Helen Lowe's Blog, page 187

“Just Arrived” & “What I’m Reading”: Blog Posts On New Zealand SFF Books And Writers

In terms of my recent Sir Julius Vogel Award nomination for Services to SFF, over the past few days I’ve looked at support for NZ speculative fiction and writers through interviews, guest posts, and articles. But I’m an avid reader as well as being a writer, so I was always going to feature books by other writers on this blog — and I have tried to actively include NZ books, as well as those by international authors.

I’ve featured the books in two ways, through my “Just Arrived” posts and the “...

Supporting A Very Special New Zealand SFF Initiative: The “A Peek Inside ‘Tales For Canterbury’” Series

Last week I posted on having made the shortlist for the 2014 Sir Julius Vogel Award for “Services to Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.” I also posted the citation, which includes mention of my “… blog and … space in SF Signal and [my] presence at events to inform the world” of NZ SFF.

So over the past few days I’ve been posting some of those interviews, guest author features, and articles on NZ speculative fiction literature. Today I thought I’d reprise the “A Peek Inside Tales For Canterbu...

A List Of “…On Anything, Really” Posts Focusing On New Zealand Speculative Fiction

Last week I posted on having made the shortlist for the 2014 Sir Julius Vogel Award for “Services to Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.” I also posted the citation, which includes mention of my “… blog and … space in SF Signal and [my] presence at events to inform the world” of New Zealand SFF.

For those who might be interested to find out more in what is now several easy posts , I am collating some of the material here in a series of posts (because one or even two was going to be Way Too Lo...

A Geography Of Haarth: River Port

The Wall of Night Series map; design by Peter Fitzpatrick

The A Geography of Haarth post series is traversing the full range of locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth. Each locale is accompanied by a quote from either The Heir Of Night, The Gathering Of The Lost, or both.

This week, we’re still in “R.”

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River Port: the city of Ij’s port for barges and galleys plying the river Ijir and its tributaries

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“They let the gray horses increase their pace as the road cleared further—...

A List Of “…On Anything, Really” Guest Posts Featuring Fellow New Zealand SFF Writers

Last week I posted on having made the shortlist for the 2014 Sir Julius Vogel Award for “Services to Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.” I also posted the citation, which includes mention of my “… blog and … space in SF Signal and [my] presence at events to inform the world” of New Zealand SFF.

For those who might be interested to find out more in one easy post , yesterday I collated my interviews with other NZ speculative fiction writers. Today I’m focusing on NZ SFF guests (posts) I’ve ho...

A List Of My Interviews Focusing On NZ Writers & SFF

Last week I posted on having made the shortlist for the 2014 Sir Julius Vogel Award for “Services to Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.”

I also posted the citation, which includes mention of my “… blog and … space in SF Signal and [my] presence at events to inform the world” of NZ SFF.

Anyway, I can’t really link to events here, but can provide a list of my interviews with other writers, both here on “…Anything, Really” and on SF Signal and Plains 96.9 FM, just in case you’re curious and/or n...

Tuesday Poem: “Lepanto” by GK Chesterton

Lepanto
White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroa...

Just Arrived: “Heartland” by Michele Leggott

As soon as I saw Michele Leggott’s Heartland on Auckland University Press’s release list for this year, I said “yes, please”, having enjoyed both her previous two poetry collections, Milk and Honey and Mirabile Dictu.

Here are the words from Heartland’s inside cover:

“I stood in the dark with many others, some of them close enough to touch, some further away.

One by one they turned, light fell on faces that were at once strange and familiar, and they began to speak or sing. Soon the riot of thei...

Another Shortlist! New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2014

Tis the season of the shortlist, clearly—which is great!

(As with yesterday’s Sir Julius Vogel Award post, if an author has appeared on this blog or I’ve interviewed or featured her/him or the shortlisted work otherwhere, the link is included—but only one link per feature.)

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The New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adult finalists for 2014 are:

Picture Books:

Machines and Me: Boats by Catherine Foreman; Scholastic New Zealand

The Boring Book by Vasanti Unka; Penguin Group (NZ), Pu...

Sir Julius Vogel Awards 2014: This Year’s Fiction List

On Monday, I posted on having been shortlisted for the Sir Julius Vogel Award for“Services to Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.“

But of course, the Sir Julius Vogel Awards include a whole swathe of categories, so I thought I’d share the fiction shortlists with you today. All names and titles are in the order shown on the official Sir Julius Vogel Award list. If the author or work has been featured on this blog or through my work on other blogs, I’ve included a link (but only one link to the...