Helen Lowe's Blog, page 174
September 28, 2014
Literary vs Genre, Seriously?
A few years back, fellow speculative fiction author Daniel Abraham posted a very witty and amusing ‘Private Letter From Genre To Literature’ (aka “literary fiction”) on SF Signal. (It’s still worth a read if you havena done so already.)
Like everyone else at the time I chuckled quite a bit as I read it—except that even way back then, in the midst of the vasty wilds of 2011, I couldn’t help thinking that even penning such a letter implied a certain cultural cringe from genre to literature. As i...
September 27, 2014
A Writer Is Like…
One thing I am really convinced of is that the writer as storyteller has to be like Odysseus: you have to stay lashed to the mast in order to remain on course—but you also have to be able to listen to the sirens of story singing their myriad songs, so you can not only hear but tell of them after.
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September 26, 2014
Something Fun—And Ghostly—For Your Saturday…
I really enjoyed this Guardian article on:
“The weird afterlife of the world’s subterranean ‘ghost stations’”
So I thought I’d share it as something fun for your weekend—not least because it raises all sorts of speculative possibilities. 
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September 25, 2014
A Geography Of Haarth: Wall Of Night
The Wall of Night Series map; design by Peter Fitzpatrick
The A Geography of Haarth post series is exploring the full range of locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth. Each entry is accompanied by a quote from the books in which the place appears, currently either The Heir Of Night or The Gathering Of The Lost, or both.
Not only are we entering the final stage of our Haarth traverse today, by crossing onto the great plains of “W”—but the initial entry is the Wall of Night itse...
September 24, 2014
What I’m Reading: “Hild” by Nicola Griffith
Last month I admitted that next to speculative fiction, the literary “genre” I like best is historical (and that I include both fiction and non fiction under that umbrella.)
Right now I’m reading another historical novel, Nicola Griffiths’ Hild—and so far, at around three quarters of the way through, I am absolutely loving it. I feel it is one of the best historical novels I have read in quite some time, not even excepting Hilary Mantel’s Booker prize-winning, Wolf Hall. (Which means I am spoi...
September 23, 2014
Big Worlds On Small Screens: Rebecca Fisher Discusses “Batman”
~ by Rebecca Fisher
Introduction:
Every Saturday morning my sister and I would get up early to creep down the hall and watch an episode of Batman: The Animated Series. And it’s a good thing the show did air in the mornings, because absorbing what it had to offer right before bedtime probably would have resulted in a lot of bad dreams. As it was, I had a nightly ritual for a number of years in which I had to check the end of the bed for Scarecrow.
Running from 1992 to 1995, Batman embraced a film...
September 22, 2014
The Tuesday Poem: Refeaturing Bernadette Hall and “The Fox”
The Fox
The fox is a single red stroke that cuts across
the clearing. The colour seems to hang like smoke,
you can almost see where she has come from.
Her musk (though you can smell nothing)
is specific like a thumbprint on the air.
It isn’t raining but there’s a kind of wet
on your face, a stickiness of insect juices dropped.
The fox is rusty-dull, discreet, not radiant or hot
or pulsing. Not agitated. Not randy.
She is completely dream and intelligence
sliding through the wet grass, the stinging nett...
September 21, 2014
I Loved This Interview With Harumi Murakami
On September 12, The Guardian featured an indepth interview with renowned author, Harumi Murakami. I thoroughly recommend it to you if you have not read it already:
The Guardian: An Interview With Harumi Murakami
‘ “Strange things happen inthis world,” Haruki Murakami says. “You don’t know why, but they happen.”
…’
The interview is wide-ranging, but the parts that really resonated for me were when Murakami spoke about the writing process. Here are a few examples :
‘ “I like to write. I like tocho...
September 20, 2014
Celebrating Women Characters: An “Easter Egg”….
Suffrage Memorial, Christchurch
This past week I celebrated a range women characters with “agency” from my books, as my own personal tribute to Women’s Suffrage week, celebrating 121 years of all women in NZ getting the vote.
And before the weekend was out I promised you an Easter Egg, which in this context is an important character who wasn’t canvassed during the week. So here goes, folks:
Meet Yorindesarinen, From The Heir Of Night & The Gathering Of The Lost
So why leave Yorinesarinen until no...
September 19, 2014
Why I’m Voting Today
Kate Sheppard, who led the campaign for the vote
“Do not think your single vote does not matter much. The rain that refreshes the parched ground is made up of single drops” – Kate Sheppard.
What she said: that woman was all kinds of awesome.
Plus, if you don’t like the government you’ve got, or how any government operates, don’t treat citizenship and democracy like spectator sports: they ain’t.
Hokay, said my piece–time to get off my bench and onto the field of play.
