Welcome! I'm Chris Hayes-Kossmann, known to friends and family as Ruzkin.
I was born in Hong Kong, 1985. I've done a fair bit of travelling since then, but am temporarily settled down in Melbourne, Australia. I knew I wanted be a writer as early as six years old, but folk told me it was an impossible way to make a living, so I put it on the backburner for years. Now, I've decided to give all those naysayers the finger and follow my passion.
This is the blog that will follow my rise to success, or my failure. I'm either going to work until I get published or die a bitter old man - either way, I'll catalogue it here.
I'm working on a number of novels: Weathermen is my longest project so far, but I've also written a sci-fi thriller called Alpha Slip and two other practice novels, not posted here. I also write short stories whenever I have the chance, which I send out to magazines across Australia and the US. If you're interested in publishing anything you see here, please drop me a line.
I've had short stories previously published by fiction blogs such as Weaponizer and Labyrinth Inhabitant's Magazine. I also have shorts to be published in upcoming issues of Birdville Magazine and Vehicle Magazine. My short story Long Way Home won the first Ergofiction Search Term Challenge. I've also been rejected by lots of very famous people, which must count for something.
If you read anything I post, I hope that you'll leave some serious criticism. I'm not a thin-skinned whiner. If something is shit, then please, tell me it's shit. If, on the other hand, you see something you like, then let me know. I appreciate every comment.
Frequently Asked Questions:
(More to be added as people ask them)
Q: Why "Ruzkin"?
A: When I moved to Australia from Vienna in 1998, I hadn't had a haircut in months. But instead of laying flat or sticking out in a 'fro, my hair insisted on sticking straight up in the air, like a Soviet fur hat. Kids at school started calling me Moscow, which became Russian, which eventually became Ruzkin. Somehow the nickname followed me to university, and I decided to claim it.
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