Helen Lowe's Blog, page 152
May 3, 2015
A Book A Day: Celebrating New Zealand SFF Literature for #NZBookMonthMay
RIP?
Last week, I returned from being away to learn that NZ Book Month had been indefinitely postponed, coming on top of the NZ Book Awards having been postponed until 2016 for lack of an anchor sponsor.
Support for literature, books, and reading is, it seems, at an all time low ebb in Aotearoa-New Zealand.
Rachael King
But Rachael King, author and Literary Director of the WORDChristchurch (Books & Writers’) Festival, together with others, has started the #NZBookMonthMay tag on Twitter, tryin...
May 2, 2015
Inside The Road Trip
On Wednesday, I focused on the Wild South part of m’road trip, which ended with some ‘classic’ shots of Queenstown and its environs.
While there, I had also posted some photos of autumn colour around Lake Hayes.
The day I took those days was almost perfect and the wider environment around the lake — a wee jewel caught in the hills between Queenstown and Arrowtown — is also worthy of a closer look.
A wee jewel of a lake (photo: A Robins)
Despite the tranquil waters, you can still see the raw p...
May 1, 2015
New Now On The Supernatural Underground: It’s Love, Actually…
On the 1st of every month, I post on the Supernatural Underground — which means I have a post up RIGHT NOW — and it’s all about love, actually…
“For my January and February posts I featured a short story, Bird Of Passage. Now, any story is what it is, but one important aspect of Bird Of Passage is that it’s a tale of love that “might-have-been.”
Another story I posted on my own blog during March, Ithaca, features enduring love… Both stories got me thinking about how many different kinds of l...
April 30, 2015
“Fantasy Heroines That Rock My World” On SF Signal: # 3
My new post series on SF Signal, “Fantasy Heroines That Rock My World”, is rocking on with the third instalment posting this week.
This week’s heroine under the spotlight is another longstanding favourite, Raederle of An from Patricia McKillip’s Heir Of Sea And Fire (Book 2 in The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy.)
“In The Riddlemaster of Hed (the first book in the trilogy), the reader knows Raederle only by reputation. She is “the Second Most Beautiful Woman” in An, the daughter of its King, and...
April 29, 2015
Scaffolding
By way of random, writing process-related thoughts, I’ve been reflecting on how the first draft of almost everything I write (accepting that it may well be different for other authors), whether novel, short fiction, or poetry, always contains elements of what a friend, poet Joanna Preston, calls “scaffolding.”
Exactly as with physical construction, literary scaffolding provides a framework that allows me, as writer, to come to grips with the structure of what I’m building / creating.
For exam...
April 28, 2015
Wild South
St Clair beach, Dunedin
Last week, I revealed that I’d been on a bit of a road trip and promised pics to come.
On Monday, I took a closer look at Dunedin’s Chinese Scholar’s Garden and on Sunday 19 (while actually on the trip) I snuck in a few pics of glorious autumn colour around Lake Hayes.
The emptiness of Kaka Point beach, after the storm
My route took me south from Dunedin, down through the South Island’s south-west corner, known as the Catlins, before I looped on through Southland and b...
April 27, 2015
The Tuesday Poem: “Armistice ” by Laura Staveley Anker
Armistice
11/11/1918 New Brighton
.
What is wrong?
All the aunties are crying,
then laughing
with my mother.
If I stand on the green sofa
I can see through the curtains
people’s heads bobbing past,
and such a noise …
We find our Union Jacks
go out onto the Esplanade.
The man from next door
is playing his violin,
‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’
as he marches on the footpath.
They dance, hug, still crying,
now here comes the band,
tummies and cheeks puffed out –
‘There’s a long, long trail
…………a...
April 26, 2015
The Perfect Quote On Art To Start Your Week — From Aristotle
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
~ Aristotle, 384-322 BC
—
When I saw this quote recently, I thought how perfectly it expressed my understanding of art and creativity.
Perhaps the most apt analogy from writing is found in Japanese haiku poetry. Although based in concrete observation of the real, the haiku should nonetheless add up to a whole that is greater than the sum of its constituent parts—what is sometimes referred to...
April 25, 2015
More Scholar’s Garden Photos & A Brief Mention Of Recent NZ Literature That Recognises Our Nation’s Chinese Heritage
Entry to Dunedin’s Chinese Scholar’s Garden
When I posted my first road trip photos on Friday, Paul (Weimer) commented on how much he loves the Chinese Scholar’s Garden tradition — so here, if only just for Paul 
, are a few more photos from the Dunedin garden that was established to commemorate the contribution of Chinese immigrants to the history of the province, both during the Gold Rush period and through to the present day.
Much the same could be said about the whole of New Zealand and i...
April 24, 2015
ANZAC Day Centennary: NZEF Trooper 203453 by Leigh Vickridge
NZEF Trooper 203453
He was born at Longton Avenue
in London
not far from Crystal Palace
High tea on Sunday evenings
with the mater and the pater
then minor public school
Gallipoli washed away all that –
carnage at Chunuk Bair
flyblown corpses in the sun
His number was not up:
a shrapnel wound and fever
saved his life
Rehabilitation came
land impossible to farm
near the Bridge to Nowhere
The Depression brought ruin
too old to fight
in a second war
Crumbling health
memories of friends
long dead...
