The Woman Who Swims with the Jellyfish
(Jellyfish Lake by Dorothy Cross, from ‘A Duck for Mr Darwin’ exhibition)

you can see right through them
99 parts sea to 1 part alien

…………………….her hair wafts out
…………………….moving in time with the water

there are thousands of them –
all gut and tentacles
pulsing through the sun-shot shallows

…………………….she breathes, keeps her chin up

they are upright, sideways
upside down
they palpitate
towards and past her

…………………….her tresses move like they do
…………………….valoop valoop

curious/ incurious
they brush her breasts

…………………….she floats amongst them
…………………….almost one of the flock

you can’t reason with them:
they have no head

…………………….she contemplates radial symmetry

© Janis Freegard

First published in Kingdom Animalia: The Escapades of Linnaeus (Auckland University Press, 2011)

Reproduced here with permission

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Recently I shared how much I had enjoyed Janis Freegard’s debut novel, The year of falling. Today I am delighted to bring you her poem The Woman Who Swims With Jellyfish, continuing my focus on poems that are broadly themed around the sea.

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Janis Freegard lives in Wellington, with an historian and a cat, and works in the public service. Her first full-length poetry collection, Kingdom Animalia: The Escapades of Linnaeus, was published by Auckland University Press in 2011. She is also the author of a chapbook, The Continuing Adventures of Alice Spider (Anomalous Press, 2013), and co-author of AUP New Poets 3 (AUP, 2008).

Her poetry has appeared in a wide range of journals and anthologies in New Zealand and overseas, including Essential New Zealand Poems: Facing the Empty Page (Random House, 2014), Best NZ Poems 2012, and Landfall. Janis also writes fiction, is a past winner of the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award.

She has recently published a second book of poetry, The Glass Rooster, with Auckland University Press and a novel, The year of falling, with Mākaro Press, both in 2015.

To find out more about Janis and her work, visit Janis Freegard.

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Prior ‘Sea’ Poems include:

“The Sea” by Tim Jones

“Dover Beach” (Excerpt) by Matthew Arnold

“Breathing You In” by David Gregory

“We are more than half water” by Helen Rickerby

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part 1 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“The Seafarer” Excerpt from the Anglo Saxon poem (Anonymous)

Two Short Poems by Bernadette Hall

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett is one of my favourite books — it took me by surprise when I first read it and I absolutely loved it from about, oh, page one…! (Don’t you love it when a book does that?)

Now, here’s the odder thing—well, I think it’s odd anyway, even though the observation is at my own expense—I loved Bel Canto so much that I actively avoided reading Ann Patchett’s other novels because I was afraid of being disappointed. There was definitely an inverse correlation at play between the extent of my love for Bel Canto and my consequent fear of disappointment.

Which just goes to show that Pascal (1623-1662) was indeed correct when he observed that “the heart has its reasons that reason knows not of.”

However, sufficient time  must now have passed for me to overcome this barrier, or perhaps it is simply that my hope of reading some more transcendently great writing has tipped the scales against fear of disappointment. 😉

Be that as it may, I now have Commonwealth on the TBR table and I am not sure if I shall be able to resist reading it very soon.

In the meantime, here’s what the backcover copy says about the story:

“One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has been kissed by Franny’s mother, Beverley—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.

Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.

When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the connection they feel for one another.

Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.”

For those, like me, who are already interested, here are links to two early reviews from the NY Times & The Guardian:

NY Times

The Guardian

Yesterday I posted about having been blogging for six and a half years now. And about relooking at some of the considerable depth of material in the blog backlist.

I thought I’d start today with six posts that you have particularly liked over the past six years — one for each year (but not necessarily from each year since this is about what has proven the “most-read”) of “…on Anything, Really’s” life. So without further ado…

Kristin Cashore

1. Without question, readers have really liked and kept coming back to my 2012 interview with Kristin Cashore. Here’s a retrospective taste of what it’s all about:

“Helen:  So what do you, as the author, love most about Bitterblue’s character?

Kristin:  I love her loneliness. I love her loyalty. I love how much she loves her friends. I love how hard she tries, and I love her refusal to give up.”

To read or re-read the interview in full, click on:

An Interview with Kristin Cashore, Author Of Bitterblue
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2. Also from 2012, I posted the tauparapara, Te Tangi O Te Matui, as a Tuesday Poem feature and it has proven to be another consistent favourite. Here’s a snippet…

Kia wkakarongo ake au
Ki te tangi a te manu nei
A te matui…

I listen
To the cry of the bird
Of the matui, calling…

For the full tauparapara, click on:

Tuesday Poem: Tauparapara—“Te Tangi A Te Matui”; Traditional

Bernadette Hall

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3. Poetry has proven popular and this time it’s the critically praised “The Fox” by NZ poet Bernadette Hall. I featured two, more recent poems by Bernadette just this past Tuesday, but this is the very first poem of hers I featured on the blog, awa’ back on 17 August, 2010:

The Fox

The fox is a single red stroke that cuts across
the clearing. The colour seems to hang like smoke,
you can almost see where she has come from…

To read the poem in full, go to:

Tuesday Poem: “The Fox” by Bernadette Hall

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4. Next off the blocks is one of my many “list” posts, My Favourite Fantasy Standalone Novels, this time from the 30th of January 2013.

“With this list though, it’s just “Fantasy” because I honestly couldn’t think of 10 standalone epic fantasy novels—epic really does seem to run to series! I should also note that I tried to stick to one book per author, otherwise around four on my list would be by Guy Gavriel Kay. And yes, I know my reading “slip” is now showing, but hey—just sayin’”

To check out the ‘list of ten’, go to:

My Favourite Fantasy Standalone Novels

Brian Turner

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5. The poets certainly seem to have their following and another Tuesday Poem feature, AB Negative (The Surgeon’s Poem) by US poet Brian Turner, has also proved an enduring favourite — from back in that vintage year, 2012:

“AB Negative (The Surgeon’s Poem)

Thalia Fields lies under a grey ceiling of clouds,
just under the turbulence, with anesthetics
dripping from an IV into her arm,
and the flight surgeon says The shrapnel
cauterized as it traveled through her
here, breaking this rib as it entered,
burning a hole through the left lung
to finish in her back, and all of this
she doesn’t hear…”

You will find the full poem at:

Tuesday Poem: “AB Negative (The Surgeon’s Poem)” by Brian Turner

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6. The sixth post readers kept returning to for quite some time was the synopsis for Daughter of Blood that I posted in early 2014 — which is, I must admit, rather gratifying. 🙂

“But also very cool (I thought!) was the sneak preview on the synopsis for DAUGHTER:

“A Failing Wall, a Broken Shield… Malian and Kalan are pursuing separate paths back to the Derai Alliance – but already it may be too late….”

Wanna reread the original for old times sake and decide if it does accurately and aptly foretell Daughter of Blood as published? Then go right here:

Sneak Preview: A Synopsis For “Daughter Of Blood, The Wall Of Night Book Three”

And have a great weekend, one and all!

I realised recently, when asked how long I had been blogging, that it will be six and a half years at the end of this month — which is, you know, a “thing.”

Because that’s actually a not insignificant period of time. Looking back over the years, I can see that I have built up a huge body of work in terms of articles on a number of key topics, chiefly speculative fiction books and book related topics but also poetry, as well as interviews with other authors — again, chiefly those writing speculative fiction.

So now I am thinking of ways of re-looking at some of that material. Re-posting is one way, but that risks stymie-ing new material — so I’m thinking of maybe once a week simply posting links (with a brief synopsis) to material from the backlist so readers can check out whatever’s of interest.

In 2013, I posted an article (first penned for SpecFicNZ) on whether blogging is a marketing tool (no) and how it can operate/work for the blogger. The full post is here:

On Blogging & The Interrelationship With Writing

I think, in terms of the options canvassed in the article, “…on Anything, Really” would probably now count as a small corner coffee shop, with a few good ‘blends’ on the menu and dedicated regulars who frequently drop in — in short, albeit in a modest way, it’s a community.

Since community is something that spins my wheels, I hope you’ll keep dropping in for your particular choice of “brew.” 🙂

Photo Credit – Natalie Graham

New Zealand author, Anna Smaill, has won the World Fantasy Award 2016 (Novel), for her dystopian novel, The Chimes.

The World Fantasy Awards are regarded as very prestigious and are given for the best fantasy fiction published in English during the previous calendar year. The award for Best Novel is not only a first for Anna but I am fairly certain it is a first for New Zealand as well — so very well done, Anna, on all counts!

I interviewed Anna about The Chimes in May 2015 and the interview is available here:

An Interview With Anna Smaill, Author Of “The Chimes”

You can find the full list of 2016 World Fantasy Award winners in all categories on TOR.com:

Announcing the 2016 World Fantasy Award winners

At Scorching Bay, Wellington

running the ‘I-loves’
like kites along the shoreline
where the gulls startle
and rise
the sky shrinking
the clouds moving faster
than anything

© Bernadette Hall

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Three Wishes

That old, familiar logo…

Saturday was New Zealand Bookshop Day. It was also the day the Christchurch Children’s Bookshop closed it’s doors after 37 years — and that fact made me feel pretty durned sad.

I don’t know the in’s and out’s, but suspect that at least one factor in its demise was the locational change forced by the 2010-2011 Christchurch earthquakes and the fact that large sections of the city are still far from recovered, with people’ travel and basic living patterns (including retail) very much disrupted.

The “new” Victoria Street premises

Be that as it may, I thought I’d like to say a few words about what the Children’s Bookshop has meant to me over many years. I first encountered it in a lovely historic house on Christchurch’s Victoria Street, where books lurked in nooks around every corner. It really was a magical place and I loved to drop in on my lunch break and browse for the next best gift for the young readers in my life.

That building went long before the earthquakes and the bookshop moved to another premises in Victoria Street — by no means as magical but still very accessible for that lunchtime and weekend browsing.

The Children’s Bookshop “getting in behind” with the book table

My first novel, Thornspell, was published during this time and although the launch was not held in the shop, the shop did support it with a book table, which was very much appreciated.

After the earthquake the bookshop had to relocate to Blenheim Road in Riccarton, putting it well off my post-earthquake flight path, which meant an end to lunch time and weekend browsing although I did continue to make  ‘specific purpose’ visits.

Good times

I am very sad indeed that those good old days will now never return, but I will also never forget the magic of the Children’s Bookshop over many years and will always be grateful for their support for Thornspell.

Haere ra, Christchurch Children’s Bookshop — you’re already greatly missed.

A few weeks back I trumpeted the arrival of Janis Freegard’s The year of falling (Mākaro Press, 2015) on my TBR table.

Now it’s time for a confession: because Janis is a friend and fellow (former) Tuesday Poet, I allowed The year of falling to leapfrog several other books to become my “next best read” — and so, indeed, it proved because I really enjoyed The year of falling.

Truth to tell, I suspected I might, simply because I always ‘heart’ Janis’s poetry and loved her short story The Magician, which featured in Tales for Canterbury (Random Static, 2011) a few years back. However, I’m also aware that sustaining creativity, storytelling, and art over a novel-length work is a very different proposition to a poem or short story.  Nonetheless, I was eager to read The year of falling and was definitely not disappointed.

First, a little about the story. The year of falling is “contemporary realism” fiction, mainly set in Wellington and Golden Bay, but also the UK and Iceland (yep, this story has stamps in its passport. 🙂 ) It chiefly follows two sisters, Selina and Smith, but there’s also a third point of view character, Quilla, who is Selina’s landlady and turns out to be a person with a past.

I believe it is fair to say that it is chiefly Selina’s arc that drives the story in the first two thirds of the book, although the final third is concentrated around Smith. The focus of the story is Selina’s “fall” and what comes of that, but it’s chiefly a story about relationships, both positive and negative: between the sisters, but also between friends, partners, and also the more tangential connections between neighbours. However, there is also an element of whodunnit woven into the story, which I enjoyed.

Very quickly, I found myself engrossed in the characters and their stories, to the extent I did not want to put the book down until I found out how it was all going to resolve. The characters are definitely one of the standout aspects of an already good story and I thought the troubled Selina (a “fuckup” to put it mildly, but in a sympathetic way) was particularly well-drawn, with Smith and Quilla both strong in their supporting roles.

I also really liked the “quirkyness” of the story, which is captured not only in some of Selina’s activities (or escapades) including the conclusion of her part in the story, but also Quilla’s past and the activities of the neighbourhood children, all of which spring vividly to life in vignettes interspersed through the (main) story. Another element that I enjoyed was the use of recognisable New Zealand landscapes, both urban Wellington and rural Golden Bay, sufficient to inspire several “aha!” moments.

“Constancy” was undoubtedly the touchstone to Smith’s character, but may also have worked against a strong sense of her development through the story. I was also slightly disconcerted by the extent of the switch in focus from Selina to Smith in the latter third of the book.

Conclusion:
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed The year of falling and recommend it unreservedly. Although in many ways a unique book, with Christmas and the summer break looming I think it would make mighty fine holiday reading for anyone who enjoys reads such as Frankie McMillan’s short fiction (e.g. The Bag Lady’s Picnic; My Mother and the Hungarians), Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, or Joanne Harris’ Blackberry Wine.

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Additional Information:

I read the NZ paperback edition, 294 pp, published by Mākaro Press (2015). As noted above, Janis is a friend and I read a copy she provided in an authorial “exchange of books.”

To read Janis’s 2015 interview of Selina, Smith, and Quilla, click here.

What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?

~ Anthony Trollope, 1815 – 1882

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I think what I love most is that this is such a modern quote despite Trollope’s “dates” — speaks to a certain universality, which I find very cool.

Francesca Annis as Jessica

Last week I posted on the character of Jessica in the Science Fiction classic, Dune, observing—among reflections on her many sterling qualities—that she is “still one of the very few…[characters I can think of in SFF ]…where being a mother is central, not peripheral, to her part in the story.”

I have by no means read all the available fiction in SFF, but I still had to put on my thinking cap. So although I am going to suggest a few more “Great Mums of SFF” now, I am hoping you may be able to help me out with a few more names.

Just to be clear, here are the criteria:

— the character doesn’t have to be the main character in the book but does have to be a central character with major page time.

— being a mother has to be central in some way to the character’s role in the story, rather than a background fact that otherwise doesn’t really affect the character’s arc. (For example, this would rule out Mara in the Empire series, where motherhood is not really a significant part of her arc: imho.)

— the character can appear in any form of SFF: from magic realism, through paranormal and steampunk to epic fantasy; from near future dystopia through space opera to hard Sci Fi. The book can also appear in Junior, YA, or adult SFF.

UK cover

OK, here’s the rest of my little list, besides Jessica:

• Briar Wilkes in Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker — Briar is the main character in the book and enters a zombie infested Seattle to rescue her son. (See cover above.)
• Rosala de Garsenc and Signy de Barbentain in Guy Gavriel Kay’s A Song For Arbonne — both are prominent characters in the story.  Signy is Countess of Arbonne and her relationship with her daughters, one living, one dead, plays an important part in shaping her character and role in the story. Rosala flees her husband and her country in the late stages of pregnancy because her father-in-law has threatened to take her baby and because she does not want her child raised to emulate his cruelty and megalomania.
• Jenny Waynest in Barbara Hambly’s Dragonsbane — Jenny is a wizard and the main character in the book; she has two sons and although they don’t play a large part in the story directly, part of what Jenny struggles with as a character is how to reconcile being a wizard as well as a mother.
• Teia in Elspeth Cooper’s The Wild Hunt quartet, is pregnant through much of the first two books and a new mother by the end of the third book (the fourth — not unlike mine 😉 — is forthcoming), so motherhood is unarguably central to her arc and gives it additional interest, imo. (See cover below right.)
• Catelyn Tully and Cersei Lannister in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series (aka A Game Of Thrones after the first book) are both women whose love and concern for their children (chiefly Catelyn) as well as their ambition for them (chiefly Cersei) are central to their character arcs in the story.
• Rayvan in David Gemmell’s The King Beyond the Gate scrapes in as both a sufficiently prominent secondary character and also because, as a widow with adult children, it is her concern for them as well as their community and wider issues of justice that drive her to becme a rebel and leader int he wider world.
• Morgaine is the central character in Marion Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon and the mother of Mordred (Gwydion), which shapes (or twists) both her arc and the “Matter of Britain” story. (See cover below right.)
• Vianne Rocher in Chocolat — since I have included magic realism in the Fantasy pantheon (as I believe it is) Vianne Rocher’s motherhood to Anouk is a key aspect of the book and she therefore belongs on this list.

Wow, with Jessica as well, I actually got past being able to count ’em all on the fingers of two hands: now we’re rollin’.

So please tell me more mothers of SFF (consistent with the criteria above) so all digits can be deployed! 😉

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Here are the other four covers for books mentioned above: