We’ve just passed the spring equinox here in Christchurch NZ and that means it’s also time to gear up for the Canterbury Poets’ Collective Spring poetry season — for which I have just received the programme and can tell you it’s looking like a mighty fine lineup.

Better still, you can see for yourselves:
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Canterbury Poets Collective (CPC) presents:

Poetry in Performance, 2013 Spring Season

Open mike and guest readers:  Wednesday 3 October – 27 November at 6.30 pm

 (Audience vote for the Best Open Mic Poet.)

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2 October: Peter Olds, Sue Wootton, Nick Williamson

9 October: Peter Bland, Phoebe Wright, Teoti Jardine

16 October: Sarah Jane Barnett, John Pule, John O’Connor

23 October: Michelle Amas, Ben Brown, Sarah Amazinnia

30 October: Harry Rickets, Helen Jacobs, James Norcliffe

6 November: Riemke Ensing, Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, Rodney Foster

13 November: Reihana Robinson, Poets from Hagley Writers Institute

20 November: Best of the 2013 season’s open mic readers.

27 November: Special poetry event to celebrate Sarah Broom.

The venue is the very comfortable space at the CPIT Students Association (CPSA) Hall,
5 Madras Street.

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* CPC acknowledge the support of Creative New Zealand, Arts Council of New Zealand,
Toi Aotearoa.

“You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.”

~ Junot Diaz

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Like last Saturday’s quote, this observation from Junot Diaz is so on the nail (in my humble opinion) that I just had to share it.

The Wall of Night Series map; design by Peter Fitzpatrick

The A Geography of Haarth post series is traversing the full range of locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth. Today we’re still in “H” and Emer, sort of…

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Hills, (the):  semi-independent hill region, lying partly in Emer, partly in Aralorn
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“On every raid,” Hirn concluded harshly, “they have left something behind—a weapon of Barrowdun in the Hillholt camp, a token of Hillholt in the ruins of a Barrowdun farmstead. Someone, my lord, wants war in our Hills.”

~ from © The Gathering Of The Lost: The Wall of Night Book Two; Chapter 17 — Oak and Hill

It was very nice to see a post on my local Christchurch City Libraries blog yesterday, featuring my shortlisting for the David Gemmell Legend Award.

The post was even kind enough to describe my writing career as ‘stellar’, which was kinda cool. 😉

I also smiled to read: “Publicly announcing you are writing a 4 novel series seems a very brave thing to do. Can you keep the story and characters credible over 4 books? Keep them interesting and maintain the standard?”

Mainly because one of the reasons I have spent so much time on Daughter of Blood, The Wall of Night Book Three is for all those reasons: to keep the story and the characters credible for readers, and to maintain the standard as the story progresses — because as I said in my Legend Award finalist’s interview:

“I like to describe The Wall of Night as one story told in four parts … It’s still really the one story, but in fact each ‘part’, i.e. book, is turning out to have its own distinct character, which is fun, although it can also be demanding to write.”

But it’s nice to know that folk out there understand that it’s not necessarily a “1-2-3, join-the-dots-and-you’re-done” type exercise. Again, I also very much appreciate the shout out.

To read the full post click on:

Helen Lowe continues her stellar career

On Monday, I promise guest posts to come, and the first of these has now posted on genre site RisingShadow. Here’s the lead-in:

“When Robin Hobb provided a cover quote for The Heir Of Night, the first novel in The Wall Of Night series, she spoke of “A richly told tale of strange magic…” That focus felt right, because for me, to be Fantasy there must be at least a glimmering of magic – but the Wall of Night series is absolutely full of magic, and some of it is indeed exceedingly strange…”

To read the full article, click on:

Magic In The Wall Of Night World

I had a lot of fun writing it, so I hope you enjoy it as well. 🙂

Oh yes, and there’s a giveaway — fully international and all that, but RisingShadow are running the show so you’ll have to check in on the post to find out ‘the gen.’

The Charge Of The Light Brigade

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Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
….Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
….Rode the six hundred.

II

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
….Someone had blundered.
….Theirs not to make reply,
….Theirs not to reason why,
….Theirs but to do and die.
….Into the valley of Death
….Rode the six hundred.

III

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
….Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
…. Rode the six hundred.

IV

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
….All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
….Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
….Not the six hundred.

V

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
….Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
….Left of six hundred.

VI

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
….All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
….Noble six hundred!
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by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892

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About The Poem:

I’m currently featuring a series of poems for Tuesday themed around “war.” What I’ve said on past Tuesdays is: ” because I believe poetry often encapsulates the realism of war and has done so, in terms of modern poetry, for the past century.”

The rider ‘for the past century” is critical, because I think the poetry arising out of World War 1 marked a real change from the poetry that had preceded it, which far more often celebrated the glory of war, even in the case of a suicidal change like that of the Light Brigade at Balaclava in 1854 — also the year the poem was written and published. The poem makes a virtue of necessity: that the soldiers knew they were doomed, but being required to obey orders, they charged anyway.

While it does stir the heart still, I also feel it is true to say that the poetry that arose out of World War 1, most notably of Wilfrid Owen marked a turning point: from then to now, poetry has focused far more on recording the reality of war, rather than celebrating doomed charges resulting in significant loss of life. Or to quote the allied French Marshal, Pierre Bosquet, at the time:  “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre.” (“It is magnificent, but it is not war.”) He is said to have added: “C’est de la folie” — “It is madness.”

Perhaps, though, Wilfrid Owen still said it best, in terms of the relationship between poetry and war:

“My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”

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To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets around the world, click here or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.

Events To Date:

The Legend Award

On August 15, just over a month ago, I announced that The Gathering Of The Lost (The Wall Of Night Book Two) had made the shortlist for the David Gemmell Legend Award — and since then you’ll have noticed that there’s been quite a bit of Legend shortlist related activity — more, I think, than for the Morningstar Award last year, which is interesting to see.

So far, the focus has been around interviews, with Q&A’s so far on Dark Matterzine, Beatties BookBlog, ismellsheep genre site, Kate Forsyth’s Blog, SF Signal — and also, of course, my official Legend finalist’s interview on the David Gemmell Awards site, which you can read here:

Legend Finalist’s Interview
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So What’s Still To Come?

UK/AUS/NZ

First off, tomorrow I have a radio interview with Ruth Todd on the Bookenz show, which runs between 12-12.30 pm on  on Plains 96.9 FM. So if you’re in Christchurch, tune in at 12 noon for that.

I also have some guest posts coming up that I’ll be tweeting and linking to from here once they’re live:

• with Marianne de Pierres on keeping “Fantasy Fresh and Interesting”

• on RisingShadow re “Magic In The Wall Of Night World”

• on Fantastical Imaginations in respect of “Writing Epic Heroines” (working title)

• with Kristin Cashore for a very special project that you will have to “watch this space” to see revealed.
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All Ending September 30

ismellsheep giveaway
In terms of giveaways — don’t forget that the ismellsheep giveaway for signed copies of all three of my published titles, Thornspell, The Heir Of Night and The Gathering Of The Lost, which closes September 30 (2013, of course!)

USA

US E-book Special Deal
For US readers, also don’t forget the 99c ebook special deal on The Gathering Of The Lost that my US publisher, HarperVoyager, is running — again until September 30 — to celebrate the Legend award shortlisting. So if you’re into ebooks and haven’t got your copy yet, here’s your chance — and, of course, books make great presents too.:)

Last But Not Least, Also Closing September 30:
The Legend Award Voting… 😉

Should’you wish to support Gathering in the final round–which would be very much appreciated–the voting link is here:

http://www.gemmellaward.com/page/the-legend-award;
(The ‘How To’: click in the circle above ‘Helen Lowe – The Gathering Of The Lost’, then scroll down & click ‘vote’)

And, of course, If you know someone else (or even many someones) who might like to support the cause, I would also very much appreciate your passing the word along!

“I loved The Heir of Night, it was such a fantastic book. It was one of the first epic fantasy books I ever read and it got me hooked on the genre. “

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StephF made this comment on my September 1 post on the Supernatural Underground. Given my love of epic fantasy, I think you’ll understand why I liked it!

By way of more fun stuff, although I could not attend this year’s Worldcon in San Antonio, my books were there at the BookSworn authors party — where if you ate a bug (yup, that’s right, a bug!) you got a book!

To read fellow BookSworn author, and party organizer, Courtney Schafer’s report, click on the post title:

BookSworn Worldcon Party, In Pictures

You gotta go to the site to find out who everyone in the photo is. 😉

The Wall of Night Series map; design by Peter Fitzpatrick

The A Geography of Haarth post series is traversing the full range of locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth. Today we venture further into “H.”

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Hillholt:  a clan territory of Emer’s Hill people

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“The woman smiled thinly. “It’s true that Barrowdun and Hillholt are as likely to raid each other as stand together. But what preys on our farmsteads and hunting runs now is not of the Hills, even though the incursions against Barrowdun have been made to look like Hillholt work—and the attacks on Hillholt like ours.”.“

~ from © The Gathering Of The Lost: The Wall of Night Book Two; Chapter 17 — Oak and Hill