In the day job I make use of a site called Xing – it’s like facebook except there’s no fun & games, it’s all serious work networking. A new message came through. It was from someone called Anna Janas. She had contributed a story to a sci-fi collection, and the publishers wanted to translate all the stories into English so that David Bowie could read them.

That’s right. The 20 stories were all inspired by Bowie’s music. Each writer chose a song and used it as an inspiration. What better music than Bowie’s for probing the bizarre Hinterland of the subconscious?

I was delighted to be asked part of the project. I’m an old fan of sci-fi – used to read tons of the stuff. So then editor of the project, Karla Schmidt, sent me a few stories to choose from. I chose one by Wulf Dorn. The plain, tense style of his prose immediately attracted me.

The project took wings and you should see their bilingual site Hinterland. The authors include some of Germany’s best known sci-fi and fantasy writers, and some newer writers on the scene. The story I had chosen is by Wulf Dorn, who I discovered later is causing waves with his psychological thrillers. His second novel is being translated into Italian, Turkish, Danish, Greek, and Brazilian Portuguese. The English-speaking world is missing out.

The Hinterland anthology is going to give me great leads on where to go among new German writers. Time to take a break from the English-speaking world.