Helen Lowe's Blog, page 251
July 28, 2012
Two Reviews for “L’Héritière de la Nuit/The Heir of Night” — All the Way From From France
How’s your French? Passable?
If so, you might like to check out these two reviews for L’Héritière de la Nuit, the French edition of The Heir of Night.
The first is from Place To Be: Provocateur D’Envie, here
and the second from Romance, Charmes & Sortilèges – Bit-Lit.com, here
And from what my own French will permit me to glean, I think they’re both good! Handsprings and happiness. 
July 27, 2012
‘Fun With Friends’ On SF SIgnal — An Interview with Juliet Marillier
Today SF Signal have posted the second interview in my “Fun With Friends” series in which I interview fellow SFF authors from Australia and New Zealand, with 5 questions focusing on “who they are” and “what they do” in writing terms.
My second interview is with the very well known author, Juliet Marillier, right HERE.
Amongst other matters Juliet discusses her new YA novel, Shadowfell, so even if you know her work well, I hope you’ll find something ‘new’ in there.
Aus/NZ cover
Shadowfell is just...
July 26, 2012
National Poetry Day Today!
Today is National Poetry Day — and I’m reading!
Where: University Bookshop, University of Canterbury
When: Event begins, 12.30 pm
The bookshop will be announcing the result of its National Poetry Day competition, with the winners reading their work, together with guest poets Jeffrey Paparoa Holman and Ben Brown, as well as myself.
And of course there are lots of other National Poetry Day events taking place around the country — you can check them out here.
For even more poetry goodness, check out...
July 25, 2012
World Building: The Wall of Night Series & The World of Haarth
Haarth; map design by Peter Fitzpatrick
Last Saturday I posted about the magic of winter worlds in SFF, here — and one of the aspects I have always loved about Fantasy-Science Fiction (F-SF) is the door it opens into fantastic worlds. Science Fiction offers worlds such as Arrakis in Frank Herbert’s Dune and the Union/Alliance space of CJ Cherryh’s Downbelow Station, while Fantasy gives us Middle-Earth (Tolkien), Earthsea (Le Guin) and Bas-Lag (Miéville), to name only a very few. So it is perha...
July 24, 2012
Margaret Mahy, 1936 – 2012: A Personal Tribute
Margaret Mahy
The passing of the great Children’s and Young Adult author, Margaret Mahy, has garnered significant attention both here and overseas, for example with the tremendous contributions on Beatties Bookblog, here, and tributes in the NZ Herald and The Guardian, here — all as it should, given her stature.
And I, too, albeit in a considerably more modest way, feel it is important to mark her passing and her tremendous contribution to children’s literature.
My first Margaret Mahy as a reade...
July 23, 2012
Tuesday Poem: A Podcast Interview with Helen Heath, Author of “Graft”
Helen Heath; credit Kate MacPherson
As my Tuesday Poem feature today, I am linking to my recent Women on Air interview with poet Helen Heath, author of the poetry collection “Graft.”
Helen Heath won the inaugural ScienceTeller Poetry Award in 2011 for her poem ‘Making Tea in the Universe’ and is currently undertaking a PhD in Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington; her research explores how science is represented in poetry. Widely published in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the...
July 22, 2012
“Meet Helen Lowe” — I Am Interviewed by Australian Author, Rowena Cory Daniells
Rowena Cory Daniells
Shortly after winning the Gemmell Morningstar Award, fellow SFF author and Australian writer, Rowena Cory Daniells, approached me to discuss an interview, both to celebrate the award and as part of her “Fantastic Female Fantasy Authors” & “Interesting People In The Speculative Fiction World” interview series.
Of course (coughs!) I like to think that I’m both, so immediately said “yes” — and shortly thereafter Rowena sent through a great list of questions.
To see the question...
July 21, 2012
A Little More Poetry News…
Friday July 27 is National Poetry Day.
And to celebrate, the University Bookshop at the University of Canterbury is having a poetry reading.
I’ll be one of the guest poets reading some of my work, along with Jeffrey Paparoa Holman and Ben Brown.
Just rock on up to UBS at 12.20 pm on Friday 27 to be in–or up–for some poetry goodness. 
July 20, 2012
The Magic of Winter Worlds
Recently I posted my poem “North” here, and alluded to a journey into the far north of Sweden, to Arjeplog just south of the Arctic circle, which inspired it.
Again recently, I have begun reading Australian author Jo Spurrier’s debut Fantasy, Winter Be My Shield, first mentioned under “Just Arrived” here — and these two posts got me thinking about what a great tradition winter worlds are in Fantasy-SciFi.
Here are a few of my favourites:
The Narnia of CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrob...
July 19, 2012
Frankfurt Book Fair 2012: An Aotearoa Affair Blog — ‘The Wayfarer’ A Highlight
As you may know, Aotearoa-New Zealand is the guest country at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair and the Aotearoa Affair blog has been celebrating with guest posts from both Aotearoa-New Zealand and German writers.
It’s all quite a buzz and I’ve had a few guest posts featured already this year, including here and here.
And yesterday my poem ‘The Wayfarer’ was a ‘Highlight’ on the festival blog.
‘The Wayfarer’ is the seventh poem in my “Ithaca Conversations” sequence, based around the Odysseus myth...
