Helen Lowe's Blog, page 105

Mystery Galore — & Now: The Mystery Unwrapped!

‘Which” character?

A few weeks back, just for fun, I ran a mystery giveaway — with part of the mystery prize being the opportunity to in which everyone who entered got the opportunity to:

“…contribute a guest post telling blog readers who your favorite character in the WALL series is, and why, and also what you hope for that character in the fourth and final book?”

It’s been a busy few weeks in the meantime, so what with one thing and another it has taken me a wee bit of time to get things or...

So You Don’t Believe In Magic…

I recall attending an evening with novelist Joanne Harris, of Chocolat fame, who assured her audience that of course people still believe in magic — you only had to see how many line up every week to buy a Lotto ticket to know that!

My real-life magic takes a more ordinary form, but every time I bake I think: “Yeah, Joanne Harris is right. Of course there’s still plenty of magic left in this world.” Baking is an act of alchemy, after all, and alchemy is definitely magical.

Consider scones, fo...

Poetry: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by TS Eliot

.....S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse .....A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, .....Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. .....Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo .....Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, .....Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo. Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels An...

Trees in Fantasy Fiction

Isn’t this picture marvelous? Or more correctly, aren’t the tree roots pictured in the photo marvelous? (I am more than prepared to admit that my photography is definitely at the ‘fun snap’ end of the spectrum.)

The roots belong to the Moreton Bay fig I featured yesterday, which resides in Auckland’s Cornwall Park. I have always loved the species’ snaking, twisty roots — and as a Fantasy reader as well as a writer, they always make me think Entish thoughts.

Ents, of course, are probably the m...

Meetings with Marvelous Trees

This tree in particular is a very old friend, from “Helen, the Early Years” when I resided in Auckland and often walked or ran in that city’s wonderful Cornwall Park.

Moreton Bay Figs hail from Australia, but they’ve acclimatized readily to subtropical Auckland. I love their shape and twisted roots.

This particular tree is located near the Greenlane entrance to the park, close by the Algerian oak I featured a week or so ago. I like to stop by and say hello whenever I’m in Auckland, and as you...

A Quote for Saturday, from Black Elk

“It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows.”

– Black Elk, 1863 – 1950

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Black Elk was a medicine man of the Oglala Lakota, whose philosophy and life experiences—which included the battles of Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee, as well as touring with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show—were published in a book titled Black Elk Speaks in 1932; republished in 2008.

You can find out more about Black Elk on History.com:

Black Elk

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Happening Soon: the Inaugural National Writers’ Forum, 17-18 September

I’m delighted to be part of the inaugural National Writers’ Forum to be held in Auckland on 17-18 September — and the very best way to share the fun is to post the press release, so you can read all about it for yourselves.

So here it is:

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Chris Cleave to headline National Writers Forum: early bird tickets on sale now

Chris Cleave

Chris Cleave, internationally acclaimed author of Everyone Brave is Forgiven, Incendiary and The Other Hand (a.k.a. Little Bee, number one on The New York Times B...

Happening Soon: I’m In The WORD Christchurch Festival, 24-28 August

The WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival programme has been launched and the lineup for 24-28 August looks great—which makes me doubly pleased to be part of it.

My panel is called Making It Overseas and I’ll be in the hotseat with fellow writers Ben Sanders (Crime) and Tania Roxborough (YA; historical). We’re all published overseas and crime author Vanda Symon will be talking to us about the journey (Hot tip: path can be rocky, wear low heels.)

In the spirit of ‘book early, book often...

Tuesday & Poetry: An Excerpt from “The Wasteland” by TS Eliot

The Waste Land

FOR EZRA POUND
IL MIGLIOR FABBRO

I. The Burial of the Dead .
April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked f...

“The Blood In The Beginning” Giveaway — We Have A Winner

Rounding up our three days of our Kim Falconer and The Blood In The Beginning goodness, the Sorting Hat has spoken — or chosen, at any rate — and I now have a winner for the book giveaway.

The lucky winner of The Blood In The Beginning is: (Let the vuvuzelas sound!)

Christine

Congratulations, Christine!

If you contact me on contact[at]helenlowe[dot]info with your postal address I shall get the book away to you ‘interfrastically.’

Thank you again to Kim for a fantastic post and to all of you...