Wrap-Up Saturday
Well, it’s not Friday, but because of the paperback release of Thornspell yesterday and the giveaway, I thought we’d leave the weekly wrap up for today, which here in NZ is officially July 3.
OK, on to the wrap-up. Firstly, the giveaway: the “sorting hat” has been grumbling this morning because of having to deal with both the Supernatural Underground and Anything, Really giveaway draws”, with lots of comments along the lines of “I’m going to put them all in Slytherin!”—mutter, mutter—and “Any more of this malarkey and I’m calling in the shop steward for the Union of Magical Accessories”—mumble, mumble … But I am confident that the hat will come through soon and I should have a result for you some time this afternoon. 🙂
As I said earlier in the week, there’s been a lot going on. I wrapped up the second part of The Gathering of the Lost (The Wall of Night, part 2), which I believe puts me at slightly over halfway to finishing the manuscript. And although I have a synopsis of Parts 3 and 4 (of course!), there’s a few interesting ways of getting into Part 3 “playing” in my mind right now. I guess you might say the fingers are twitching to get typing!
But I couldn’t leap into it straight away because this was another big blog week—in this case, making my debut on the Supernatural Underground on July 1 and celebrating the release of Thornspell in paperback yesterday. Busy, busy—but fun, too. I loved sharing my love of fantasy and fantastic worlds with all the posters on the Supernatural Underground.
On the poetry and radio station side of life, I had the privilege of interviewing Sarah Broom about her first collection, Tigers at Awhitu (2010: Auckland University Press, New Zealand; Carcanet, UK.) All part of making July poetry month on Women on Air, ahead of National Poetry Day on Friday July 30. In my opinion, Tigers at Awhitu is distinguished by its balance of intellectual and emotional depth, strength of poetic form and sheer richness of language so I felt privileged to have the opportunity to speak with Sarah on air. Perhaps the more so because Sarah completed writing Tigers at Awhitu while going through ongoing treatment for lung cancer—no small ask. The interview will play shortly on Women on Air and for those who can’t pick up Plains 96.9FM, I will be putting the interview on podcast later this week.
Anyway, I think it’s time I went and had another chat with the hat …