Deborah Kalin's Blog, page 37

to be fair, the crepes were excellent

There is nothing I love more than a typo on a menu (unless perhaps it's a malapropism), and today I have an absolute corker of a typo to share with you, one of those instances where the error results in a phrase so sublime… well, to be honest, I start laughing and lose the capacity to speak in sentences:

because when we offer spite as a beverage, we do not shirk - oh no! you will have some lemon, nay, some salted lemon into the bargain!

honest to goodness news

An email from my publisher today tells me that the mass market paperback version of Shadow Queen should be available for purchase before the end of the year. This means those of you who hate and loathe the trade paperback format, or don't hate it so much as think it's simply too expensive, will have the chance to buy the smaller, cheaper format. Much more suitable for shoving in small bags and reading on buses and trains and planes.

This means the current publication date for the second book, whi

the writing on the wall, that nobody was there at all

I am growing less and less, by the day.

Last weekend, in between a quest to find the world's best jam (victorious, despite wily misdirection from the internet and two-faced cafes) and wandering about cemeteries, I had to go, of all the most horrendous things, shopping. For bras, no less, that most heinous of all heinous shopping chores. Because a year ago I stopped taking the pill, and consequently my anatomy has leaped at the chance to, er, jettison some weight.1

Last year, I visited a plastic s

it's a system built to reward the clockwatchers!

Let it be known that I highly approve of flex.

Flex is wondrous, flex is superb, flex is the reason I did not go in to work today. Because all those extra minutes each day turn into extra hours each week — which means I've already worked today and didn't need to do it again.

This, my friends, is sheer genius.

If only it worked on novels as well, I would have already written my entire life's oeuvre and could spend this evening lolling on a couch.1

Er, provided I had a couch. Note to self: buy a co

the rustic wilds

Whoops: when will I learn there is no internet at my mother's house?

I'm back with the family this weekend, for birthdays and bon voyages, and I was rather counting on snatching a quiet moment to check and answer my email and update my website. But how quickly we forget, that the internet here is reliant upon mobile phone signals, and thus vanishes whenever more than one person is using a mobile phone in the vicinity. Saturday is a very mobile-phone-intensive day, as are any hours out of the 9-5

this totally counts as content

Courtesy of Holy Robot (whose work I found via PixelGirl), my new desktop:

(Click on the piccie to get the full impact. The website provides several resolutions.)

I must say, Nemesis looks quite fetching decked out in balancing panda.

death not life thine angel now

Today, it being a blustery, sombre sort of day, I invaded the local cemetery, for I ain't afraid of no ghosts weeping angels. You know what this means, don't you? Oh yes. You guessed it. Cemetery photos!

I met a lass, not long ago, who had once worked at a cemetery taking photos of headstones &c, because apparently once the family stops caring for the grave, the caretakers are not allowed to halt the decay and all that history crumbles away into nothing. Which is the natural course of things, and

yeah, it's been a random week

This week I discovered many things.

I discovered (yet again) that I have very little no capacity for alcohol. Shortly thereafter I discovered (yet again) that the curse of pathological honesty is only exacerbated by the presence of alcohol. Note to self: you don't have to answer any random question put to you.

I also discovered that the Option key on my keyboard lets me print funky characters like Ω and †, œ and ø without any complicated keystrokes at all. Win! (Not that I use the Greek alphabet

Signing Announcement: 27 June 2009

Have a copy of Shadow Queen you want signed?

Live in (or near) Newcastle?

If so, mark down Saturday 27 June 2009 in your calendar, as I'll be at Angus & Robertson Kotara from 11 am.

At this stage, I have no signings organised anywhere else, but if you don't live in Newcastle and you'd be interested in attending one, you should let me know, either through a comment here on the blog or by email. I can't promise what will be arranged as a consequence, if anything, but you never know.

For what nation can advance with its tongue torn out?

I am feeling somewhat serious today, and so I point you to Richard Flanagan's closing speech at the recent Sydney Writer's Festival:

At the moment, Australian writers and readers are being asked to take a fall in order that a few rich people get richer.

… This dullest and dreariest of phrases - territorial copyright - is the drab motley thrown over a measure which will do untold damage to Australian culture. I cannot begin to convey to you the destructive stupidity of what is being proposed, nor t