Hello!! How are you doing?? We'll actually be in the same continent next year I think! Coming to Berlin in January and staying a year...

Libraries, as always, doing the heavy lifting for a lot of necessary conversations.

Weird speculative ecology is the most fun thing to write! Thanks, A.J.

Thank you! I'm so excited, I can hardly wait.

Oh thank you! That was such a fun anthology to be in... so many great stories in there. My personal favourite was "The Exuberant Vitality of Hatchling Habitats" by D.A. Xiaolin Spires, but they're all so good!

As far as I'm concerned, Saturn and his alligator friends can have all my photo opportunities!!!

There's a Dunedin artist who makes sculptures out of skulls and bone - I was at his museum of natural mysteries a little while back. Bruce Mahalski - you might like his stuff, you seem to be on the same wavelength!

mahalski.org

Thank you! It's a fantastic piece of science/animal history, I can't believe I get to write about it.

Thanks! It really is, I'm so happy to get it.

It does, doesn't it?! I couldn't resist applying with the Saturn story, so yay alligators!

Thank you! I still can't believe I get to go.

CNZ sends an artist to Berlin every year, alternating between writers and visual artists. It's an amazing opportunity, and I'm so lucky to get it.

(Also, I have discovered that Berlin's Natural History Museum has a T. rex. I can hardly wait. 2026 is going to be a very reptilian year.)

Weird and horrifying being right up my alley, I read about Saturn several years back and thought of the Berlin residency. "One day, when I apply for that..."

One day I did apply, and Saturn came through for me.

I'll be writing a fabulist novel about Saturn the alligator, who escaped the bombing of Berlin Zoo in 1943 and roamed the city for three years before being recaptured and sent to live in Moscow Zoo.

Can you imagine, living in a war-torn city, turning a corner, and ALLIGATOR?! Weird. Horrifying.

And congratulations to all the winners and nominees! I'm so pleased to see that NZ speculative fiction is continuing to do well - we produce some amazing work here, and it's always fun to share it.

You know, I was so gobsmacked that I didn't even think to ask! A question for a follow-up email, perhaps!

I hope it will be on display again soon.

It was super kind of them both to offer me a tour of the museum collections. I'm really grateful. Thank you very much, Tūhura Otago Museum. I have lots of new story ideas now!