Very exciting news today! My Twelve Planets collection is finally done, dusted and off to the printers. It’s called Caution: Contains Small Parts and will feature two short stories and two novellas. As she has done with the rest of the series, Amanda Rainey has produced a brilliant cover that manages to capture the feel of the whole collection, while specifically illustrating the titular story. I love it so much!

The collection will be launched at Continuum 9 in Melbourne, so if you’ll be at the convention, please come along and help me celebrate :

When: 6pm – Sunday, 9 June 2013

Where: Continuum 9 @ Ether – lower level, 285 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne (check con program for the room)

Naturally, if you can’t make it to the launch, you can always purchase the book direct from Twelfth Planet Press. It’s available right now for individual pre-order or as part of the Twelve Planets subscription. I cannot recommend this series more highly and am delighted to note that Kaaron Warren and Margo Lanagan both just won Aurealis Awards for stories in their particular volumes.

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As part of the lead up to the launch, I’m planning a series of “Story Notes” type posts in which I’ll talk about each of the four pieces in the collection. These will mostly focus on the background to the stories, with anecdotal discussion of inspiration, process, and so on — no actual spoilers, I promise!  They’ll go up every few days over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned.

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Caution: Contains Small Parts is an intimate, unsettling collection from award-winning author Kirstyn McDermott.

A creepy wooden dog that refuses to play dead.

A gifted crisis counsellor and the mysterious, melancholy girl she cannot seem to reach.

A once-successful fantasy author whose life has become a horror story – now with added unicorns.

An isolated woman whose obsession with sex dolls takes a harrowing, unexpected turn.

Four stories that will haunt you long after their final pages are turned.

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