Category: In the news
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Why conventions and book festivals matter
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I wrote my first novel during the COVID lockdown and experienced the surreal situation of getting vaccinated in a crowded arena, all while staying home to avoid infection and worrying about a friend’s son who was critically ill, as well as waiting in long lines for groceries. How did that…
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Book Promo: our love\hate relationship
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Would you turn down a $175,000 prize to avoid having to do promotional activities? That’s exactly what US writer Helen DeWitt did in April. It made the news. I’ve been reading through her blog posts about this, and, without passing any judgement, she seems highly stressed by a series of…
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How quickly things change
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This is not a political blog post. It’s about how countries evolve, develop problems and work them out. Authors pay attention to these things when we’re crafting the worlds our stories play out in. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention in May, when the protests in Bolivia began –…
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March Madness in Bookland
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‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ said Alice. ‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the cat. ‘We’re all mad here.’ Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll Do you also feel as if we’ve all tumbled down a rabbit-hole into a strange world where nothing makes sense? When I…
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Characters from books to screen: good, bad, misguided
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About 30 minutes into the first Lord of the Rings movie, I was ticked off, and spent the next three hours fuming. Now, for that movie my problem wasn’t with the casting – except for the ridiculous choice of actress to play Lady Arwen – but with the many, many…
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When life mirrors my books!
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My hubby, along with a number of people I know, isn’t a particular fan of vegetables. He’ll eat them under sufferance because he knows they’re good for him, and because I won’t let him eat just meat, potatoes and gravy all the time. So I can only imagine his reaction…
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Fantasy jobs: Treasure hunter for the British Museum
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In 1998 I, my hubby and my in-laws got to pretend we were Indiana Jones for a few hours. Hubby & I had driven down to Florida to join his parents for a week at a family condo in Clearwater, and in the news before we left I saw a…
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The End of a Train Era
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In Egypt, there were miles of sand, which refused to remain pleasantly flat. It made the tracks undulate so much that it gave our train a pronounced sway – so much so that at times it felt like the car holding our cabin was going to tip right over. There…
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Inspired by Ancient Mythology
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Along with the eerie literature and movies that were big influences for me as a child and early story-teller (Edgar Allan Poe, The Twilight Zone, etc.), I also grew up on what I loosely call ‘sword-and-sandal’ movies. Officially, the term ‘sword-and-sandal’ refers to a popular genre of Italian knock-off movies…
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Dark, Crumbling and Intense
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“Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave…” Victor Frankenstein Another year gone – it’s hard to believe that we’re now twenty-six years past the qualms of New Year’s Eve 1999. After what I hope was a lovely holiday…