When did your interest in daikaiju and other giant monsters begin? What inspired it? 

When I met Rob Hood! His enthusiasm for daikaiju and zombies is completely infectious.

Perhaps you can tell us something of your career to date.

A BA graduate in Professional Writing & Literature, my previous genre work includes the SF comedy novel Worlds Apart (Hybrid Publishers, 1999), co-editorship of AustrAlien Absurdities: Comic Tales of SF, Fantasy & Horror by Australian Writers (Agog! Press, 2002), and sales of articles and short fiction to The Age, Aurealis, Altair, Agog! Fantastic Fiction, Borderlands, AntipodeanSF, Simulacrum, Orb, Planet Relish, Passing Strange and Elsewhere. Future plans include a blockbuster fantasy bestseller. If only I could come up with an idea for one…

How many giant monsters stories have you written/had published?

Including this one? One.

What would you consider your major work to be?

I’m always most proud of whatever my most recent publication is, but I suppose the piece I consider to be my all-time best (thus far) would be either "Predatory Instincts", which was published in Borderlands #2 in 2003, or "Confessions Of A Pod Person", which appeared in Passing Strange in 2002.

Different people have different ideas as to why the giant monster genre holds such power? What is your take on it?

I think it’s all about our fear and awe of elemental forces. A giant monster is like a tidal wave or an earthquake, a completely unstoppable force -- you can’t fight it, you just have to get out of its way. And sometimes even doing that can’t save you.

What is your favourite giant monster film? Why that one?

Eight-Legged Freaks is probably the one that sticks in my mind the most -- I have a bit of a spider phobia.

What lies ahead for you?

Death and Taxes.

Can you tell us how you came to write your story for the DAIKAIJU! anthology? What thoughts lay behind it?

The story is 90% autobiographical, and writing it was extremely therapeutic. Thoughts behind it? Only that the arrival of a giant monster on my doorstep would have been the only possible capper to one of the worst days of my life.

The daikaiju genre (such as it is) has been very film-focussed to date. Did this prove a problem when you came to writing your story?

Nah!

What would you say to those new to the idea of daikaiju films and stories?

Meet my friend, Rob Hood

February 2005