On Friday 14 August, Clouds of Magellan author and playwright Errol Bray passed away. Errol was the author of The Eleventh Joke, The Quarters, and Berzoo, all originally published by Clouds of Magellan Press.

Errol was co-founder with Garry Fry, fifty years ago, of Shopfront Youth Theatre (now Shopfront Arts Co-Op), and writer and producer of numerous plays and theatrical events. His plays include The Choir – produced nationally and internationally – and Nijinsky at Twilight.

Tribute at Shopfront

Berzoo – Kindle

The Quarters – Amazon

Clouds of Magellan will be publishing an edition of Errol’s plays in the near future.

We have a new page on the website – Self-Publishing and Small Press Resources – which includes a downloadable pdf of Small Press, Big Dreams (an introduction to self-publishing). I use this in workshops, but it is available here for anyone who wants to get an overview, plus some specifics, on DIY self-publishing, or the creation of a small press.

The Eleventh Joke by Errol Bray (FICTION, 2026) is now available. We published Errol’s novel Berzoo in 2011 and are now proud to announce a new novel featuring an immortal trickster from another world and a story about the secret history of genius … MORE

Buy from The Nile

Kill Will: Night Bird in Sunlight by Clouds of Magellan Publisher Gordon Thompson has been released 2026 from the lovely folk at Clan Destine Press. It is a fantasy thriller in which young Will Shakespeare falls through a portal into present day England. We had a launch event this week (25 March) at Readings Bookshop in Carlton. You can buy copies at Readings, from Clan Destine Press, or wherever you get your books. Yannick Thoraval generously launched the book.

More on Kill Will below …

Kill Will: Night Bird in Sunlight (Clan Destine Press, 2026)

‘If you love time travel, Shakespeare and brilliant fictional women, this book is absolute catnip…A fresh and lively tribute to the Bard but never too reverent. It’s clever, funny, intricate and gripping.’
~ Narrelle M Harris, author of The She-Wolf of Baker Street

‘An ingenious tale of time travel, a wild ride of witty and disruptive culture clash.’
~ Amanda Lohrey, author of The Labyrinth

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Buy from Clan Destine Press

2025. 84pp. paperback. ISBN: 9781763735675.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was a major English Romantic poet known for his radical politics, lyrical intensity, and visionary imagination. Expelled from Oxford for atheism and estranged from his family, he led a life of rebellion and exile. Known as a radical agitator, apostle of free love, and a brilliant poetic innovator, his works include Ozymandias, Prometheus Unbound, and The Mask of Anarchy.

This edition includes all the poems recommended by the VCAA for Year 12 VCE Literature.

Amazon.com.au ; Barnes & Noble

Shelley drowned in a storm off the coast of Italy in 1822 when his sailing boat sank during a voyage from Livorno to Lerici. The cover is taken from a painting by Louis Edouard Fournier, ‘The Funeral of Shelley’ that dramatizes the aftermath of his death.

Contents

The Mask of Anarchy
Mutability
To Wordsworth
Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
Mont Blanc
Ozymandias
Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples
Song to the Men of England
A New National Anthem
Ode to the West Wind
Sonnet: England in 1819
The Indian Serenade
On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci …
Love’s Philosophy
To a Skylark
Ode to Liberty
To Night
The Question
The flower that smiles today …