Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

I keep thinking that I’ve been doing this PHD for years and I haven’t written anything creative in ages. That’s a big fat lie!

In the early years of my PhD I put out a lot of books. I also republished books that I had received the rights back from publishers. I call bull on my thinking there.

Then, you know this is a creative writing PhD that I’m doing and I have written a novel. Isn’t a novel a creative piece of work? Well, yes, I say, it is. It may not be published yet but that does not mean it doesn’t exist.

That doesn’t count, part of my brain says…but what about that short story you wrote last year and that was published in late December? Mmmm???

I wrote a short story! I was productive! Evidence.

Okay I’m not productive all the time….right…and maybe I have high expectations…maybe I look on jealously as friends launch books and post about word counts…

I am too hard on myself. I often thing my kids are harsh critics of me, but I think I err. I am my harshest critic!

I do have manuscripts that are sitting there waiting for the final run through…They stick like a knife between my shoulder blades, sending their angry, neglected thoughts into my skin. I will get to them.

Anyway….about that short story. Crash Baby appears in Unnatural Order, an anthology published by CSFG publishing and edited by Alis Franklin and Lyss Wickramasinghe. The premise of the anthology was to write in a non-human voice or from a non-human perspective. Crash Baby is written from the perspective of a maintenance robot. The story was inspired by my new baby granddaughter and the long hours where I helped care for her in her first year. I also have lots of robot story ideas….I feel a collection coming on one day.

A first for me is that I share the Table of Contents with my partner Matthew Farrer who wrote about monster love. Here is the blurb!

Is an unlikely friendship enough to save a human and a voidbeast?
Can a robot’s heart be broken?
What happens to the demons when all the humans are gone?
Can dishonest hearts find peace?

By all accounts a very good line up so go check it out.

Unnatural Order