Generosity All Round.

Well I am endlessly amazed by the generosity of this bloggy community.

As you know I have just recently had the pleasure of announcing the availability of my new novel Veiled in Shadows (incidentally I have a giveaway running at the moment for which a copy is one of the choices of prize). It is in relation to this that I am talking of our “little” community’s generosity.

First when I asked for reviewers I had people stepping straight forwards to offer reviews. This is very far from the potential experience for an independent first timer like me. It would have been all too easy for my request to have been greeted by deafening silence.

Then Christy Pinheiro sent me a copy of her new book The Official Indie Book Reviewer List.
As a self published author Christy has put a lot of thought and effort into developing a resource to help self publishers get their work reviewed. She has had a list of reviewers available for some time on her website. Recently though, Christy has put even more effort into turning her list into an e-book which gives more details on each of the reviewers.

If you are interested Christy has the e-version for sale at 99 cents. I am hoping to get at least another half dozen reviews from Christy’s list so I think it is a great resource for people looking for reviews, check out her website.

Then when I got home tonight I found a Royal Mail package from the UK.
The return address was Kathleen Jones’ and inside a copy of her beautiful new biography Katherine Mansfield: The Story Teller.
For those of you who don’t know Mansfield is considered to be one of the leading short story writers of the early 20th Century. She had an unconventional life before dying tragically young of tuberculosis.

Kathleen initially asked for a copy of Veiled in Shadows to review. Then almost immediately she emailed me back to say she would buy her own copy to save me some cost. In the meantime I had already ordered a copy to go directly from The Book Depository. Kathleen’s response was to say that she would send me a copy of her book as a thankyou.
To say I am impressed is to understate the matter. A beautiful hardback by a feted British biographer in exchange for my paperback.

And Kathleen has made a lovely note in the frontispiece. Somehow I think I got the better end of the deal.
Thank you Kathleen.

I can’t even do Kathleen the favour of saying go out and buy a copy. Due to the downturn in publishing Kathleen’s UK publisher have pulled out. At the moment Katherine Mansfield seems to be available only in New Zealand. It’s not on Amazon, while the Book Depository have a page it lists as “out of stock”.

Fortunately, it looks like The Edinburgh University Press may shortly bring out a UK edition.

In the mean time I highly recommend Kathleen’s blog it’s one of my favourites.

Finally, I promised more of about my odd youth. It will post more soon, I promise.

Good Samaritans

It was bitterly cold this morning. As I posted only a week or so ago, it has been unseasonably cold. At the breakfast shift this morning I saw one of those little moments that makes you feel good about being human.

One of our regulars (I’ll call him Tom) turned up for breakfast without shoes or socks and wearing nothing warmer than a summer t-shirt. He wouldn’t say what had happened, but presumably he had some kind of trouble in the night and had to abandon some squat in a hurry.

Immediately, some of the other guys responded. One took off his own coat and gave it to Tom, and another rummaged in his bag to find a clean pair of socks. A third organised Tom a hot coffee and buttered him some toast.

All these guys have next to nothing of their own. All of them live one day at a time in desperate conditions. Yet two of them recognised how much more Tom was in need and shared the little they had, while a third stepped up to do the bit he could.

Before anyone worries too much more about Tom and the other guy who gave up his coat, I was able to help both out later. Thanks to some emergency relief supplies we can get access to, the other guys coat was replaced within a couple of hours. As to Tom, thanks to the supplies (largely provided by Local Church Parishes and charities) we were able to make good most of what he had lost. So by this afternoon he had a whole new kit including new boots, good second hand clothes and a new swag.

Now some photos, these are from Port Melbourne. Port Melbourne is sited on Port Phillip Bay at the mouth of the Yarra. It is a funny mix. In the past it was largely industrial and what housing was there was essentially slums. Now it is in the process of being shifted upmarket so you find:
Harbour facilities and warehouses.
Multi million dollar flats (apartments in American English),
Derelict piers,
And expensive boutique shopping where millionaires park their boats.
Now that is enough for tonight.