Angela Slatter's Blog, page 91
February 1, 2015
Now that’s service!
The dress
I ordered a dress from an online story called That Crazy Place (the one on the left, in case you’re curious) and I received the most awesome confirmation email ever. Based on that alone I will be ordering more from them:
“We just want to let you know that your item has been meticulously gathered, placed on a red velvet pillow, and delicately escorted by 25 of our finest employees to our shipping department. Our master shipper has dutifully performed her craft, lovingly packing your order in the finest materials known to man . . or woman.
Our team gathered to give your package the proper send-off it deserved. Tears of joy were shed, speeches were given, and there was even a farewell cake! Mmmmm, cake . . ..
Following the festivities, the whole group, led by our local high school marching band playing the song Leaving on a Jet Plane, ushered your order through our warehouse doors. No, we don’t own a Jet Plane, but your package will be placed in the care of a roguishly handsome man who is riding in a majestic horse-drawn carriage which has set off on its way to your address.
Although the item you’ve ordered will be sorely missed here at That Crazy Place!, we are overjoyed that it has found a good home. Take care of it, treasure it, and make sure you share it with us on facebook, twitter, or just send us an email, we love to see our items in action!”
New to Amazon: The Burning Circus
The Burning Circus is now available at Amazon.
Semiramis hasn’t been to the circus in such a long time.
Other circuses, yes. The circus, no.
Above the stand of trees, over to the left where the road curves around to encircle the big park, the striped canvas of the Big Top can be seen, the flame-red pennants waving in the breeze. While she’s pinning her eyes there as though it might disappear if not watched, she’s not paying attention her feet, and she stumbles, trips, does a kind of progressive dance but doesn’t fall. The heel of her right Mary Jane, though, gives up the ghost – the shoes were old before she got them – and she tries to hammer it back to the sole with nothing but her calloused hands. About as effective as using spit for glue. She surrenders, and sets off once again, her gait now the strange staccato roll of a woman with unequal leg lengths.
When she goes up on the left foot it feels, just a little, like flying. Just a little like the old days, that sense of ascending without a tether, then the downswing onto the right, down further than you know you should go, just like that too. Just like wondering if someone was going to catch you. Semiramis knows now only she can catch herself.
Go here to purchase.
Project Dragon continues
More of Kathleen’s art!
The Dark: Bearskin
The latest issue of The Dark Magazine contains my tale Bearskin, as well as work by Patricia Russo, Sandra McDonald, and Brooke Wonders.
Torben knows he has only one shot. The crossbow shakes in his grip. There is a single bolt and even if there were more he has not the strength to reload for the weapon belongs to Uther, the woodsman, who has left the boy to wait in the small, smelly blind set between the trunks of three ailing alders. The walls are of woven rushes and withy. The flimsy roof fell in who knows when and Torben feels the drip-drip-drip of snow-melt from above—not that the weather’s warming up, but it seems the unhealthy branches won’t allow the ice to remain on their limbs much past daybreak.
Go here!
January 29, 2015
More dragons
Kathleen Jennings has been working her fingers to the bone!
January 28, 2015
Over at The Place of Marianne De Pierres
There’s a lovely review of The Bitterwood Bible by Joelene Pynonnen!
A group of girls study at a school for assassins, preparing for their wedding nights when they will kill their grooms. A lonely coffin maker finds company with the dead when she cannot have the living. Travelling holy women hunt down and capture all of the knowledge and stories in the world. These are just a few tales in the The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings.
Set in the same world as that of Sourdough and Other Stories, The Bitterwood Bible is a prequel comprised of thirteen short stories. Not all of them correlate to each other, but many of them have intersecting places, characters, or objects. As each piece of the story comes together, it creates a rich, vibrant world as compelling as any novel.
The rest is here.
QWC Writer’s Surgery
This year I’ll be doing Writer’s Surgeries with the Queensland Writers Centre once again.
QWC’s Writer’s Surgery is a member’s only, writing ‘check up’ to help you overcome hurdles and achieve your writing goals. You’ll submit 20 pages of your work (be it a novel, short story collection, non-fiction work or poetry) for review and comment, then engage in a 90-minute conversation with your mentor, who will provide advice according to your goals.
For more information, go here.
January 22, 2015
Midnight and Moonshine: new in eBook form!
At last, it’s here: Midnight and Moonshine is up at Amazon, ready for downloading to your Kindle’ish devices, people!
The gods are dead, but will not be forgotten.
When Mymnir flees the devastation of Ragnarok, she hopes to escape all that bound her to Ásgarðr — a heedless pantheon, a domineering brother, and her neglectful father-master, Óðinn. But the white raven, a being of memory and magic, should know that the past is not so easily left behind. No matter how far she flies, she cannot evade her family…
In planting seeds of the old world in the new, Mymnir becomes queen of a land with as many problems as the one she fled. Her long-lived Fae children ignite and fan feuds that span generations; lives are lost and loves won because of their tampering. Told in thirteen parts, Midnight and Moonshine follows the Beaufort and Laveaux families, part-human, part-Fae, as they battle, thrive and survive in Mymnir’s kingdom.
Midnight and Moonshine is a collection of interconnected tales with links between them as light and strong as spider-silk. From fire giants to whispering halls, disappearing children to evening-wolves, fairy hills to bewitched cypress trees, and talking heads to moonshiners of a special sort, Midnight and Moonshine takes readers on a journey from ninth century Vinland to America’s Deep South in the present day. Hannett and Slatter have created a mosaic novel of moments, story-tiles as strange as witchwood and withywindles. Midnight and Moonshine is a rich tapestry of dark fantasy, fairy tale and speculation.
‘Marked by imagery both beautiful and grotesque, and unnerving twists that recall the uncanny horror of original fairy tales, this collection contains a unifying, multilayered plot that draws upon Norse mythology to take the reader on a thrilling, unsettling journey.’ Publishers Weekly Starred Review
And did I mention we’re running a Goodreads Giveaway: a limited edition hardcover and a limited edition book bag, emblazoned with the art of Kathleen Jennings.
And of course you can always order the paperback or hardcover from Ticonderoga Publications, at Indiebooksonline, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Book Depository
Quality Oz Fiction
Ticonderoga Publications, the lovely people who’ve brought you the Australian Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror for the last four years have a special on. All four volumes in paperback for $110.00 OR hardback for $165.00.
Can say fairer than that.
Go!
Buy!
Enjoy!
Here’s the link.
January 20, 2015
Today I am working on …
“Aten disk”. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil...
… this, which will involve Nefertiti, Akhenaten, mummies, zombies and make-up.
You’re welcome.
WiP: Sobek’s Daughter
A pin stuck into the flesh of the Great Royal Wife produces no blood. This is good.
I was lucky to find her so soon; even though all the auguries had told me, still I was surprised. Surprised it was real and relieved that my master could not know how weak my faith had been. I’d been tempted to stay abed, to remain within the safety of my four walls, but duty drove me out into the night.
Fortunate to find her before the stiffening of the limbs set in, before any of her handmaidens or fine ladies-in-waiting stumbled upon her still form. Before they raised the alarm and the entire palace was plunged into mourning. Before the embalmers were called and removed her innards, her brain, the child that will ever remain unborn.
Indeed the breath had barely left her when I arrived, so it was a small matter to coax part of the shadow-soul back; a honey cake made with the milk of a black cow and sprinkled with a few drops of my own blood was enough. She is quiet and slow, obedient; not herself at all, but then she’s been strange all the length of this pregnancy. Most importantly she’s suggestible, and I have only these few days.
