Helen Lowe's Blog, page 272
January 15, 2012
"The Heir of Night" Nominated For The UK-Based Gemmell Awards
I am delighted and honoured to announce that The Heir of Night has been nominated for the UK -based Gemmell Awards, established to honour heroic fantasy author David Gemmell—and to celebrate excellence in the heroic/epic fantasy genre that Gemmell exemplified through books such as Legend, Waylander and The Knights of Dark Renown, to name only a very few from amongst his body of work.
The Heir of Night has been nominated in two categories, the Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel 2011, and the ...
January 14, 2012
'Place As Person': Read My Guest Author Post On Mary Victoria's Blog
Following on from the post immediately below, my guest author post titled Place As Person: What Does It Mean When Telling Story? is now 'live' on Mary Victoria's blog and begins:
"I first became consciously aware of the interface between place and character as an undergraduate, when writing an essay on the city in literature. As soon as I began researching the topic, I quickly realized that whether Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria or Italo Calvino's invisible city, these places were so vital to...
'Place As Person' A Guest Author Series Celebrating the Newly Released "River" Anthology
"When you put your hand in a flowing stream, you touch the last that has gone before and the first of what is still to come." —Leonardo daVinci
The River anthology, published by Dark Quest, is an anthology of short fiction edited by Australian author Alma Alexander that is—not surprisingly given its title—themed around rivers. My friend and fellow writer, Mary Victoria, is one of the contributors and to celebrate release of the anthology she has been hosting an author guest series on her...
January 13, 2012
'All the Pretty Covers'
Since covers have been something of a theme this week I thought I'd make today's post a feature of all my Wall of Night series covers that are offically "out there" so far—there's still a French one to come for this year and of course Books Three and Four, but they're still a long way off yet. (I have to write them, after all—eek!)
So here goes—we'll start with the US first and then go the UK, and then the Netherlands and Germany (basically in order of publication):
USA
UK:
The Netherlands:
...
January 12, 2012
Guest Post On Orbit—"The Evolution of Character: Malian of Night and the Heroic Tradition"—Plus Giveaway!
I have a guest post on the Orbit blog today, titled "The Evolution of Character: Malian of Night and the Heroic Tradition", which begins:
"Recently I was asked, 'what makes Malian, your main character in The Heir of Night, unique in epic fantasy? And what makes a hero, anyway?' My initial response was 'aargh, the pressure'—not just of an example, but of encapsulating what is often the slow delicate process of character evolution. And Malian of Night's character did evolve over many years...
January 11, 2012
The Gathering of the Lost Cover UK—Revealed Now on Orbit!
On January 1 I revealed the US (Harper Voyager) cover for The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two, right here—with the wonderful new quote from Juliet Marillier here—as well as on the Supernatural Underground.
I said then that I didn't think the UK (Orbit) cover was far away—and I was quite right, because Orbit have unveiled it on their blog today. 
You can see their Big Reveal and read what they have to say here.
But I can't let the moment pass me by so of course I am also...
January 10, 2012
What I'm Doing: My Big Writing Goal for 2012
Those of you who are following me on this new-fangled (ok, ok, for me, not the wider 'verse!) Twitter thing should already have picked up that the Christmas-New Year holiday is now over and I'm back to work. So far, I'm not matching Rachel Aaron's 10,000-12,000 words per day (you can read all about how she does it, here) or Brandon Sanderson's 10 hours a day (as discussed in our blog interview late last year here) but I am slowly getting into the groove—and I do have a writing goal for the...
January 9, 2012
Tuesday Poem: The Best of '… on Anything Really' 2011 — "from the hill""
Since I accidentally posted my intended Tuesday Poem, The Curve of the World here, on Monday (what was I thinking?) it will not now be my final "The Best of '…on Anything Really'" post after all. That will be today's post, which you may think of as "Helen's Tuesday poem effort reprised!" 
So here it is, the Tuesday Poem reprised, and also the last of "The Best of '…on Anything Really'" — from the hill, first featured on June 7 last year, on the anniversary of my joining the Tuesday Poem...
January 8, 2012
Coming Very Soon: 'The Heir of Night'–UK Mass Market Edition, Plus New Cover Feature!
It's official—the UK mass market release of The Heir of Night (Orbit) will be 19 January, a little closer than even I had realised.
I am very excited about it though, not least because the mass market edition is coming out with a new cover. Those of you who checked out the Orbit blog post on the Ursula Bethell residency, here, will have gotten a sneak preview—but today's feature is the official launch here on the blog. Right here. Now. At once. Today! 
And I have to say that I do really like t...
The Best of '… on Anything Really' 2011: National Poetry Day—& "The Curve of the World"
In the final of my "The Best of '… on Anything, Really' 2011″ round up, I am featuring my National Poetry Day selection from Friday 22 July, last year as my Tuesday Poem feature today:
—
."Last year, I posted "Ti" for National Poetry Day, and this year I have chosen another poem that I feel has a distinctively New Zealand flavour in terms of landscape/seascape—I hope you enjoy.
.
The Curve of the WorldSummer breathes
through marram grass, salt-tough
where the southerly whips in
off the Pacific...
