Helen Lowe's Blog, page 99
November 1, 2016
Congratulations to Anna Smaill on Winning the World Fantasy Award 2016
Photo Credit – Natalie Graham
New Zealand author, Anna Smaill, has won the World Fantasy Award 2016 (Novel), for her dystopian novel, The Chimes.
The World Fantasy Awards are regarded as very prestigious and are given for the best fantasy fiction published in English during the previous calendar year.The award for Best Novel is not only a first for Anna but I am fairly certain it is a first for New Zealand as well — so very well done, Anna, on all counts!
I interviewed Anna about The Chimes i...
October 31, 2016
Tuesday Poetry: Two Short Poems by Bernadette Hall
running the ‘I-loves’
like kites along the shoreline
where the gulls startle
and rise
the sky shrinking
the clouds moving faster
than anything
Bernadette Hall
.
one can be the woman who runs across the ice at night like a silver fox
one can take her painted heart out of its beautiful hand-crafted box
……………….and set it up in a window in the main street of Port Chalmers . Bernadette Hall
—
Today...
October 30, 2016
Haere Ra, Christchurch Children’s Bookshop
That old, familiar logo…
Saturday was New Zealand Bookshop Day. It was also the day the Christchurch Children’s Bookshop closed it’s doors after 37 years — and that fact made me feel pretty durned sad.
I don’t know the in’s and out’s, but suspect that at least one factor in its demise was the locational change forced by the 2010-2011 Christchurch earthquakes and the fact that large sections of the city are still far from recovered, with people’ travel and basic living patterns (including reta...
October 27, 2016
What I’m Reading: “The year of falling” by Janis Freegard
A few weeks back I trumpeted the arrival of Janis Freegard’s The year of falling (Mākaro Press, 2015) on my TBR table.
Now it’s time for a confession: because Janis is a friend and fellow (former) Tuesday Poet, I allowed The year of falling to leapfrog several other books to become my “next best read” — and so, indeed, it proved because I really enjoyed The year of falling.
Truth to tell, I suspected I might, simply because I always ‘heart’ Janis’s poetry and loved her short story The Magicia...
October 26, 2016
New Favourite Book Quote Everz — & It’s From Anthony Trollope
~ Anthony Trollope, 1815 – 1882
—
I think what I love most is that this is such a modern quote despite Trollope’s “dates” — speaks to a certain universality, which I find very cool.
October 25, 2016
Mothers as Main Characters In SFF — How Do I Count Them?
Francesca Annis as Jessica
Last week I posted on the character of Jessica in the Science Fiction classic, Dune, observing—among reflections on her many sterling qualities—that she is “still one of the very few…[characters I can think of in SFF ]…where being a mother is central, not peripheral, to her part in the story.”
I have by no means read all the available fiction in SFF, but I still had to put on my thinking cap. So although I am going to suggest a few more “Great Mums of SFF” now, I am...
October 24, 2016
Tuesday Poetry: The Seafarer (Excerpt from the Anglo-Saxon Poem)
May I of my own self
Truth’s song reckon,
Tell of my traverse,
How I oft endured
Days of hardship
Times of trouble,
Bitter the breast-care
That I suffered,
Known at my keel
Many a care’s hold,
Dread wave-fall
When wary night-watch
Found me often
There at the ship’s stem,
Wave-tossed, by cliff-wall.
Cold-fettered
My feet
Frost-bound
In cold clasp,
Where cares seethed then
Hot at the heart;
Hunger within tore
The sea-weary soul.
…
from the Anglo-Saxon original; excerpt from the abr...
October 23, 2016
Why Word Counts Are (IMHO) Bollix
… as a measure of writing progress that is.
For some years now, particularly on Twitter, I have observed writers citing word counts as a record of progress on a w.i.p. Two thousand (2000) words per day, in particular, appears to be a favoured indicator of the same.
While acknowledging that every writer’s process is different and that for some 2000 words per day may genuinely represent progress, my own experience is that word counts are complete bollix in this respect.
Joseph Wright of Derby....
October 20, 2016
About Jessica in “Dune” — & Why She’s Still Kickass After 50 Years
Francesca Annis as Jessica
On Mother’s Day a few year’s back I decided to write a feature post on some of the great mothers in speculative fiction — only to discover how few there really were, certainly cast as major characters in the stories.
But there was still Jessica from Frank Herbert’s Dune. She is one of the most kickass women characters I can think of in SFF and still one of the very few (I know: 50 years later!) where being a mother is central, not peripheral, to her part in the stor...
October 19, 2016
The 50th Anniversary of “Dune” & Why It’s Still Significant
Yesterday I discussed Paul Atreides, aka Muad’dib, who is one of the few examples, like Mara of the Acoma, that always springs to mind when I start enumerating some of the great leaders in speculative fiction.
However, that’s not what I want to talk about today. Writing about Paul made me reflect on the fact that Dune celebrated its 50th “in publication” anniversary in 2015, which is no small achievement for any book. It also made me think about why I really enjoyed it on first reading and th...
