Author Description

''You clamber up, heading for the exit, the circle of faint light, as the radiance of the pre-dawn leads you on toward freedom. I follow. You spread your darling wings. You enter the net that awaits you.'' Bold, tender, and often fantastical, Love Letter to Lola enters the very pain of loss and grief while preserving a wise, sly, humorous, and ironic point of view. The thylacine, the dodo, the passenger pigeon, the blue macaw are all candidates to return from extinction, and here each is given its own moving narrative. The meaning of the British monarchy is challenged by a green spider; a unicorn and the rainbow serpent contemplate the end of the world; an angel gives his perspective on human life and love with a thoughtful and exquisite mischief. The author''s own ''Reflection'' on the inspiration and the construction of the stories is a swift and penetrating conversation on how writing happens. ''Playing with darkness but in no way mucking around, this teeming collection is deeply tuned to the possibilities of a future ''where all life on the planet is treasured and nurtured by humans''. -- Gregory Day ''A beguiling blend of historical facts -- with an eye for the unexpected and bizarre -- and a dazzling imagination. A vividly realised world of fantasy, romance, and horror, in which cockroaches, rats, and dodos voice the brutal realities of species extinction and the destructive effects of colonialism. There''s profound emotion and disarming wit, with faint echoes of optimism about the future of the planet under siege. Vintage Carmel Bird: immersive, surprising, and irresistible.'' -- Susan Midalia ''Carmel Bird is an extraordinary writer, and these stories are playful, violent, wild. In Love Letter to Lola, she asks us to inhabit the bodies and minds of birds and insects, mammals and angels as they -- as we all -- stand tremulous on the point of extinction. Reading them mad