The Centauress

Just a quick post tonight as I have spent all weekend at the Inaugural Dorrigo Grassroots Writers' Festival and am rather tired.

But I wanted to say my friend Kathleen Jones  and long time commenter on this blog has just published her latest book the Centauress on Kindle

 

 I haven't had a chance to read this work yet, but I have read her biography 

Katherine Mansfield: The Story-Teller  and her previous novel The Sun's Companion  and to say I loved them would be an understatement!

On being a media tart.

First things first, yesterday's WIIW elicited a few guesses of "eye".
Well I am happy to reveal everyone who said "eye" is on the write track. But it isn't a bird!

Jennifer (AKA Old Kitty) guessed "the eclipse". I have to say that is exactly what I thought this image looked like. Clever of you to remember we had a Solar Eclipse down this way recently (alas I was about 3000 kilometres away from being able to see it). Definitely some bonus points coming for that guess!

Second Kathleen Jones has posted about the anxiety of being a "media tart".
I have to say I identify with the problem.

At work I present a confidant persona, can talk at state-wide conferences, public information sessions.

You name it, I can do it.

But...
When it comes to talking about my own work, or myself and I clam up!
I am at best anxious and shy when it comes to self promotion.

How about you dear reader are you "shy and retiring" when it comes to self promotion?

Answer to WIIW tomorrow

Speaking Out

I won't answer my WIIW tonight.

A quick clue, it is two things,  neither is anything like landscape sized. AND I have posted about them recently.

Now I wanted to quickly mention an important post Kathleen Jones has made about speaking out about child abuse.

I was really touched and very impressed by her post. Speaking out is a vital first step toward change.

My Piccie of the Day is a of dawn  I shot a few years ago in western Victoria.

Tonight some brilliant news!

I last posted about Kathleen Jones because she gave me a copy of her new biography, Katherine Mansfield: The Story Teller.As I have said before Kathleen has one of my favourite blogs, A Writer’s life.

Kathleen has been reading a copy of my book Veiled in shadows. Anyway a couple of weeks ago she sent me some interview questions about my writing. Well she has posted my responses. Check it out.

But it gets better still! Kathleen has also reviewed my book Veiled in Shadows and she has posted her brilliant review on her book blog. To say I am chuffed is a major understatement. Thank you Kathleen!

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.

The Writing Game (A Treat)

I have previously mentioned “A Life Twice Tasted” the blog of British Author Wendy Robertson. Wendy’s blog is one of my favourites, she posts thoughtful pieces about her writing, her life and dare I say, the occasional ramble.

Anyway, back in April Wendy ventured into a new field – radio broadcasting. Wendy is hosting a monthly program on Bishop FM, a community radio station not all that far from where she lives in County Durham in the UK.

The topic of Wendy’s program? As you might guess – books and writing.

Now, I live half way around the world from County Durham, so listening to the broadcast was of course impossible. That is where modern technology comes in, a podcast of the first program was posted within a few days of the episode going to air.

I listened to the first episode, ‘Starting Points in Writing’. It was lovely to hear Wendy’s voice and the material was very interesting. A month later and I waited impatiently for the second episode. Alas, Bishop FM is a small operation mainly staffed by volunteers and they ran into some technical problems – no podcast was forthcoming :-(

Now though, everything is rosy; three more episodes have recently been posted:

Episode 2 – Crime writing,
Episode 3 – Writing for Children, and
Episode 4 – Storytellers and writing groups

As you can see the topics are varied enough to interest writers (and readers) of many genres.
I have immensely enjoyed the episodes I have heard. I am particularly looking forward to an upcoming episode where Wendy will talk to another blogger friend of mine Kathleen Jones.

For those of you who are interested the site for the podcasts is: http://blogs.bishopfm.com/thewritinggame/

Check it out, I think you will enjoy it!


Now because I find it almost impossible to post without including a piccie or two:

Abandoned railway trestle bridge, Stony Creek Victoria.
A Kookaburra.
This guy has very ruffled feathers because it was really windy as I took this shot.
He/she may look quite familiar to non Aussies. Kookaburras are in fact the largest Kingfisher species in the world.
Rather than diving for fish, they perch on trees in the bush and swoop down on lizards and snakes. Some would argue that they do us a favour, but I have a soft spot for reptiles.