we are excited to be able to invite Maddison Lee to come and talk to us about how writers can collaborate with artists. Maddi is the artist behind MadDog Ink. and is the cover artist for the upcoming CSFG anthology Never Say Die. While she has been working with the editorial team to nail our cover art, she is also experienced in producing art commercially as well as working on illustrated books and graphic novels. Maddi will talk about the process of working collaboratively with an artist, and the benefits of getting a professional to do art for your work.
Stick around for the conversation and stay for the Q&A!
Our meeting will be held on 20th August from 7:30-9:30pm, in person at the Burns Club in Kambah, or online via zoom.
Anthology Update
We are excited to finally be able to give another update about the upcoming CSFG anthology Never Say Die. The CSFG committee have taken the helm of the anthology, and have been busy organising the slush reading and an artist for the cover art. We are working hard to have the anthology ready to launch in the coming months, and will have more details soon.
Thank you to everyone who submitted, we have some really amazing writers as part of this community and it was awesome to get to read through your work. We had a really strong submission pool, and so we encourage people to get those stories out there!
If you are new to the world of submitting your writing to places, let us know if you are interested in a session on how to submit works to short story markets, and some of the steps involved. You can email requests for sessions like this at [email protected]. If we have a lot of folks interested in a particular topic, we can run it at a monthly meeting or dedicate its own event to talk about it. We are always looking for ways which we can help writers expand their skills!
August Events
Saturday 2nd – Scribbles and Nibbles: 10am, National Library of Australia, Parkes Pl W, Parkes (in person)
Wednesday 6th – Short Story Critique Group (session 1): 7:00pm (online) (stories due by Sunday 3rd August)
Wednesday 13th – Novel Critique Group: 7:30pm (online)
Saturday 16th – Scribbles and Nibbles: 10am, National Library of Australia, Parkes Pl W, Parkes (in person)
Wednesday 20th – Monthly Meeting: Monthly Member’s Meeting: 7:30-9:30pm, Burns Club, 28 Kett St, Kambah (hybrid)
Wednesday 27th – Short Story Critique Group (session 2): 7:00pm (online) (stories due by Sunday 20th July)
Friday 29th – Movie Night: 8pm (online)
Saturday 30th – Scribbles and Nibbles: 10am, National Library of Australia, Parkes Pl W, Parkes (in person)
For information about any of these events or activities, reach out to us at [email protected] or message a committee member on Discord.
Note: links to join hybrid meetings online are shared through csfg.groups.io and the CSFG Discord server.
This month’s featured image is a cool robot made by committee member Americo Alvarenga.