Helen Lowe's Blog, page 224

A Geography of Haarth: Bonamark

The Wall of Night Series map; design by Peter Fitzpatrick

The A Geography of Haarth series features locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth.

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Bonamark: one of the seven marks of Emer; a shortening of Bonacon Mark

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’Every other crossroads boasted a smithy or an inn, sure signs of prosperity, and the whole great valley of the Tenne, from the Bonamark border to the river Argent, was as fertile and peaceful as the River lands.’

~ from © The Gathering of the Lost: The Wall of Night B...

On Blogging & The Interrelationship With Writing–Or, Is Blogging A Marketing Tool?

Late last year, I was asked by SpecFicNZ towrite an article for the organisation’s newsletter on my thoughts on blogging as marketing tool. The subject has come up several times since then in different, but always related—discussion-wise—circumstances, so I thought I would re-post it here.

I would certainly be interested in hearing your thoughts, whether as a writer, a blogger, social media user, or even a marketer (if there are any marketers out there. )

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“On Blogging & The Interrelationship...

Here’s SpecFicNZ-Christchurch: Introducing Comrades in Speculative Fiction

From next week, I hope to be starting a new “mini-post” series on the blog titled “Here’s SpecFicNZ-Christchurch.”

SpecFicNZ is the ” national association for creators, writers and editors of speculative fiction in or from New Zealand” and we have a lively local group here in Christchurch—so much so that I thought some of my blog readers might enjoy “‘meeting” the members.

The spirit of the series is similar to that of my “Fun With Friends” interview series on SF Signal, which focuses on fellow...

Tuesday Poem: “Angela Carter” by Tim Jones

Angela Carter

And then your portrait on the back

so neutral and complete

standing full-length

posed I don’t remember where.

Eyes sky black

you stood unsmiling

suggesting there were realer worlds within.

Your books dealt much in mirrors

which might have led me to suppose

that you were one yourself

and I’d step through the flimsy sheet

that held you to your words

and turn and, face inside your face,

watch the empty space where I had been.

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© Tim Jones

Published in Boat People, HeadworX, 2008. Reproduced here w...

Celebrating “The Gathering Of The Lost”: Building Fantastic Worlds

UK/AUS/NZ

With the mass market edition of The Gathering Of The Lost recently published in the UK, I’ve been re-posting a few of the features from last year’s Blog Tour.

Today’s post is one of my favourites and was also the final stop on the tour, with the wonderful Kate Elliott, author of the Crown of Stars, Crossroads, and now Spiritwalker Fantasy series.

Why a favourite? Because it deals with world building, of course—and world building, as much as magic, defines the Fantasy genre, as I shall...

A Book Quote for Sunday from Freya Stark

“Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear.”

~ Freya Stark, 1893-1993

To find out a little more more about the fascinating Freya Stark, click on her name.

Allusion In Literature: “Eyeless In Gaza”

On Thursday I posted on “Five Books That Changed Me”, one of which was Aldous Huxley’s Eyeless In Gaza.

In the interim, someone remarked to me, “What an odd name for a book.”

To which I began to reply, “It alludes to…”

And someone else present put in, “The Old Testament story of Samson and Delilah, of course.”

“Ye-es,” I said, “ultimately. But the more direct allusion is to the poem by John Milton, Samson Agonistes, which includes the phrase: “Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him//Eyele...

A Geography of Haarth: Black Tower

The Wall of Night Series map; design by Peter Fitzpatrick

The A Geography of Haarth series features locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth.

This week the series continues with places that begin with the letter “B.”

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Black Tower: fortress and original ducal palace in Caer Argent, said to date back to the Old Empire; located in the Southern Realms of Haarth.

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‘“‘The island of Emer,’” Malian murmured, knowing that this foothold in the Argent had been the dukedom once, during the t...

Five Books That Changed Me (Warning: Not An Exclusive List!)

I saw this question “oot thar” somewhere on t’interwebs and thought—what fun, I should do it on “…Anything, Really.” So here goes…

Five Books That Changed Me (Warning: This Is not An Exclusive List!)
CS Lewis’s “The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe”:

I still recall the sheer wonder and delight of that moment when, together with the character of Lucy, I first stepped through the back of a wardrobe and into a snowy wood, illuminated by a solitary lamppost—and a few moments later met a faun (at age 8...

Read and Enjoyed: “Prickle Moon” — A Short Story Collection by Juliet Marillier

Recently, under Just Arrived, I posted on receiving an Advanced Reading Copy of Juliet Marillier’s first short story collection, Prickle Moon — due out this month from Ticonderoga Press.

I also talked about how I enjoyed one of the stories in the collection, Juggling Silver, when it came out in Tales for Canterbury in 2011, and re-quoted the excerpt I had used for the “A Peek Inside Tales For Canterbury” post series. You can read that Juggling Silver excerpt here.

As I also noted in the Just Ar...