Looking forward to the launch of Storyfire – the magic of the short. An anthology of prize winning stories from the Hadow Stuart Short Story Competition 2008-2018.  While the stories in the collection are prize winners, included in the book are short stories by Lucas North (1973-2013). I was asked approximately two years ago to send three of Lucas’s stories to the FAWWA for inclusion in the anthology. During that time I hadn’t heard whether or not the book would go ahead. I was told that the Fellowship didn’t receive any funding and left it at that. A visit to the Perth Writers Festival this year, to the Fellowship’s tent and a chat with Pat Johnson revealed the anthology was a viable thing. It will be launched on Thursday, 16th May, 6pm at the State Library, Perth in the Great Southern Room.

I am thrilled that this has been achieved. Lucas North was close to getting his novel The Population of Loss published with Penguin. He had met Robert Drewe who liked his writing. He wrote to Ben Ball (CEO),  “I’m currently doing a month’s writing residence in Perth for the Fellowship of Australian Writers, during which this West Australian manuscript by a fellow called Lucas North crossed my path. I think it has really got something different going for it: Outback Gothic, or Rural Noir, I reckon.”

Lucas North’s Completed (unpublished) Novels

The Unusables (Book of the Pandemic 1)1993 sci-fi, 100k
Eleven Minute Shareholders(Book of the Pandemic 2)1994 sci-fi, 100k
Lavatory Wall Discourses 1995 thriller, 80k
Flatchest 1996 magic realism, 50k
The Suicide Pact: Broken 1997 sci-fi, 70k
Translucide (novella)1997 urban fantasy, 20k
Asphalt Meniscus 2000 J series, 70k
Themepark Of Id 2001 horror, 80k
Ambidextrous/Existence 2004 thriller, 60k
The Asphalt Apprentice 2004 J series, 70k
The Population of Loss 2006 period thriller, 60k