Helen Lowe's Blog, page 102

Those Continuity & Consistency Blues

Last weekend (National Writers’ Forum, “Building Fantastic Worlds” masterclass, all that jazz

“Building Fantastic Worlds” Followup, 2: More Fabulous NZ Fantasy Literature

Yesterday, I posted on seven of the (many) NZ Fantasy books I featured as part of my masterclass on Building Fantastic Worlds at the National Writers Forum last weekend. These were books I knew for certain were published overseas as well as in New Zealand.

A participant asked if I could share the information on those books, which was the main reason for the post. However, in the final overhead I had a lot of fun making a border comprised of a whole heap of NZ Fantasy books:

Here’s the great...

Building Fantastic Worlds Follow Up: They’re Reading Our Books Everywhere

Photo credit: Andi Buchanan

In the powerpoint presentation for my National Writers’ Forum masterclass on Building Fantastic Worlds, I used images of bookcovers to illustrate many of the overheads.

In one (No. 35 to be precise) all the seven covers featured were of New Zealand-authored Fantasy novels where the book has been published abroad, either exclusively or in addition to being published here in NZ.

I promised, in the aftermath of the masterclass, to feature the seven books again on my b...

The Canterbury Poets’ Spring Season Is Nigh

Despite earthquakes and aftermath, “rebuild” and “recovery” and now “regeneration” Christchurch has remained a city for poetry — and one of the most eagerly awaited events of the poetic year is the Canterbury Poets’ Collective Spring Reading series.

The Poetry in Performance season runs for eight weeks, from late September to mid-November and involves a combination of open mic and guest poets (three per session.) It’s also famous for the high standard of its open mic session, where the offeri...

The Inaugural National Writers’ Forum Was Awesome

National Writers’ Forum

From the outset I felt honoured to be asked to present a masterclass on “Building Fantastic Worlds” at the inaugural National Writers’ Forum. I was also impressed by the progamme that Coordinator, Claire Mabey, put together. One of the most significant testaments to her achievement is that in every time slot I was agonising between different scheduled events.

The Inaugural National Writers Forum — Happening Now!

Well, officially it’s happening tomorrow, but author and NZ Society of Authors President-of-Honour, Joan Rosier-Jones, will be delivering the Janet Frame Memorial Lecture at 5 pm this

Joan Rosier-Jones

evening, so that feels like the beginning of what will be an all-weekend event to me.

Listening

As a writer, I’m an observer — I think that goes without saying. In fact, that’s almost a blog post in itself, innit: whether it’s possible to be a writer and not be an observer of people, life, the universe in all its awe and wonder, and pretty much everything, really…

However, today I’m going to talk about being a listener as well. Part of it goes hand in hand with being an observer: listening to the wind, the way it talks through the trees and walks, whispering, through the long grass, and...

Having Fun with Epic Fantasy: The Band of Brothers

………………………………………………“…And Crispin …[Day]… shall ne’er go by
……………………………………………From this day to the ending of the world,
……………………………………………..But we in it shall be remembered –
……………………………………………We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
……………………………………………For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
………………………………………………..Shall be my brother …”

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If anyone doubts epic fantasy’s strong and enduring roots in story, this quote from Shakespeare’s Henry V (the famous St Crispin’s Day speech made on the eve of...

“Between Birdsong and Nothing” by Nod Ghosh — A Tuesday Feature

Between Birdsong and Nothing

The lizard-skinned woman from the candy cane house hugged wine in her
hands and cried,

there are no birds
the birds have gone

In fading light, through earth-roar tremors, we smoked like bad weather and
drank like drowned pigs. Bill boiled malevolent water on a wood stove, flashed
his bottom for fun, while we assembled jigsaws of sound. And waited.

No whio, no fantail, no warbler, no tern. No chaffinch or sparrow.
Instead, the urgency of the radio, and a dist...

Preparing A Masterclass On Building Fantastic Worlds

National Writers’ Forum

Last Wednesday I posted about the inaugural National Writers’ Forum, forthcoming next weekend, 17-18 September, as part of which I’ll be presenting a masterclass on Building Fantastic Worlds — which of course if right up my alley.

Since then I’ve been working pretty hard on finalising the presentation, which has been both challenging and also a lot of fun. The challenge part is because it’s 90 minutes in duration and even allowing for question time, that’s a reasonably...