Isobel Blackthorn's Blog, page 29

My venture into historical fiction begins

I have a little announcement, and I’m feeling awfully nervous.

For the past few weeks I’ve been throwing obstacles in the path of this. I’m beginning the demanding task of turning my doctoral thesis into a novel. Well, sort of.

My thesis concerns a corpus, a body of obscure texts. My novel will attempt to embody the life of the author. Her name is Alice Bailey. She’s a highly controversial figure nobody outside New Age and conspiracy theory circles has heard of. Yet her writing has been enormously influential on the world stage and it is easy to show how. Her life is colourful and interesting too, with themes many will relate to, including domestic violence, elitism and exclusion, jealousy and malice.

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What is challenging is that I am treading the controversial path of ‘faction’ – inspired by  Heather Rose’ The Museum of Modern Love, and Melissa Ashley’s The Birdman’s Wife, both prize winning books. I am indebted to the authors for tamping down the grass on this narrow rocky path, impressing us all with the results of their hard labours. I’ve reviewed both works and I have become so enthusiastic in my praises, the authors might be wondering ‘who is this nut who keeps liking my short-list announcements with “told you so” comments?’


In reviewing these works, it appears I’ve been set a high bar.


My story will be structured differently. There will be echoes of The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey, for mine is a frame story. I have chosen this approach as I want to tell a little of Alice Bailey’s legacy. Creating a narrative frame set in the present seems to me the only way to achieve this.


I have the title.


I’ve conjured a protagonist to put in the frame. I already love her to bits.

I’ve completed my research on the life of Alice Bailey. I have it all written up in a submittable draft, what I thought was a submittable draft.


I’ve storyboarded the chapters.


I am about to invoke the voice of Alice Bailey.

Nothing in my literary journey to date has been more daunting and more compelling than this project.

Will I pull it off? If I do, will anyone, other than me, be interested in this mysterious woman whose story has gone untold for many decades?



So here I go, bathers donned despite the cold, facing the choppy waters of historical fiction. Already, there’s a storm on the horizon.



Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Alice Bailey, Biography, Faction, Historical fiction, New Age, Occult, Spirituality, Theosophy, Western Esotericism

On The Stella Prize

Isn’t fabulous when a UK online magazine site takes an interest in Australian fiction? That’s the view of Shiny New Books, an independent book recommendations website, who invited me to write a piece on The Stella Prize for their readers.

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I’d been following with interest the progress of The Stella Prize ever since the first winner was announced in 2013. Back then, I was yet to publish my debut novel and I was filled with wonder and a healthy measure of envy when Carrie Tiffany received her much-deserved award for Mateship With Birds.

Writing for Shiny New Books saw me delving into the backstory and I marvelled at how such a prestigious and important literary prize could emerge out of a panel discussion at the independent bookstore, Readings. Talk about follow through on a vision, and a passion for gender justice! Reading between the lines, the founders poured their all into making the prize a reality. The energy and determination required must have been immense.

Now in 2017, another winner gets to enjoy the kudos The Stella Prize affords. My congratulations to Heather Rose, for her remarkable and exquisitely written book, The Museum of Modern Love.

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In my view every Australian author owes a big thank you to those women who made this happen, not least because The Stella Prize represents the pinnacle of the literary, innovative and courageous writing of our women authors and gives the rest of us something to strive for.

Read my piece in Shiny New Books here.

You can read my review of The Museum of Modern Love here.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Carrie Tiffany, Heather Rose, Shiny New Books, The Museum of Modern Love, The Stella Prize

How I started writing horror

A year ago today I shared my review of Liam Brown’s Wild Life, after being invited by Legend Press to be part of the author’s blog tour. (Read my review here)

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Wild Life is a disturbing read, dark, gothic, raw. It falls into that tradition of dark fiction the British do so well, one that includes Iain Bank’s debut novel, The Wasp Factory, a book I read shortly after it was published in the 1980s.

By the time I was reviewing Wild Life, I had just finished writing my first work dark fiction. I was yet to enter the realm of horror in any real sense. I didn’t identify as a horror fiction author. I still had my head up in the literary smog, born of my own pretensions.

The descent has been slow, necessary, painful and illuminating all at once.

Now I’m completing my second work of dark fiction. Unlike the first, it sits more firmly inside the genre, fulfilling the expectations of horror fans. I have my first short story that I have labelled horror, out there in two competitions. I realise I can identify another two of my short stories as horror, along with many others that are certainly dark. They are both published in my collection, All Because of You. When I wrote them, I didn’t think of them as horror. I didn’t get what dark fiction meant.

My muse did. She knew where she was heading. For years I’ve been struggling to label what I write as falling into this genre or that. Is it a thriller, a mystery, maybe suspense as that seems to be a catch all? And there she was, stirring her grim brews in the dungeon of my mind, claiming all of my ideas as though they were nothing more than seasoning.

Dark themes enter all my work. There’s nothing light and airy about what I do, even when I venture into other genres. It’s why I’m drawn to authors like Ever Dundas and her smashing debut Goblin, why every so often I think I ought to move to somewhere cool and dank and dim.

 

 

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: dark fiction, Ever Dundas, Goblin, horror, Legend Press, Liam Brown, short stories, Wild Life

The Alex Legg Memorial Foundation has a new website!

I’m delighted to share the ALMF website and announce their annual music scholarship which is open to applicants based in Melbourne and surrounds.

[image error] 2016 scholarship co-winner Zac Saber

The Alex Legg Memorial Foundation began in early 2015, after musical legend Alex Legg passed away the previous December. The ALMF are a hard-working and dedicated bunch of musicians local to the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, who all knew and loved Alex. Each week they run an open mic in Oscar’s Alehouse, Belgrave.

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And every year they hold a memorial concert, raffling an Alex Legg signature guitar (Cole Clarke). At the concert, that year’s scholarship winner is announced. It’s a fabulous prize of $3,000 plus a heap of mentoring. A real career booster for any serious muso.

Tune in to Ann Ann Creber’s The Good Life, 3MDR on Monday 19th June @4.35pm when I’ll be talking about it. http://www.3mdr.com/

Check out the website for details and the application form, and help spread the word. http://almfaustralia.com/almf-scholarship

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: 3MDR, Alex Legg, Alex Legg Memorial Foundation, ALMF, Ann Creber, Leggacy Sessions, Music scholarship

The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose – book review

Heather Rose has produced a work of considerable finesse. The Museum of Modern Love sets a high bar for Australian literary fiction.

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“Arky Levin is a film composer in New York separated from his wife, who has asked him to keep one devastating promise. One day he finds his way to The Atrium at MOMA and sees Marina Abramovíc in The Artist is Present. The performance continues for seventy-five days and, as it unfolds, so does Arky. As he watches and meets other people drawn to the exhibit, he slowly starts to understand what might be missing in his life and what he must do.”

It is always a delight to read an intelligent book. In The Museum of Modern Love, it is as though the author caresses the intellect through exquisite prose; coaxing, inviting engagement. Rose has produced a deeply introspective, slow-paced book, one that will appeal to lovers of literature, rather than those seeking page-turning entertainment.

The primary setting is the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where the main characters observe a piece of performance art by the renowned Marina Abramovíc, in which the artist sits unflinchingly still, all day for seventy-five days. The object of Rose’ pen is therefore a real life and contemporary figure, Serbian-born Abramovíc, who has loose and controversial associations with Australia. The Museum of Modern Love is faction, a considered rendering of biography in fiction.

What commences as the audience observes ‘The Artist is Present’ is the delicate unfolding of backstory, petal by petal, first here, then there, until the essence of the narrative, a poignant and bruised heart, is revealed.

“It is her metier to dance on the edge of madness, to vault over pain into the solace of disintegration.”

Rose is a masterful writer, her depictions of incidental characters sharply observant, yet her prose is always gentle, haunting. The Museum of Modern Love is a meditation, on art and creativity to a large extent, but above that on pain, physical and emotional pain, the anguish of loss and grief. Can themes of art and creativity rescue a narrative that strolls along in the doldrums of lingering despair? The answer is immediate: Yes. ‘The Artist is Present’ installation represents trauma on a grand and complex scale, the artwork a culmination of a lifetime of suffering, depicted in a retrospective piece on display in the museum upstairs. Abramovíc’s artistic and personal pain is juxtaposed with the ordinary pain of ordinary people, yet each time another sits on the vacant chair and locks gaze with the artist, whatever they are feeling is transformed, subtly perhaps, to become a part of this ever changing, yet remarkably unmoving, work of art.

The narrator of The Museum of Modern Love is deft, light, observant, forgiving. If there could be a point of criticism it would be the use of self consciousness, at times the narrator identifying as a disembodied entity, an angel, a muse, naturally omniscient, one given to addressing the reader directly. Some may deem the exploitation of this device unnecessary and intrusive. When it first appears, the reader may be forgiven for worrying that this voice may overpower the narrative, but thankfully it does not.

All fiction is contrivance, a pasting together of characters, settings, themes. When drawing on real people and real events, such pasting can appear awkward and stilted. The Museum of Modern Love is not one of those works. Evident in abundance is Heather Rose’ passion for her subject and deep empathy for her themes. It comes as no surprise that the work won The Stella Prize, 2017.

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK ALLEN & UNWIN FOR MY REVIEW COPY. I REVIEWED THIS BOOK AS PART OF THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN WRITERS CHALLENGE #AWW

 

 

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: #AWW, Australian women authors, Australian women writers challenge, Heather Rose, literary fiction, Marina Abramovíc, MOMA, The Museum of Modern Love, The Stella Prize

Goblin by Ever Dundas

I’m still thinking about Goblin. As I write, as I review other books, as I sit and stare at my cactus garden on a crisp June morning, Goblin is there, tempting me back into her world.

 

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“Goblin begins in a library, with an elderly woman, a Reader in Residence, in conversation with a vagrant, Ben, occupying himself with eating the pages of books. Goblin is troubled; she’s a bit of an alcoholic, rough around the edges, self-neglecting. Old photographs, flashbacks, an enquiring Ben and a fainting fit, all bring her back to her childhood; and she decides to write down her life story in the form of a memoir.” – read my full review here –http://shinynewbooks.co.uk/goblin-by-ever-dundas/

I’m delighted to read the reviews pouring in, all praising this fine work. Ever Dundas has achieved something most of us strive towards for decades, a union of complexity and depth on the one hand, and fine storytelling on the other. Goblin is a work of significance. Ever Dundas has written a prize winner and it is a real privilege to have recognised early, before the book’s release, this gem.

You can visit the authors website @ everdundas.com

Or find her on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/EverRADundas/

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Ever Dundas, Freight Books, Goblin, literary fiction, magic realism

Sorting Things Out – a short story in lit mag Fictive Dream

[image error] Photograph by Mathyas Kurmann

‘Sorting Things Out’ is a short story set in a small country town in New South Wales. It contains two kinds of truth. Firstly, I did sort mail at a country post office. I also used to do a mail run. I’ve never heard of Snake Road though, and all the characters are fictitious.

The second truth concerns the alienation that hits someone when they return to a place after a long spell away, and how relationships change and families grow apart. It takes a lot of effort to let go of closely held prejudices, open the heart, and step into the new.

I’m honoured that Fictive Dream found merit in my story. Doubly honoured that they’ve published it as part of their first anniversary celebrations. You can read the full story here – https://fictivedream.com/2017/05/28/sorting-things-out/

 

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Fictive Dream, Mail Run, Post Office, Rural New South Wales, short story, Sibling rivalry

These Dividing Walls by Fran Cooper

Fran Cooper’s debut novel, These Dividing Walls, is a meditation on the way ordinary lives are impacted by racism, Islamophobia, terror attacks and the far right in contemporary Paris.

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“One Parisian summer

A building of separate lives

All that divides them will soon collapse…



In a forgotten corner of Paris stands a building.

Within its walls, people talk and kiss, laugh and cry; some are glad to sit alone, while others wish they did not. A woman with silver-blonde hair opens her bookshop downstairs, an old man feeds the sparrows on his windowsill, and a young mother wills the morning to hold itself at bay. Though each of their walls touches someone else’s, the neighbours they pass in the courtyard remain strangers.

Into this courtyard arrives Edward. Still bearing the sweat of a channel crossing, he takes his place in an attic room to wait out his grief.

But in distant corners of the city, as Paris is pulled taut with summer heat, there are those who meet with a darker purpose. As the feverish metropolis is brought to boiling point, secrets will rise and walls will crumble both within and without Number 37…”

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These Dividing Walls takes the reader on a journey into the lives of the inhabitants of an apartment block in arrondissement Paris, drifting seamlessly from one character’s perspective to another. Meet among others, Edward and Frédérique, both stricken by grief; depressed and emaciated mother of three Anais and her absent husband Paul; Chantal and her lost and disillusioned husband César Vincent; Madame Marin, the gardienne who runs a hairdressing salon in the courtyard and slips out in the night; the hate ridden Isabelle Duval, and Josef, the vagrant who sleeps in the doorway opposite. Through this cast of quirky and troubled characters the various attitudes to be expected in any social mix, from tolerance through prejudice to extremism, are explored.

The writing is exquisite and discursive. The narrative meanders, rich with incidental details and acute observations, Cooper’s strength, her ability to enter into the souls of her characters. Frédérique seeks “a world beyond the bourgeois formalities cradled within these walls…everything that has suffocated her before in its intensity turned now a cushion against pain; scar tissue around her heart.”

The use of the present tense brings an immediacy to the story, focusing the mind of the reader on the characters in close proximity. Through it, Cooper, invites the reader to ponder the inane and banal aspects of prejudice.

These Dividing Walls is a slow read that contains few surprises. The portrayal of terror and reprisal bleeds into the narrative, growing ever larger, vying for centre stage, seeking to oust the much larger and more poignant story of grief. Contemporary fiction is difficult to write, for the risk is always that themes appear stuck on, worked into something already in existence. Cooper manages to achieve a good balance, using the weather – Paris endures a June heat wave –  to full and dramatic effect. Ultimately, it is the weather that binds this story and makes it work.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for my review copy.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: contemporary fiction, Fran Cooper, Islamophobia, Terror attacks, These Dividing Walls

A warm review of Asylum from Readers’ Favorite

“Asylum is a solid story that deals with one woman’s journey to adulthood while underscoring the social and political injustices faced by those who don’t hold Australian citizenship. Although some of the language will be strange to non-Australian speakers, the story is nevertheless compelling and utterly relatable. Well worth the read.” – Reviewed by Marta Tandori for Readers’ Favorite.

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I wrote this novel in 2012-13 when the Labor party were in power and the exodus of asylum seekers from countries including Syria into Europe hadn’t happened. I wrote the story to express my personal dismay over the way asylum seekers were treated in Australia. It’s even worse now. I juxtaposed the situation my protagonist, the aptly named Yvette Grimm, found herself in as a British-born visa overstayer, with the plight of real asylum seekers. I also paralleled the punitive and cruel asylum seeker policies of current governments with the way Australia treated the forgotten child migrants who were sent to children’s homes.

You can read the full review at Readers’ Favorite.

Find out more about Asylum, and read an excerpt and other reviews here.

And you may buy a copy if you wish, from many places, including Amazon, Book Depository, Booktopia.

If you wish to read my opinion pieces on asylum seekers, you will find a list of links here.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: asylum seekers, boat people, Fairbridge Children's Home, On Line Opinion, Reader's Favorite, refugees

Talking Location on Trip Fiction

Here in Australia it’s Mother’s Day. UK based Trip Fiction would probably not have known that. So when they published on their blog my piece on Lanzarote, they couldn’t have known how significant the timing was for me.

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I left Lanzarote in 1990. My daughters were born in 1991. They exist because I left the island that had captured my heart, my mind, my soul in a way nowhere else has. When I left, I had no intention of doing anything other than going back. Then everything went wrong and I ended up in Australia, reuniting with my mum who I hadn’t seen for 9 years. A new chapter of my life began, one centred on my mum, and those two girls of mine.

I’m saving for my next visit to my favourite little island. Meanwhile, a big thank you to Trip Fiction for including my piece on their wonderful innovative site, which is dedicated to travel fiction and stories set in interesting locations. Here’s the link to my piece – http://www.tripfiction.com/chatting-lanzarote-author-isobel-blackthorn/  While you are there, you might want to check out the site.

You can read more about my novel The Drago Tree here

and read a lovely thoughtful review by Nada Adel Sobhi  here

 

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Canary Islands, Lanzarote, The Drago Tree, Trip Fiction