The Silver Witch

Next week, my first pro-rate sale will be going live at Daily Science Fiction. It's a short piece called "The Silver Witch" and it's a bit of a departure from my usual style and genre. If you want to read it when it's first available on the 18th, you'll have to sign up for the email - which is well worth doing anyway. Otherwise, it'll be available online a week later, and I shall try to remember to post a link soon after that!

I've not been doing a lot of writing lately, because I've been focussing on being ill ;) My creativity has been directed towards sewing projects instead. I'm hoping to get back to it soon, though, because I find that the longer I take a break from writing, the harder it is to get back to it, because the need to be perfect takes over entirely.

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Wound

I have been extremely tardy in posting this link, alas! I've been up to my neck in moving house and all that it entails, and now have very limited internet access. Thank goodness for personal hotspots and iPhones!

Finally, however, I can point you over to Every Day Fiction to read my story, "Wound". It's one that was initially inspired by something that happened in my own childhood, although it's been reworked and refined a lot since its first incarnation. It was my first time playing with magic realism, and I'm really glad it's found a good home :)

An update

I'm afraid I've been neglecting this site rather dreadfully over the past half year or so. I've been in something of a transition period, but have come out the other side more focussed and inspired.

Quite a few things have been happening, but here are just a few snippets by way of an update.

• 'Speed Dating' had a very successful season in Sydney, polling well with both the judges and the audiences. We just missed out on the Gala Final, but that didn't do anything to dull my enjoyment of the process. Glen was a great director to work with, and I loved what he and the actors did with my words. I didn't get up to see the production, but I was able to watch it on DVD, and it was a strange, but exciting, experience watching my play being performed.

• My short piece 'Wound' was accepted for publication by Every Day Fiction. It'll be up on the site on the 18th of April (almost in time for my birthday) and I'll update when it's available to be read.

• I'm moving to Melbourne! I'm still a country person at heart, but my partner and so many of my people are in Melbourne, so I'm headed back there myself.

• I've started studying towards a Master of Letters (Creative Writing) with CQUniversity. As of today, I've completed the first draft on two short stories, one for each of my first two units. I'll probably talk more about those pieces in the coming months as I move through the editing process and eventually seek homes for them.

• I've done a minor site update, taking the focus away from other people's writing and placing it upon my own. 

Speed Dating (Still)

The Sydney Short + Sweet season of 'Speed Dating' begins tomorrow night. This is the end of the play's Short + Sweet experience, but it's been a very fun ride. It was accepted into four festivals in two countries, and will be performed in three of those four festivals. For a novice theatre writer such as myself, it's been an excellent experience, and one which I hope won't be my last encounter with having my work performed.

Chookas to my Sydney director and cast!

Speed Dating: Sydney Style

I was excited to find out recently that "Speed Dating" has been accepted into the original and biggest Short + Sweet festival in Sydney. It's been chosen as a Top 80 play, which means multiple performances, and I'm hoping to be able to fly up there to finally see a production myself!

The director is Glen Pead, and the cast for the production is as follows:

Kate: Alannah Robertson
Megan: Lisa Hassens
Jill: Orlena Steele-Prior
Alicia: Karina Bracken

I look forward to seeing what they do with the script!

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Book Review: The Skeleton Key, by Tara Moss

Pandora English #3, Pan Macmillan, 2012, 286 pages, review copy from publisher

"The Crow Moon is rising and Pandora has a date with Civil War soldier Lieutenant Luke, who will be flesh-and-blood for one night only. When Lieutenant Luke disappears, Pandora must unblock the mysteries of Number One Addams Avenue with her skeleton key and discover the secrets that lie in the forgotten laboratory of Dr Edmund Barrett."

When I received The Skeleton Key in the mail, I wasn't sure it would be my kind of book. I'm a bit (okay, a lot) over paranormal romance at the moment, so I was worried that I might find myself wading through just the kind of novel I'm avoiding right now. As it turned out, I really needn't have worried. There's a hint of romance here, but the emphasis is strongly on the paranormal, and the book as a whole is much more Buffy than Twilight. I actually recommend it strongly to Buffy fans, because Pandora is from a similar kind of normal-but-kickass-chosen-one mould. (Try to say that one three times quickly.)

Although I haven't read the first two books in the Pandora English series, I didn't struggle at all with picking up the premise and the universe. Tara Moss creates an interesting world full of all the usual paranormal types, and manages to avoid the same-old-same-old trap. There are vampires – sorry: Sanguines - here, but there is a refreshing lack of uniformity when it comes to their characterisation. Deus (whom I loved) is a very different character to the undead supermodels who plague Pandora's existence.

One of the things I liked most about The Skeleton Key was the humour that marked the narrative and the character voice. There's a healthy sense of irony here, and that makes the occasional genuinely creepy moment stand out even more. The key villain of the novel is suitably discomforting and, while Pandora largely operates on instinct and employs extreme powers she doesn't fully understand, I didn't find this annoying. Her resignation to her responsibility as the Seventh and her commitment to doing the very things she doesn't yet know how to do somehow made up for the relative ease of her achievements.

Pandora is nineteen, and The Skeleton Key very cleverly walks the (fading) line between young adult and adult fiction. There are no pubescent dramas to distance the book from adults, and there is nothing within its pages that could be considered too 'old' by younger readers (or their parents). The idea of crossover appeal is often thrown about these days, but I think it's an apt descriptor for this series.

All-up, I found The Skeleton Key a light and enjoyable read and I shall definitely look up the first two books in the series – even if my arachnophobia does make me a little nervous about The Spider Goddess...

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Sewing Post: 1970 A-Line Skirt

I've been meaning to learn how to sew for ages, because most of the clothes I want to wear stopped being made at least sixty years ago. I have time and a need for activities at the moment, so I decided it was about time I did something about it. I tried to photo-document the process as I went along, courtesy of my phone camera, but I admit I got into the actual sewing a bit much towards the end and forgot about the photos a lot of the time.

So this is what I was trying to make. It's from a 1970 Simplicity pattern, and it's your basic 60s-style A-line skirt. A-lines are great because they're flattering to almost everyone and good for both casual and business. So the perfect pattern to make again and again if it turned out well.