I wrote Evolved in response to the writing prompt 'Dinovember' by one of my favourite YA podcasts, Cast of Wonders. The prompt asked writers to imagine what would happen if dinosaurs weren't wiped out and become the dominant species on earth. Every year, a bunch of animation students and some of the lecturers from my work travel to Winton to make 'plein-air' films and they always come back with amazing photos and animation of the landscape of the Queensland outback. (Winton is also home to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs). And so, inspired by my colleagues, I penned Evolved.

The story wasn’t accepted by Cast of Wonders (Bummer. To this day, I haven’t had any work accepted by them. It’s on my writing bucket list). Instead, I published the piece in Space and Time Magazine. Evolved was one of my first short stories picked up by a commercial magazine. To celebrate, I commissioned the talented artist Naomi Hurrey to design an illustration for the story. The brief I gave her was to create a 1960s science fiction illustration about anthropomorphic dinosaurs. I think she's done an AMAZING job. You can check out her artwork and the short story in the gallery.