An Evening with the Selwyn Writers’ Salon
The Selwyn Writers’ Salon has recently been launched by award-winning Christchurch poet and editor, Joanna Preston.
The idea of the Salon is to provide somewhere that local writers and literary enthusiasts can get together to talk about books and writing, share things they’ve written recently, and listen to guest speakers talk about aspects of their own writing practice.
I was delighted to be the Salon’s second guest yesterday evening and meet some new faces from the Selwyn and Christchurch writing communities.
Ah, but here’s the thing, dear readers, not only did I read from Daughter of Blood, I also read a short chapter from The Chaos Gate (The Wall of Night Book Four.)
Exciting, huh? I shall tantalise you further by telling you that this particular chapter picks up on two seemingly minor characters that series’ readers will have met at the end of The Gathering of the Lost. More than that, however, I shall not say: these lips are sealed. 😉
I also got to discuss more general questions, including why I write Fantasy, the influence of history on my books (huge), doing background research, the path to publication, and more. I also enjoyed finding out about what the others present were writing — a nice mix of poetry and short stories, fiction and non fiction — and talking about getting their work out into the world.
I think the Salon is a great idea and all praise to Joanna for making it happen. If you’re in the area and keen to experience it for yourself , the Salons will be held from 7 pm to 9 pm on the first Tuesday of each month, in the upstairs mezzanine of The Laboratory in Lincoln.