Isobel Blackthorn's Blog, page 33

Venturing into Crime

I’m delighted to announce that next month I’ll be travelling up from Melbourne to give a workshop for the Writers of the Far South Coast, entitled ‘Venturing into Crime’.

‘Crime: what’s the attraction? Crime is one of the biggest selling genres, attracting millions of loyal fans. Crime writers are a special breed, following in the footsteps of the old masters like Agatha Christie, inventing fresh stories to satisfy their readers. Ever fancied joining the ranks? “Venturing into Crime” introduces all the elements of crime writing in a fun interactive workshop. Come along and explore the murky world of crooks and their dastardly deeds and invent the sleuths to nab them.

Saturday 15th October @ 1-4pm Club Sapphire, Merimbula

For more information contact:http://www.writersfsc.org.au

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Workshop, Writers of the Far South Coast

The Drago Tree – a review by Jasmina Brankovich

I’m honoured to be re-posting this review of The Drago Tree composed by Jasmina Brankovich, writer, activist and social critic.

“The Drago Tree is a beautifully crafted, exquisitely written novel brimming with grief and heartiness, pain and joy. Unputdownable from the get-go. The story reminds me of AS Byatt’s classic exploration of the relationships between power and knowledge: as much as Possession is about academic rivalry and obsession, The Drago Tree is about different kind of possession. It is a story of (post) colonial possession, where the invaders continue to vie for owning traditional indigenous knowledges, and where the unique island of Lanzarote serves as a setting for what is a global process of colonial expansion. It is also a story of men’s perceived right to possess women and appropriate their talents; be they writers, such as the main protagonist, who escapes domestic violence only to find herself fighting off a fellow writer’s presumptive ownership over her, on the very island whose culture he sees as just one add-and-stir element to his authorship’s ouvre. The story has all that a good story should have: vibrant characters, a journey of a plot line, a twist at the end. The Drago Tree will take your heart. (this review first appeared on Goodreads).

Dr Jasmina Brankovich’s work appears in Anarchist Affinity, Left Flank, Upswell and Green Agenda.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: AS Byatt, Feminism, Jasmina Brankovich, Lanzarote, Possession, Post-colonialism, The Drago Tree

Book Review: A Perfect Square

Pleased to share this fine review by author Kathryn Gossow.

A pot pourri of bookish things

It’s been a busy weekend of A Perfect Square book promotion. So I thought I’d gather it all together in a single post, for those interested in following my blog tour or finding out more about me and the story behind my story.

The weekend kicked off with a Q&A on Amanda Howard’s book blog, Killing Time.

Janet Emson of From First to Last Page book blog then features a piece on my writing process, called My Devilish Muse, and includes a short extract of A Perfect Square.

Fictive Dream published my flash fiction piece, Margo’s Slippers, and I’m really proud to find my story amongst those of so many fine writers.

To cap it all off, author Patricia Leslie, posted on her website her stunning review of A Perfect Square. Praise doesn’t come any better than this:

“Reading Isobel Blackthorn’s stories is like engaging in high calibre wordplay. The words wash over you, move through you, and lift you intellectually.” 

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: A Perfect Square, art, Esoteric Fiction, Fictive Dream, Flow, From First to Last Page, Kandinksy, Killing Time, Metaphysical Fiction, Odyssey Books, Patricia Leslie, Synaesthesia

A Perfect Square becomes a perfect circle

I’m delighted to appear on Being Anne, the first stop on A Perfect Square book tour.

“What luck to have born a child who resonates so strongly creatively that as her mother I feel I’ve been twinned. Elizabeth is beside me from the inception of all my creative ideas. She helps me brainstorm plots and characters. She fleshes things out. And when I’ve produced a second draft, there she is, my Ideal Reader, giving detailed feedback.”

Read more here http://beinganne.com/2016/09/blog-tour-feature-a-perfect-square-by-isobel-blackthorn-iblackthorn/

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: A Perfect Square, blog tour, Esoteric Fiction, literary fiction

Publication Day Interview with Isobel Blackthorn, author of A Perfect Square

What an honour to feature on this fine blog on publication day! Many thanks Linda!

The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman

What motivates a writer to compose a work of fiction? To entertain? To provide an escape from mundanities? To enlighten? To invite the reader to consider something new or ponder a fresh perspective on something old? Or to portray in fictional form real events that come alive in the imagination through the characters in a story?

“Tell everyone what happened here.” And in The Street Sweeper Elliot Perlman does just that.

“Recently released from prison, Lamont Williams, an African American probationary janitor in a Manhattan hospital and father of a little girl he can’t locate, strikes up an unlikely friendship with an elderly patient, a Holocaust survivor who was a prisoner in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

A few blocks uptown, historian Adam Zignelik, an untenured Columbia professor, finds both his career and his long-term romantic relationship falling apart. Emerging from the depths of his own personal history, Adam sees, in a promising research topic suggested by an American World War II veteran, the beginnings of something that might just save him professionally, and perhaps even personally.

As these men try to survive in early-twenty-first-century New York, history comes to life in ways neither of them could have foreseen. Two very different paths—Lamont’s and Adam’s—lead to one greater story as The Street Sweeper, in dealing with memory, love, guilt, heroism, the extremes of racism and unexpected kindness, spans the twentieth century to the present, and spans the globe from New York to Chicago to Auschwitz.”

A work of contemporary fiction, The Street Sweeper is well researched and artfully constructed, the interweaving of the two parallel narratives holding the reader in thrall as Perlman juxtaposes the black civil rights movement of African Americans with the persecution of Jews in Poland before and during WWII.

Gripping from cover to cover, The Street Sweeper entertains, educates, and above all brings the reader’s own moral compass to the fore. “Tell everyone what happened here”. There were parts of this story I could scarcely bring myself to read, and towards the end I had trouble seeing the print as my glasses fogged up with my tears.

I could criticise this work. But I won’t because it would be nit picking. I could cynically accuse the author of jumping on the Holocaust-porn bandwagon, buying into our morbid fascination for the horrors of the death camps in Nazi Germany, but I would be doing a disservice to an author at pains to make a significant contribution to the remembering. Remembering that needs to occur and reoccur; the events all too recent, all too easily overlooked in the busy information traffic of our lives.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Book review, Elliot Perlman, The Street Sweeper

A Perfect Square by Isobel Blackthorn

“The Seventies, that accursed decade when the hippies took hold of the occult and turned it into fairy floss.” That line tickled me! “They were three difficult years. Harriet call…

Source: A Perfect Square by Isobel Blackthorn

Filed under: Uncategorized

The Birdman’s Wife by Melissa Ashley

What a delight it is to read stories of historical figures passed over by history probably because they were women. An even greater delight when they are told well, as is very much the case with Melissa Ashley’s The Birdman’s Wife.

Elizabeth Gould was indeed a remarkable woman. “Inspired by a letter found tucked inside her famous husband’s papers, The Birdman’s Wife imagines the fascinating inner life of Elizabeth Gould, who was so much more than just the woman behind the man.

Elizabeth was a woman ahead of her time, juggling the demands of her artistic life with her roles as wife, lover and helpmate to a passionate and demanding genius, and as a devoted mother who gave birth to eight children. In a society obsessed with natural history and the discovery of new species, the birdman’s wife was at its glittering epicentre. Her artistry breathed life into hundreds of exotic finds, from her husband’s celebrated collections to Charles Darwin’s famous Galapagos finches.

Fired by Darwin’s discoveries, in 1838 Elizabeth defied convention by joining John on a trailblazing expedition to the untamed wilderness of Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales to collect and illustrate Australia’s ‘curious’ birdlife.

From a naïve and uncertain young girl to a bold adventurer determined to find her own voice and place in the world, The Birdman’s Wife paints an indelible portrait of an extraordinary woman overlooked by history, until now.”

It is only the hardboiled cynic who won’t fall into this story as though in love, won’t be seduced by the intimate narrative style. Here is a story, articulated in a voice commensurate with the era, of a life acutely observed, the sort of story that seems to flow from the pen, belying the many hours and months if not years of research that went into it. It isn’t easy to breathe life into history in fictionalised form. Too often the reader will sense contrivance, or stumble through an unconvincing scene. It’s a fine balance between fact and narration every step of the way and Ashley pulls it off with aplomb.

This is a work imbued with optimism and hope. There is an almost playful romantic quality at first, as a flirtation between Elizabeth and her soon to be husband evolves, yet the story soon departs from romance, as the practicalities and the tragedies of her life unfold, along with what can only be described her life’s work.

The Birdman’s Wife is a story of passion and depth of thought told with an empathy so deep the reader may look up from time to time to find herself in a room filled with specimens, the floor littered with sketches, and Elizabeth herself seated nearby.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Affirm Press for my review copy.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Affirm Press, Book review, Elizabeth Gould, The Birdman's Wife

A Perfect Square – esoteric fiction

A Perfect Square is on some level an exploration of the different ways people approach esotericism. Who are these people? Where can we find them? Meet the eccentric artist Harriet Brassington-Smythe, her daughter, pianist Ginny Smith, and the mysterious hidden figure of Wilhelm Schmid, a scholar of the esoteric order of the Rosicrucians.

I cannot say that conspiracy theory is a major theme in A Perfect Square, but it does enter into one of the story lines, as mother and artist Judith, alone in an old farmhouse on the Devon moors, explores an internet forum, called ‘The Forum’.

My own thinking on esotericism and on conspiracy thinking goes much deeper. Why do the two go together and how? They are united through two words: elitism and secrecy. Simply put, conspiracy thinking always points to some sort of elite. Esoteric practice creates that elite. Esoteric practice generally occurs in secret. Power elites conduct their business in secret. Conspiracy theorists tend to also have an esoteric bent. Esoteric-minded types will always always look behind the scenes to see if they can see what’s going on. They sense the conspiring. But they get hung up on theories. Why bother? When really, conspiracy theories are themselves just mental traps.

Here’s a piece I wrote for the aptly named Paranoia magazine. Where I have tried to stretch my thinking a little further.

http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/2016/08/mastering-art-occultism/

And as for A Perfect Square, I like to think it packs a punch. Well, that was my intention. At the time of writing I was inspired very much by Umberto Eco’s The Prague Cemetery. Like Eco, I’m motivated by the fact that there is too much misinformation out there, misinformation that easily takes root in minds rendered receptive through a lack of access to alternative and perhaps accurate information. I also marvel at the way opposers, especially those on the Left, get so hot under the collar when it comes to conspiracy thinking, as though it were a personal affront. Or threat?

A Perfect Square is now available for pre-order, which is quite exciting and I’m very grateful to Odyssey Books for choosing to publish the work.

http://odysseybooks.com.au/titles/a-perfect-square-available-29-august/

I’ve commenced work on another novel, one that explores the ideas of Theosophist Alice A Bailey. If you would like to journey with me as I venture further into this strange realm of the unknown, please contact me and I’ll add you to my mailing list.

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Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: A Perfect Square, Alice Bailey, Astrology, Conspiracy theory, Moon planting guide, Numerology, Occultism, Odyssey Books, Paranoia magazine, Rosicrucians, Steiner, Western Esotericism