Vale Jan Finder The Wombat!

Yet again fandom has lost a wonderful member, this time Jan Howard Finder, known in fannish circles as the Wombat, because he loved them - he was raising money for, and encouraging awareness of the plight of, the  endangered Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat. He loved Australia, actually, and what he really enjoyed was to tell Aussies things they didn't know about their own country. He read Australian newspapers on line and kept up with our local fiction. In fact, once when Shane Moloney's new crime novel was being launched here in Melbourne at Trades Hall, I only found out about it because Jan emailed me!

I first met Jan via email, a little before Aussiecon 3, back in 1999. He wanted to talk to someone who knew about Australian children's SF, because he was running a course in it in the US. I made up a list for him and that was the start of a great friendship, even though it was mostly on line and by phone. When he was coming to Aussiecon, he offered me a bed in his hotel room, as his room mate had ducked out on him. I don't normally stay at a hotel when the convention is in my own city, because even if you stay late, it's still cheaper to take a taxi home than to stay at the hotel; it was a habit I developed back when I was still paying a mortgage and every cent counted.

But I was running the children's program and I really had to be there early to set up for the kids, who arrived by nine a.m. And he was offering a very good deal. So I said yes. The two beds in the room were luxuriously wide, a very nice room. I remember I had to get up earlier than he did, so I would slip into the bathroom to dress and gulp down a quick breakfast. These days I eat in the hotel dining room or go down the street to the nearest cafe if the hotel prices are outrageous as they were at my last interstate convention. But I was still not quite at the end of my mortgage back then. I went cheap on myself and trust me, it's no fun to sit on a bathroom floor and hastily eat a bowl of cereal! Later, Jan told me that he'd been awake and thought it very funny.

He came along to the children's program to read "Riddles In The Dark" from The Hobbit to the kids. It was his specialty.

Actually, Tolkien in general was his passion. He had a treasured letter from Tolkien, which he told me about with great pride, and collected such Tolkien mementoes as an article called "The Pleasures Of The Hobbit Table", published long before the Internet made it possible to collect the recipes of dishes mentioned in The Hobbit. He was organising his third Tolkien conference when he died - and had fully intended to be there! He took a trip to New Zealand, a special LOTR pilgrimage with a bunch of  other fans that he helped organise.  After that, he dropped in on Melbourne again and asked Kerry Greenwood, whose work he admired, to show us around the Melbourne CBD, which features in her Corinna Chapman novels. It was a very pleasant afternoon and afterwards we went to Florentino's for lunch, a restaurant which appears under another name in the Chapman novels. It was the last time he came here, but we stayed in touch. He had always hoped she might come to a convention in the US, but it was not to be.

One of his other passions was the writing of Arthur Upfield, Austalian author of the Boney mystery novels, which I believe are available outside Australa, but not here. He actually managed to find and re-print an Upfield novel - not Boney - and sent me a copy.

It's amazing how much he got done in the last years of his life. He knew the cancer would get him some time, but he was blowed if it was going to get him before he had done a lot more!

Even though I knew he was dying, it was still a shock, this morning, to get the email from his friend Lin, who'd been with him right to the end.

But I'm going to call some folk who knew him and have an impromptu wake. Or maybe an afternoon tea, hobbit-style, in his honour. He'd like that.

Beautiful Creatures:The Movie

Only two years ago, around this time, I was reviewing the novel, here, and now, Hollywood has come to the party. Lucky authors! It has been described as "the new Twilight", though both novel and film are seen from the boy's viewpoint, the heroine, Lena, being seen through his eyes.

Tonight I went to see the movie. This isn't a standard movie review, just the thoughts of someone who enjoyed the novel, if not enough to keep it and re-read. And I enjoyed the movie, though it was really brought home to me how much you have to cut when moving from book to film. Two important characters, Amma and Marion, were merged into one, but I didn't mind that too much - it gave Amma more to do, being both the town librarian and the housekeeper. The father didn't appear at all, though at the beginning, the young hero Ethan calls out to him. And that was okay, if a little strange, but if the father had appeared they would have had to go into the whole business of why he was in his study, supposedly writing a book, but really... Well, no spoilers for those who may still want to read it. And he had to get a mention, at least, or you'd be wondering why the boy seemed to be on his own. A bit strange, but okay.

But there were some things that had to be rushed through, such as the scene in the cemetery, where Amma is calling on the ancestors and then... what? Ridley, the Siren, was a disappointment. Not that the actress was no good, but that the character didn't have quite the oomph she had in the book, where she gets out of a car and all the boys are  under her spell - and what happened to the lollipops she sucked so sensuously in the novel? She did eat something unrecognisable, but simply put it in her mouth and swallowed.

The ending is somewhat different, though I won't go into detail here.

But the film was visually impressive and it was worth the price of the ticket just to see those old British veterans, Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson, as Lena's uncle Macon and her evil mother Serafine. They acted rings around the younger cast members, IMO, though teenagers going to see it would probably not agree with me. ;-) Afterwards, at the tram stop, I chatted with a young Kiwi man who'd actually read the book, which, despite its male viewpoint, is really a girls' book. He had enjoyed the book enough to see the movie, which he also liked. Goes to show even an old teacher librarian like me can be mistaken!

February 23 In The World Of Books

So, what happened in the literary world on this day in history? I looked it up in Wikipedia, which is really handy for this sort of information and I found out that on February 23:

The Gutenberg Bible was published, in 1455. It was the first major Western book published in movable type. It certainly made a huge difference in publishing and I love the fact that the major project for keeping books available is called Project Gutenberg. Since getting my lovely iPad, I have made good use of Project Gutenberg, my most recent download being Kipling's Puck Of Pook's Hill, which I downloaded only yesterday, complete with illustrations.

1898, Emile Zola, the famous French writer, was jailed for writing J'Accuse, the letter denouncing the French government for anti-Semitism and what had been done to the innocent Captain Dreyfus, who had been sent to Devil's Island for treason. Not a nice anniversary, but a major literary event.

Birthday, 1633, of Samuel Pepys, best known now for his diaries, which bring his era to vivid life.

Birthday, 1899, of Erich Kastner, a German writer of children's novels. Lottie And Lisa was the basis of a number of movies, including Disney's The Parent Trap. Even more significant was his novel Emil And The Detectives. This was published in 1929, and started the trend of child detective novels. Enid Blyton did it, yes, but he did it first. There's a novel called The 35th Of May which, according to Wikipedia, may have inspired C.S. Lewis's Narnia books.

Deaths: in 1821, John Keats, the British poet, author of such lovely stuff as "Ode To Autumn", the one that begins,"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.." and "Ode On A Grecian Urn" and if you've ever heard the saying,"A thing of beauty is a joy forever" that, too, comes from one of his poems. The poor man didn't live long. He died of TB at the age of about 26. I believe he wasn't a big hit in his own time and isn't that typical? Van Gogh was a flop in his own time and if he could visit our time, as he did in that Dr Who episode, he'd probably be furious at the unfairness of it all.

In 1995, James Herriot, author of those wonderful stories about being a vet in Yorkshire, beginning with All Creatures Great And Small. They were charming and gentle and funny and sometimes sad. I remember discovering this series through Scholastic Book Club, from which I used to order books for my first lot of students. Of course, I had to get more.

These are the events I found in one site, but there are probably more.

Anybody know of any?

Currently Re-Reading: Terry Pratchett!

With all the new books in the world to read, why do I re-read some over and over?

There are a number of writers whose books I will always buy rather than borrow from the library, because I know I'll read them again. Two of them are Terry Pratchett and Kerry Greenwood. Kerry Greenwood might sound an unlikely candidate for a regular re-read, because her novels are mysteries and once you've found out whodunit, why look at it again, right? And that might be the case if they were just mysteries, even with great characters. But the thing is, one of Kerry's characters is the setting. The Melbourne CBD is a major character in her Corinna Chapman books, while Melbourne is also a character in the Phryne Fisher series - Melbourne in the 1920s - and occasionally other places of that time. And I never tire of that.

But right now I'm re-reading some of the Discworld novels. And I do it via the sub-series. The three witches stories, for example, beginning with Wyrd Sisters and finishing with Carpe Jugulum, and slipping into the Tiffany Aching novels, in which Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg appear regularly. Right now, I'm bingeing on the City Watch series, halfway through Night Watch, in which City Watch Commander Sam Vimes is flung into his own past and has to mentor his younger self because the man who did it in his own world was killed on his first day in Ankh-Morpork, by a vicious serial killer who travelled back in time with him. And he has about four days to put things right... I still have a couple more in this series to read. I'm looking forward to Thud, with Sam Vimes and Where's My Cow? and the most recent one, Snuff, in which Sam is dragged kicking and screaming on a three week holiday out of town.

The thing about Terry Pratchett is that when you read his books this way, you can see the characters develop and things changing in ways you might have missed first time around. And despite the huge numbers of Discworld books he has written, I've yet to find an inconsistency. He knows his universe down to the last detail. And re-reading an individual series lets you spend more time with the characters you love. Characters come back, too, if not as the protagonists. The Truth, for example, is a standalone novel about the Discworld's first newspaper, but the characters play roles in other novels, whenever a newspaper is needed to embarrass Sam Vimes or make things convenient for Moist Von Lipwig or report on the war.

I re-read for comfort. My bedside reading is old friends, not new ones, because I know I won't sleep if I'm wondering what comes next. I keep the new books, including review copies, for the tram and the train and over dinner.

So, what's your favourite re-read, dear readers? 

New Birthday Meme - Twain and Aleichem!

Birthday meme

Today is February 18. It's my nephew Mark's birthday. Mark is a musician, composer and travel agent, which means he can arrange his own interstate tours when he's performing.

But as this is a book blog, I thought I'd check out "this day in history" with a literary theme. Mind you, plenty happened in other areas. Battles, assassinations and such. That dreadful man, George of Clarence, brother of Richard III and Edward IV, finally got his comeuppance in the Tower( glass of wine, anyone?). Mary Tudor, Bloody Mary, was born and Mary Queen of Scots was executed. I guess I can justify their inclusion on the basis that so much fiction has been written about all of them - Clarence was in Shakespeare, for starters.

But I thought that positive events would be better, so here's a couple: on this day in 1885, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn was published. Amazing to think how often this classic has been banned, for all the wrong reasons. I mean, racist? Really? Have those who banned it  for that reason actually read the thing? Or just missed the point?

In 1859, the world gained another writer, Shalom Aleichem, author of all those wonderful Yiddish short stories, including the series about Tevye the milkman, some of them turned into a Broadway musical, Fiddler On The Roof. I've read a lot of them(in English). They're delightful, funny and sad and thought-provoking.

In fact, when Shalom Aleichem visited the US, Mark Twain said to him,"I wanted to meet you, because I've been told I am the American Shalom Aleichem." And I can see that, too, and t's nice to know those two writers had similar audiences, who'd read them both, or how would they have known?

So, there's February 18 for you. Anyone else have a favourite event on this day?

Writing At Sunshine College

This morning, my friend Chris Wheat, a fellow YA writer who works with me at my school, emailed me the manuscript of this year's student anthology, so I could use my ebook app to turn it into an ebook. I haven't done that yet, because after having fiddled it into twenty-five separate files, which was necessary if it wasn't going to be a one-chapter lump, I thought, what-the-heck, there's another way to publish it first, even if you can't use the cover art: Ebook Glue (thanks again for the idea, Sean the Blogonaut!) And because I intend to do an ebook of my own students' work this year, so they can download it on to their iPads, when the school finally gives them back, I just went straight to Blogger and created another blog.

This one, called by the exciting name of Creativity Rocks!, is to be found at: http://sunshinecollege2.blogspot.com

Do check it out. I have put in a page with an Ebook Glue link, to make it possible to read it in Mobi or ePub. This is really worth looking at. It isn't just a case of, "Hey, aren't these kids cute?" Some of them are going to uni and there are a few whose names you may be seeing on books covers some day, or in published articles and stories. And there are some who have simply surprised us pleasantly with their creativity.

Not sure when I'll have time to go to Technorati to "claim" it officially, thus making it viewable via Google, so for the time being you, my readers, may be the only ones outside the school who get to see this.

If you do, why not comment here and let me know what you think?

Libraries Are WHAT?

This morning, when I curled up in bed with my trusty iPad, I found this link to the Guardian, paced on Twitter by Neil Gaiman. In it, there's a report about the author of a series of children's books, some of which I bought for my school library on request by kids last year. Apparently, he thinks that "libraries have had their day" because he, a writer who not only is able to live off his earnings, but live off them in a way the rest of us can only dream about, is not getting enough money from PLR, or Public Lending Right. He seems to think that if there were no libraries everyone would BUY his books instead of borrowing them. Really? A bit like saying,"If there were no second hand cars or cars for rent, everyone would buy new ones." And if that's a weird comparison, check out the article, because he uses it in his argument. What next, make it illegal to lend books to your friends? (Well, there are problems about lending ebooks, I admit. But libraries have ebooks now and they often have to pay again after a number of loans)

If he was talking about piracy I'd be right with him, likewise if it was a matter of those of my librarian colleagues who think that "information should be free" no matter how much work a writer has put into their books or articles - after all, writers have to pay bills too, and unless you're self published, so do the businesses that publish books.

In many cases, a library is where you go to sample and find writers you might never have discovered otherwise - you might buy the next book, if you have the money; if you don't, you aren't going to buy them anyway, but you might ask the library to get in the next book in that series.

And librarians promote reading and writers and they invite writers to speak, gaining them more income and promotion.  PLR was never - in my country at least - designed for the lucky few who can live off their writing, though it's no doubt nice to get the extra money. It works well for those whose books have perhaps gone out of print, and compensation for the fact that they might have sold more otherwise. I actually get more from lending rights than I do from royalties, especially in a year when I haven't sold much. It gives me the time to write more and sell more.

I won't be buying any more of this gentleman's books for my library, seeing he thinks we should all close down, unless kids demand more. But so far this year, I haven't had any more demand or even borrowing of the ones we have.

Too bad his attitude doesn't match the quality of his writing.

Compulsory Valentine's Day Post

This time last year I was taking my new students, Corey, Braydon, Natasha and Vincent to the Sunshine  Library to celebrate the start of the National Year Of Reading, which the school supported by giving me a budget of $3700 ($625 of which was taken off me later that year to pay for a site licence that the school had always paid before, leaving me broke for the last term). However, it was a wonderful afternoon and the kids had a great time. Vincent has since left us for a private school, where they made him cut off the little quiff of hair that distinguished him so delightfully. Corey has his first job in the supermarket next to home. I remember being touched that when John Marsden gave out copies of his books, Corey took one for a Marsden-loving friend who couldn't make it to the launch and had it signed. Well, I have a book for Corey that he requested, the sequel to George Ivanoff's Gamer's Quest. Natasha and Braydon are still turning up to Book Club and yesterday I showed Natasha how to find Project Gutenberg and free books - she wants to read Peter Pan and has an iPod.

Today is very different. I've had to abandon my darling students for a day and attend a stop work rally instead, because the man born to wealth and privilege doesn't think they're important.

Sigh! Because it IS Valentine's Day, here's the compulsory bit. I'm rereading Wuthering Heights and Pride And Prejudice. I know which of the two heroes I'D rather marry: the one who's up himself but learns. I'd rather have someone I could be happy with than someone who made me and everyone else miserable and then mourned my death.

Anyone else think that Cathy and Heathcliff are arseholes who deserve each other?

Naming Pluto's Moons

This morning, checking my email from my sick bed, I found this in my cyber-letterbox of the Andromeda Spaceways list.  The person requesting is Simon Petrie, author of the recent dual-novella book Flight 404/The Hunt For Red Leicester. I have already voted. It seems to me that after all those years we knew there were nine planets in the solar system, and now, without any consultation, suddenly there are only eight, at the very least it would be nice if we could have a hand in naming Pluto's moons. The web site is linked to SETI. 

"I have a slightly unusual request ...

Please help me name Pluto's fourth moon. I'd like it to be called 'Erebus'. It's important that 'Erebus' is the name chosen for it, so as not to spoil a story I had published last year.

They're also looking for a name for the fifth moon. I don't care what that gets called, it can be called any old thing for all I care, I didn't write about it. But I'd like the fourth moon to wind up with the name Erebus, if it's at all possible. The dignity of my first pro sale depends on it.

For those who want the long story ... 

In June 2011 a team at the SETI institute, led by Mark Showalter, discovered Pluto's fourth moon (and, a year or so later, its fifth moon). The two objects are still waiting for names. In September 2011 I found out about a competition to write a story using a scientific discovery made within the last 12 months, and I chose Pluto's fourth moon as the kernel around which to wrap my entry. I needed an underworld-themed name for Moon 4, and 'Erebus' struck me as a likely contender. ('Cerberus' is another likely choice, but there's already an asteroid of that name.) Three days before I finished the story, the contest folded ... so I decided to try out the story elsewhere. The thing you need to realise here is that astronomical objects are normally named fairly promptly, within just a few months of discovery, so I figured any place that took the story would not get around to publishing it before the moon's real name had been finalised. I was wrong. Redstone SF, the second or third place I sent the story, took it, and it appeared in their August 2012 issue, just before they went into hiatus. The name had still not been finalised by the astronomical community, so my original placeholder/best guess of 'Erebus' stayed in the story.

Now Mark Showalter, the leader of the team that discovered the fourth and fifth moons, is holding an Internet competition to see what the most popular names are, from a list of about a dozen underworld-themed names, and 'Erebus' is one of those names ... you can vote between now and Monday Feb 25th, once per day if you feel like it, to make your voice heard. The link's at the top of the email, but in case that doesn't work, the url is: http://www.plutorocks.com/. If you choose to vote for 'Erebus' and for one other name on the list, you'd make a struggling SF writer very happy.

(Oh, and if you're willing / able to signal-boost this entirely self-serving request, I'd be eternally grateful.)

Cheers, Simon"

Latest Review - Woot!

Here's the latest review of Wolfborn, this one from the US, from Cassie of Knows Prose . I have been seeking out overseas reviews myself recently because the publishers didn't get many since Wolfborn appeared in the US - actually, none - but are willing to supply US review copies if I can find some interested bloggers myself. I managed to get a number of them in a few days, though this is the first one from the US since I sent my initial lot of inquiries.

I must say, this one impresses me by its professionalism. It's not only that she liked it - although I'm thrilled about that, why wouldn't I be? :-) Many reviewers will put in a link to where you can get the book(something I really should be doing, but confess I haven't done it so far) but this one also links you to other recent(and positive, thank heavens!) reviews and even links you to the Wikipedia entry for Bisclavret, the Marie De France tale which inspired the book. And the post before in, on January 16, actually links you to the sample chapter on this web site. Now, that is promotion! And while she didn't care for all the dialogue at the start, she urges readers to keep going because it gets you right in after that. Nice!

Cassie will be planting her review on Amazon and Goodreads as well.

All I can say is, well done, Cassie and I will be thinking more about how I structure my own future reviews, inspired by your style.

Richard III Is Found!

It's official, as of this evening, Downunder time: those sad bones they found under a Leicester car park last year are in all probability those of Richard III, last of the Plantagenet kings, last English king to die in battle, victim of history's biggest smear campaign and a character, even if only a background character, in a lot of fiction, some of it children's or YA. That's where I have read most of my Richard stuff, though also quite a lot of non-fiction.

The newspapers will be full of it tomorrow and in any case, I've posted about it only a few months ago, here. So for the time being I will go to bed, rejoicing that the poor man will finally be buried properly and hopefully where he wanted to be buried. And as a lover of archaeology and forensics I'm going to look it up in the appropriate online journals.

Good night all!

New On My iBookshelf

I really should cut down on reading all those history-and-literature-based blogs. :-) I keep coming across interesting comments and stopping to go to Project Gutenberg or the iBook store to download yet more stuff.

In the last few days I have downloaded some classics. I do have Pride And Prejudice and Wuthering Heights somewhere on my print shelves, but where? So I downloaded both from PG, because I felt like a reread. I probably have a copy of Culpeper's Herbal somewhere in my overcrowded study too, but it's handy to have it available at my elbow when I'm working on my latest piece of fiction. So that was downloaded as well, though not from Project Gutenberg, because for some reason that one wasn't there. It was in iBooks for about $4, though, so I bought it. There's an introduction by Dr Johnson and the author himself has a letter to hs wife, which must have been written shortly before his death in 1654.

I discovered Escape Publishing, an ebook small press which seems to be entirely a romance themed list - fantasy, SF, YA, thrillers - any genre as long as it has romance in it. I bought Rayessa And The Space Pirates by my friend Donna Hanson, which cost me the massive sum of 99c and a thriller, which cost more, but looks like fun, though I am already noticing that the youthful university academic is called "Professor" though it's set here in Australia and in this country that term is only used for the head of department. She might conceivably have gained her PhD by her mid-twenties, if she'd had accelerated education, but Professor? Highly unlikely - and the murder victim is also a Professor in the same department! Never mind. It's a list worth checking out. I'm looking into it as a potential market.

I believe they have a pile of books for 99c right now, but if nothing else, get Rayessa.

And I've been having a ball with my ebook apps! One is good for even novel-length books, though there are limits - I can't work out a way to do italics, for example. Even if you have them in the original MS they disappear when you paste them. And while you can insert video, audio, pictures, you can't do it on the same page. This limits its use for school, where we ave kids with reading difficulties, including one bright, articulate dyslexic who deserves better than a picture book aimed at younger kids. There's another app which does allow picture and  text on the same page, even voice, which makes it good for an all-in-one talking book, but the amount of text on the page is very limited.

Still, I've used both. With the first-mentioned I have turned my WIP into an ebook I can just read, while keeping the MS in my Pages folder for later. With the second I have been showing other teachers some possible options for our kids with reading difficulties. And the art teacher can prepare her booklets as ebooks for the younger students, who will hopefully have ther iPads soonish. Saves photocopying and can be changed easily.

I have all these things sitting on my virtual shelf - nice!

Michelle Heeter Interview

Michelle Heeter's YA novel Rigg's Crossing was published in 2012 by Ford Street Publishing, which is known for its confronting fiction. The heroine, found unconscious after a car crash, apparently doesn't remember who she is or at happened, so is called Len Russell, for a name on her t shirt and sent to a youth refuge after leaving hospital. But Len remembers more than she is admitting and some of it comes back in flashbacks. Len's former life was not pretty....

Hi, Michelle, welcome to The Great Raven!

SB: You're a technical and adult writer - what made you decide to have a go at YA fiction?

MH:  I was undecided as to whether to try to get Riggs Crossing published as Young Adult or as general literary fiction. I chose YA, thinking that a book with a teenage protagonist would have more appeal to a younger audience. When I found a publisher, I discovered that I was woefully naïve as to the restrictions of the genre. If I’d known about them, I might have chosen general fiction rather than YA.  In YA fiction, you can’t include any material that is politically incorrect, or that might offend teachers, librarians, or parents. Of course I didn’t write the book intending to be offensive, but sometimes a character will use bad language or come out with a politically incorrect remark. Since several of the characters in the book are professional criminals, it was a major task to tone down their language, yet still be realistic. But even though it hurt my pride to have to cut certain parts of the manuscript, I knew I was lucky to find a publisher who would take the book as it was, then help me through the editing process to make it appropriate for the YA genre.


SB: What gave you the idea for this novel?

MH: A series of disturbing experiences gave me the ideas for the novel, and an extended period of boring, ill-paid jobs gave me the motivation to sit down and write the book. I knew I had a story worth telling, and being bored out of my brain at work made me want to exercise my mind by doing something creative.


SB: How much research did you have to so for this? Dope cropping, for instance, and life in the youth refuge?

MH: For the aspects of dope growing, I relied on a boyfriend who’d been involved in the drug trade before we met. I wrote down what I could remember of his stories and shaped them into a narrative. Then, on several occassions, I asked him to sit down and let me ask him questions while I worked at the computer. I read dialogue aloud to him to make sure it sounded authentic. These sessions were usually late at night, my best time for writing. They also involved a fair bit of alcohol, as talking about his criminal past stressed him. As the session progressed, I would have increasing trouble keeping him in line. He wanted to commandeer the computer and write my novel the way HE thought it should be written. It drove him crazy when I would change his material to make it fit my novel. These sessions frequently ended in screaming arguments.

I did online research about children in state care. I decided not to try to interview any children in refuges, for several reasons.  I couldn’t justify using the trauma that these children had gone through in order to create a novel. I felt like I had nothing to offer in return.  Also, I didn’t know whether I was going to like these kids or the people who looked after them. One of the unfortunate aspects of my personality is a penchant for lampooning people I don’t like. What if someone who’d helped me with my research found herself made into a silly or unlikeable character in the book?  I think it’s fine to use other people’s experiences as material, but skewering someone in print after they’ve done you a favour…No, I couldn’t have done that.


SB: Len seems to get great comfort from working with horses - is this something that is important to you too?

MH: Very much so.  I started riding horses by accident, when I was fat and unhappy with just about every aspect of my life. I had signed up for a dance class at a city evening college, but the class was cancelled. The college asked me if I wanted a refund or if I wanted to take a different class. I picked up the catalogue and chose “Horse Riding 1” on a whim. Horses changed my life. I lost weight, made friends, and developed confidence. Eventually, I was able to part-lease a horse and ride twice a week on my own in Centennial Park.  In the past few years, I’ve become too busy with other commitments to ride regularly. I miss the horses, and hope to start riding again this autumn.

SB: How much of this novel is based on reality?

Hmmm….Most of the characters, even the minor characters, are based on real people. These are people I knew well, people I knew slightly, and even strangers I encountered or observed in public. As for the events in the novel, the murders that take place in the story did not actually happen, but I am confident that they are realistic. Part of doing the research for the murder scene involved staging pretend gun battles with the help of my then-boyfriend, who had unfortunate experience with firearms and with people who are capable of extreme violence.  I thought of it as blocking a scene in a play. I drew diagrams of bullet trajectories and carefully went over the logic of the sequence.  I asked my boyfriend a lot of questions. “Who fires first? Where is the shooter’s accomplice standing? How many shots would he fire? Would he get out of the car before shooting the other guy?” Fortunately, I’ve never had to witness a murder. Thanks to the input of someone who knows the psychology of people who are prepared to kill, I am confident that that the aspects of the book dealing with criminality are true-to-life and within the realm of possibility.


SB: Do you have a favourite character? Len's tutor, for example, has the same name you used for a pen name...did you write yourself into the book? ;-)

MH: Len is my favourite character, and I was rather hurt when readers of early drafts of the novel complained that she was nasty and unlikeable. Her personality is what I would like to be—tough and resourceful. In the end, I had to tone down her hostility several notches.

As for Renate Dunn, I guess she represents what I could have become if I’d pursued an academic career.

SB: Is there any special message you'd like your readers to take away from the book?

MH: I didn’t start the book with any particular message in mind; I just wanted to tell a good story. Now that the book is finished, I guess I’d like people to think about how much human potential is squandered because someone was born into the wrong family or has suffered a series of tragedies.  The derro you see in the park, the girl who does sex work, the man behind bars—all of them have a back-story which is unpleasant or sad.  Very few people are born evil or choose to live on the margins of society.

SB: Are you working on something right now?

MH: No. I have a half-finished draft of a YA book set in America, but I dread the thought of finding an American publisher. Also, the story requires multiple points of view, which I’ve never attempted before. I was having trouble getting some of the characters to talk to me, so I’ve put the project aside for the moment. And unlike when I was writing Riggs Crossing, I have a day job that involves writing and is challenging and absorbing. I no longer have the sense of desperation that motivated me to write Riggs Crossing.

SB:Thanks for answering these questions and good luck with your sales!




Michelle Heeter was born in the U.S.A., studied English at university, spent most of her twenties in Japan, and moved to Sydney in 1995.  She is now an Australian citizen. Michelle started writing for women’s magazines, and eventually moved into technical writing and copywriting. Michelle loves to travel, and enjoys ocean swimming and horse riding.

Happy Birthday, Pride And Prejudice!

Today is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice. I first read it in Year 12 English. That was also the year I played Lady Bracknell in the school's production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest, another classic of English literature and also deliciously silly. I also had to study Persuasion, and since then I've read most of the others (still have to read Mansfield Park, but I'm holding off, because it IS the last) and also started reading Georgette Heyer, because where else can you go after you finish the few books Jane Austen wrote?

There have been dramatisations of all the books at some stage. There was a movie of Persuasion some years ago and Emma and Sense And Sensibility; the others have all turned up on the BBC.  Emma even turned up as the background to the comedy Clueless, set in modern times.

But somehow, I don't think anything has been done quite as often as Pride And Prejudice. There were two TV versions at least - one with David Rintoul as Darcy, the other with the delectable Colin Firth. Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson played the hero and heroine in 1940. That was the movie in which Lady Catherine was actually feeling out Elizabeth's feelings for Darcy instead of threatening her. Apparently the actress was much loved and couldn't be shown in a negative light. Never mind. Laurence Olivier was gorgeous! It was a nice, gentle film, though once the 1995 TV version came along, it slipped to the bottom of my favourites.  It just can't compete with Darcy and the wet shirt...
;-) Anna Chancellor, who played Miss Bingley in the 1995 version, is a many-times grandniece of Jane Austen, and later did a documentary about her. There have been numerous updates, such as Bride And Prejudice, the Bollywood version, which I thought great fun, and the Lydia character is rescued early and punches Wickham on the nose before she leaves. And, of course, there's the Keira Knightley one, which shows Mr Bennet as more of a farmer than a gentleman and ends with the scene where he has just approved Elizabeth's marriage and declares himself at home if anyone comes for his other daughters. There's Lost In Austen, in which a modern Austen fan exchanges places with Elizabeth Bennet and finds that things aren't quite the way they happened in the novel - Wickham, for example, isn't such a villain after all, and helps her out.

There have been novels - sequels, fan fiction, updates, even a New Ceres story in which Mary Bennet runs off with a Time Lord! I have just checked on Fanfiction Net and found 773 hits under Pride And Prejudice. At least one seems to be a Harry Potter story with Snape as Darcy and Hermione as Elizabeth. (wince!)

So why IS this one so popular? I admit it's my own favourite. I love Emma, but in the end, she has to be more or less rescued by her much older boyfriend - and I suspect that Elizabeth Bennet would think Emma was an idiot. This is the one that most lends itself to interpreting and playing with. There's the intelligent but poor girl, a combination that normally wouldn't get her a husband in this era. There's the snooty man who is actually not that bad, as she realises once she meets his family and staff. Both of them make mistakes (and who can forget that bizarre proposal?). There are the family troubles that bring them together. And it's funny!

How could you not love it? I have read and reread this one and never tired of it. If you haven't read it, what are you waiting for? If you have an ebook reader you can download it from Project Gutenberg in a few seconds, or there's always the local library. Go check it out!

Anyone out there got their own favourites? Who else loves this as I do?

A Feast Of Ice And Fire: The Official Companion Cookbook By Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sarann Lehrer. London: HarperVoyager, 2012

This book is connected with George R.R. Martin's great fantasy series - the books, not the TV series. If you've been reading them, you may have noticed how often people eat! Whether it's Jon Snow and his fellow Night Watch members having a hot and hearty meal on the Wall, a seventy-seven course banquet at King Joffrey's wedding, Sansa and her lemon cakes or Arya living on what she can on the streets, characters eat - and the author describes their meals with great relish(pardon the pun). In some ways, it reminds me of all the food being consumed in TV science fiction show Babylon 5(and that, too, has a cookbook!). The book opens with an enthusiastic introduction by George R.R. Martin, whose fans presented him with baskets of IAF foods they had cooked when he went on a signing tour for the fifth book in the series. Lucky man!

The Song Of Ice And Fire series is set at least partly in a word like fifteenth century Europe and the food is accordingly period. (Well, mostly, anyway. There are some fruits and veggies that came from North America well after that era, but hey, it's GRRM's world!) The authors of this book, who run a food-connected Ice And Fire web site, Inn At The Crossroads, don't just experiment with food like that described in the novels, they research it in mostly mediaeval and Renaissance era books. So the recipes they have reproduced here are the real thing, adapted somewhat for the modern era.

The book is divided into sections based on the different settings of the books - the Wall, the north, the south, King's Landing, Dorne and "Across the Narrow Sea". There's a chapter at the start, on stocking a medieval kitchen, with some suggested substitutes for ingredients one just can't get in the supermarket, but also some of the basics, such as "poudre douce" and "poudre forte", spice mixtures which are used in a lot of medieval recipes and can be easily enough made up and popped in the pantry for when you need them.

With each recipe, there's a quote from one of the books about the particular dish, then the recipe from whichever early cookbook it came from. Then the recipe is in modern English. You are often given the choice between the medieval or a modern version. I'm rather keen to try the medieval version of apple cakes, which are, we're told, an ancestor of the doughnut, though you don't seem to need to deep fry them. There are also recipes for standard pitta bread and hummus, which appear in the novels as flatbread and chickpea paste. Well, there are a lot of foods that have been around for a while, which don't require you to research mediaeval recipes! (I once found an Ancient Greek recipe for honey pancakes which my Greek library technician told me they're still making). And one recipe, for Tyroshi honeyfingers, is taken from Apicius's Roman cookbook.

The authors are very adventurous in their cooking, but I think I might skip the honey-spiced locusts!

A wonderful, well-researched book that should be of use both to those who want to try some of the foods described in such detail in the books and to those fantasy writers who want a starting place for their own writing. I know I'm going to keep this in my own reference collection.

Booktopia Goodies Free Shipping For Australia Day

I've just wandered over to Sean Wright's blog, Adventures Of A Blogonaut, where he tells us about a special being run by Australian book selling web site, Booktopia . In honour of Australia Day, they're offering free shipping within Australia, until Monday night. Follow the link to Sean's web site above for details. I took a look to see which of my books they're selling and found they've got Wolfborn, Crime Time:Australians Behaving Badly, a couple of editions of Your Cat Could Be A Spy ( the US edition, also available, is called This Book Is Bugged) and my three books for Nelson/Cengage, two non-fiction and the chapter book Grey Goo. Grey Goo was my only book that could remotely be called science fiction, as opposed to fantasy; it was written as companion book to a non fiction book on future technology, and I researched the science aspects. They got this terrific artist to illo it, and his cartoony drawings were a delight. Cat is my book on spies. Alas, the It's True! series is no longer going, because it's just too hard to sell children's non fiction, and Cat sold out, but they are now doing it  POD. I don't know if I will ever get a chance to go back to non fiction, but I am very proud of these and had fun writing them.

So if you live in Australia, why not wander over and see what's available?

I will send a signed bookplate to anyone who buys one of my books on this offer - just email and let me know your details.

Author Interview Page Added

If you scroll down through the permanent pages on the right side of this blog, you will find a new one. It's a link to my Ebook Glue-generated ebook of the interviews on this blog. It's available in ePub or mobi. This will update itself as more interviews come up, but there's room for twenty-five before anything drops off the end.

Over the years, my students and I have invited some wonderful writers on to this web site and their responses to questions asked have always been even better than hoped. I am currently waiting on an interview with Michelle Heeter, author of Riggs Crossing and am preparing some for the delightful Geoffrey McSkimming. Meanwhile, why not click through and give yourself a fascinating ebook of interviews with the likes of Marianne De Pierres, Juliet Marillier, Gabrielle Wang, Charlie Higson and Justin D'Ath and more?

Welcome New Followers!

I know I should have done this before, with other joiners, but better late than never! Welcome to three recent followers - I hope you enjoy your future visits to my blog! There's Nyssa1968, an Aussie now living in the UK, who loves Dr Who and whose actual name I know from a bit of piecing together, but won't mention here in case she prefers not to tell everyone. And I follow her blog too. Welcome Nyssa!

Austin Hackney, I don't know much about you except that you seem to like YA fiction, judging by your other follows. Welcome! You've come to the right place here. My other blog, which you have also joined, is mostly for talking about my teacher-librarian issues, and I don't post as often as here, but I hope you like that one too. Welcome!

I first encountered Katherine Langrish on the History Girls web site and on her own, Seven Miles Of Steel Thistles, which I follow with great delight, as it's about folklore, a subject I love. I also have some of her children's novels on my iBooks shelf, and love them too. Welcome, Katherine!

I appreciate all of my wonderful followers, but I want to make a belated thank you to my regular commenters, Sean Wright, the Blogonaut, who also supports me with retweets and Aussie spec fic writers in general on his blog, Lan Chan, Melbourne blogger who is working hard on her own writing as well as reviewing books and takes the trouble to come here and comment, to Stephanie Campisi, a fellow writer and Melbourne-based(for now) blogger whose own web site Read In A Single Sitting is intelligently written and a pleasure to read. Thanks, also, to my semi-regular commenter miki, who joined this site to enter a competition and hung around. She lives in Belgium.

Sometimes you wonder if anyone is reading. Well, I know they are, because at this stage I'm getting around 1500-2000 hits a week! Some of those will have stumbled here by mistake. But not all, by any means, and when someone actually comments, you know for sure. :-)

Give yourselves a pat on the back, guys!

Some More Playing Around With Ebooks

Having had fun with Ebook Glue, I thought I'd check the App Store for something I could use to make at least basic ebooks that don't have to be blog posts. I thought that if I can cobble together some of my own stuff, eg already-published short stories, I can also use it at school with my classes and maybe my book club, many of whom are writers, so we can share written stuff. Our Year 7 and 8 students this year will have iPads.

So off I went to the App Store and found a number of ebook apps. I ended up downloading two, because the first one I bought wasn't much use for anything but picture books. If I ever want to share family albums with friends and relatives I might go back to that one, but it won't take much text.

The other one, Creative Book Builder, seems to be working much better for my needs. You can't put the book up on-line as you can Ebook Glue books, but you can email them and I think you can park it in Dropbox.

It's fairly basic and I'm still working out how to use it. It doesn't seem to reproduce italics from a Pages document, either, and there isn't a toolbar to let you fix that. Maybe I'll figure that out eventually, because there seem to be some "import" options. BUT - I not only did a couple of short story collections, I pasted my whole current novel manuscript into it, chapter by chapter, so I can now read it as an ebook while I try to get out of my current state of writer's block. I can't edit the ebook, of course, but right now, all I want is to reread it and see what the problem is. I will also be able to email it to any beta readers I trust. ;-) The app only has ePub and PDF, not mobi, though, so any beta readers with a Kindle are out of luck there.

For anyone who's interested, the app is not that expensive and worth checking out. 

And Another Book For The Shelves!

Today I took my nephew Max and his cousin Dezzy to the movies. After lunch and before the movie, we browsed in the local bookshop, the newly-opened Avenue Bookshop in Elsternwick, which has taken over from the very old Sunflower Bookshop.

Dezzy was looking unsuccessfully for a book on the subject of "deception", having just read and enjoyed one of her father's self-help books on the subject. Max, who wants to be a film-maker and animator, was in the film section as always, curled up with a book on 100 ideas that shaped film. Of course, I always support him in his dreams - he has already made some Lego animations and placed them on YouTube - so I bought him the book he was reading and then couldn't resist getting one for myself - this one!

Brian Sibley has been doing these books on Tolkien-based movies for some time and co-wrote the script for the BBC radio play - which I now have on CD. I do love making-of books. The best LOTR movie book I have read, so far, is the Andy Serkis one, which was not only one of those "how I got the part in this movie" books but had a lot of chapters written by people who did all the technical stuff. It was so very good that I bought a copy for my Senior Campus library, where we have Media Studies and Multimedia. Not that Andy Serkis didn't tell some entertaining anecdotes, such as his little daughter seeing him in his make-up for the deteriorating Smeagol. He'd been worried that she would be scared, but she only said, "Silly Daddy!" But it was a very good book about film-making in general.

This one does have actor interviews, but also interviews with the technical folk - make-up, costuming, hairdressers( and when you have to look after ninety-one lots of wigs and beards just for the Dwarves, that's no small job!), prosthetics artists - much harder than in the last lot of movies, because they now use a kind of silicon instead of latex, much better visually, but has to be replaced each day - even the breakdown artist,  a lady whose job it is to make the costumes lived-in!

I have only read some bits while waiting for the bus and on the tram, but I'm very much looking forward to curling up with this in bed tonight.