Introduction by Kaaron Warren

Angel Dust is the first story collection by Australian rising star Ian McHugh. McHugh is a Writers of the Future winner, and has a number of significant overseas short fiction sales.

Angel Dust collects 15 incredible fantastic visions. A number of these were first published in Asimov’s and Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

Four stories are original to this collection.

Asimov’s editor Sheila Williams says of this writer, “Ian McHugh has a remarkable ability to render the alien utterly convincing. His nonhuman lives are so powerfully depicted that we can easily, and sometimes uneasily, immerse ourselves completely into their worlds.”

In the second volume of this award-winning series, editors Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene have compiled an impressive list of fantastic stories first published in 2011, from New Zealand’s and Australia’s finest writers. Includes Angela Slatter’s British Fantasy Award-winning story “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter”.

The 32 stories selected are

• Peter M Ball “Briar Day” (Moonlight Tuber)
• Lee Battersby “Europe After The Rain” (After the Rain, Fablecroft Press)
• Deborah Biancotti “Bad Power” (Bad Power, Twelfth Planet Press)
• Jenny Blackford “The Head in the Goatskin Bag” (Kaleidotrope)
• Simon Brown “Thin Air” (Dead Red Heart, Ticonderoga Publications)
• David Conyers and David Kernot “Winds Of Nzambi” (Midnight Echo #6, AHWA)
• Stephen Dedman “More Matter, Less Art” (Midnight Echo #6, AHWA)
• Sara Douglass & Angela Slatter “The Hall of Lost Footsteps” (The Hall of Lost Footsteps, Ticonderoga Publications)
• Felicity Dowker “Berries & Incense” (More Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga Publications)
• Terry Dowling “Dark Me, Night You” (Midnight Echo #5, AHWA)
• Jason Fischer “Hunting Rufus” (Midnight Echo #5, AHWA)
• Christopher Green “Letters Of Love From The Once And Newly Dead” (Midnight Echo #5, AHWA)
• Paul Haines “The Past Is A Bridge Best Left Burnt” (The Last Days of Kali Yuga, Brimstone Press)
• Lisa L Hannett “Forever, Miss Tapekwa County” (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)
• Richard Harland “At The Top Of The Stairs” (Shadows and Tall Trees #2, Undertow Publications)
• John Harwood “Face To Face” (Ghosts by Gaslight, HarperCollins)
• Pete Kempshall “Someone Else To Play With” (Beauty Has Her Way, Dark Quest Books)
• Jo Langdon “Heaven” (After the Rain, Fablecroft Press)
• Maxine McArthur “The Soul of the Machine” (Winds of Change, CSFG)
• Ian McHugh “The Wishwriter’s Wife” (Daily Science Fiction)
• Andrew J McKiernan “Love Death” (Aurealis #45, Chimaera Publications)
• Kirstyn McDermott “Frostbitten” (More Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga Publications)
• Margaret Mahy “Wolf Night” (The Wilful Eye – Tales From the Tower #1, Allen & Unwin)
• Anne Mok “Interview with the Jiangshi” (Dead Red Heart, Ticonderoga Publications)
• Jason Nahrung “Wraiths” (Winds of Change, CSFG)
• Anthony Panegyres “Reading Coffee” (Overland, OL Society)
• Tansy Rayner Roberts “The Patrician” (Love and Romanpunk, Twelfth Planet Press)
• Angela Rega “Love In the Atacama or the Poetry of Fleas” (Crossed Genres, CGP)
• Angela Slatter “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter” (A Book of Horrors, Jo Fletcher Books)
• Lucy Sussex “Thief of Lives” (Thief of Lies, Twelfth Planet Press)
• Kyla Ward “The Kite” (The Land of Bad Dreams, P’rea Press)
• Kaaron Warren “All You Can Do Is Breathe” (Blood and Other Cravings, Tor)