Paroxysm Press publisher Daniel Watson will appear at the May Wordfire, reading the story “My Brother’s Keeper” - his contribution to the ‘Blood’ anthology (Sunday Drivers Press) - the eighth highest selling book at the 2007 Melbourne Writers’ Festival.

Paroxysm will also be using the occasion to record the appearance of the up and comer poet / spoken word performer Rob Parry.

The next Wordfire salon will be held on Monday 5th May 2008.
As usual the venue will be the Red Room, Crown & Sceptre, 308 King William Street, Adelaide. 7.00pm for 7.30pm.

Headlining the gig will be Nicholas Jose (Paper Nautilus).

Also appearing:
Rachel Hennessy (The Quakers)
A.M. Sladdin (S.A. runner up, National Poetry Slam 07)
And Cathoel Jorss

A big fortnight of Hard Boiled coming up in Adelaide. The second event on the 24th will be sound recorded. Paroxysm is aiming to get a couple of people in particular down on ‘tape’ as part the on-going Paroxysm Radio-Demo releases and Hard Boiled have given us the use of their event to do so. But we figured we’d just keep the machine running. Anyone joining in the open mic can leave us their contact details and we can email them a copy of their recording. And who knows - there are always more Radio-Demos coming up - come along and prove you deserve to be on one!

From the mailing list of Hard Boiled:

Thurs April 17
7:30 for an 8 start @ La Boheme (36 Grote St)
A multiple zine launch!! 4 Zines launched from high art to loud offensive music & films.
$4 gets you 2 of the 4 zines launched, value if there ever was such a thing!
2 DJs playing tracks, both creators of 2 of the zines launched.

What zines launched:
Feminista
Sprak!
Analog Apocalypse
Corrupt Me!

Thurs April 24th
7:30 for a 8 start @ La Boheme (36 Grote St)
Free entry, open mic, raffle & raffle prizes, the best reader gets the raffle money!!!
The nite will be recorded so you might get on a live cd to prove to all that you do read & write good poetry!
So come along to read your best works, or heckle to add to the live feel.

So all of you, come to at least one to support the local scene

- submissions open -

It’s been a hell of a road. But we’re still here, still standing and still fighting. Our first anthology ‘Paroxysm’ was launched in late 1998. This year will see us mark the TEN YEAR anniversary of that first release. There’s been good years and bad. There’s been near poverty and huge successes. We’ve lost people along the way and gained many more. There’s been illness, death and heartbreak. But every year we grow; every year we’re kicking arse more and more. And frankly we’re just too bull-stubborn to die.

So come join us in this year of celebration - authors old and new. SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN for our ten year anthology “Ten Years of Things That Didn’t Kill Us”. Use the title as a theme if you like; whether you see it as strength against adversity, or life lived in tragedy. But remember there is no theme as such on this one apart from the fact we want it to be as Paroxysm as hell. Most of you already know what that means – if not grab a copy of one of the books so you know the kind of material we like. There are no length requirements, no limit on number of submissions and its open to all writing – stories, poetry, non-fiction – anything. But a warning people – bring your A-game – the competition will be tougher than ever on this one.

Submissions are open now and close at the end of May.

We’re already sure of Adelaide and Melbourne launches, and we’ll be working on other cities as we put this baby together. I’d also like to welcome the newly gelled Paroxysm ‘crew’, forming the largest editing team to date. Joining myself in the editors chair will be Kami, Kerryn Tredrea, Hop Dac and Shane Jesse Christmass.

Go hard people – show us what you’ve got!

After a brilliant Adelaide launch at Hard Boiled sore heads have been rested and its time for the boys hometown launch of their anthology of short stories:

Croak & Grist – Shane Jesse Christmass and Hop Dac.
Saturday 1st March, 2pm
Collected Works Bookshop
1 / 37 Swanston St, Melbourne
(03) 9654 8873

Collected Works has been a big supporter of Paroxysm for years and it’ll be a great venue for a Saturday afternoon. This top-shelf book of short stories is already selling well in Melbourne even before it’s launched so this should be a good one.

I’ll be flying into Melbourne that day to introduce the readings from Hop and Shane but then leaving for Adelaide the same day as Sunday the 2nd marks the start of Adelaide Writers Week. Keep an eye out for Paroxysm products at the book selling tent at this six day event.