Well, this weekend hasn’t exactly turned out the way I expected …

Yesterday I was SUPPOSED to be in Brisbane for the Omega Book Fair, but our State Government decided to suddenly extend their mask mandate for Brisbane, then last minute, slapped a State capital lockdown on top of that. Sigh. Change of plans …

Soooo, given that has thrown out the coming events for most people, even if they’re not near our State capital, I thought it would be appropriate to share some exciting news.

You may have already heard that Rhiza Edge Press recently released the “Crossed Spaces” Anthology, which included my short story “Over and Out”. What you may not know is recently I had a guest post on the Rhiza website. Today I though a cross post would be a great way to kick off a new week.

Teaser below. Click on the link to read the full blog.

Crossed Spaces: Over and Out — Adele Jones

Posted by Rhiza Edge on 13th Jul 2021

Girl Talk

When a sarcastic, non-conformist, ex-digital security engineer, with a chip on both shoulders is forcibly relocated from Australia to dystopian Houston, Texas, because of a system technicality, what could possibly go wrong? Well, that’s where we meet, Vivia, the main protagonist of my short story ‘Over and Out’, from the recently released Crossed Spaces Anthology.

This story plays out against a landscape of intense government scrutiny and citizen monitoring, where high tech ease and trust in the global government has become the anaesthetic of the new world order. Control of information, harsh public punishments and fear is a means of managing world populations, and hard borders based on global government whims has become Vivia’s norm. Although there are eerie commonalities between this invented world and the rapid changes we’ve witnessed in our society over the past 14 months, this idea started percolating before these changes became full-blown reality. As I was fleshing out the plot and our real-world situation continued to develop, I decided a global pandemic would be a fitting historical justification for the environment Vivia has grown up in—but as the story reveals, not everything is as it seems.

While creating Vivia’s character, it occurred to me that I seldom write a female protagonist. It’s not that I can’t write girl characters, for I do, I’ve just never had any of my female heroes published. Once Blaine (of the Blaine Colton Trilogy) was published, I kind of went with the flow. So when I finally got a chance to ‘write like a girl’ (ha ha), I decided to have a bit of fun. …

Want to hear more? Jump on over the the Wombat-Rhiza blog, and don’t forget to check out the guest posts by the other authors affiliated with this project.