Well, I tweeted about my dinner party prep & some of the dishes, so now here are a few photos: a dinner party photo essay, if you will! 🙂

Like Clarissa, in 'Mrs Dalloway', I bought the flowers myself--amongst other things!

The apple, cinnamon & sour cream cake, fresh from the oven

The table...

...all ready for the guests

The orange, carrot & cardamom soup; aka "sunshine in a bowl"

Rack of lamb basted with a garlic, pomegranate molasses & za'atar blend, with autumn vegetable medley

And the wines were:

With the bread and cheese starter, and the soup: Felton Road Dry Riesling

With the lamb main: Chateau Mazeris Bellevue Canon Fronsac  (courtesy of CP Lin)

With the cake: Main Divide Late Harvest Pokiri Reserve Pinot Gris

The bread was the excellent ciabatta from the Canterbury Cheesemongers, where I also purchased the Meyer Maasdam cheese; the second cheese was the Kapiti Ramara.

Hot on the heels of the Reddit Fantasy  ‘Ask Me Anything’ with international Fantasy author Robin Hobb, I have two new interviews to share with you:

The first is from Burn Bright, the website of Australian SF-F author, Marianne de Pierres, where I was interviewed by Cels Jansink with her “Big 4” questions.

To read the interview click Here

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The second interview is with Ruth Todd for Women on Air, on Plains 96.9 FM, where we specifically talk about The Gathering of the Lost.

You can listen to it on podcast Here.

(To listen: press the play icon or download the mp3)

Enjoy!

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There may also be some “Fun With Food” photos later, the day allowing…

Well, a  few things as it happens.

Firstly, you may recall that last Sunday in “What I’m Reading” I talked about Jane Higgins’ debut novel The Bridge and how much I’d enjoyed it. I also mentioned that it was shortlisted for the NZ Post Children’s Book Awards. Well this week the Award winners were announced—and The Bridge received an Honour Mention in the Young Adult Fiction category.

Very well done, Jane! (Although in my personal, very subjective opinion The Bridge could easily have won…)

.

Coming Up On The Blog This Monday: Help Baby Jayden

The Wee Chap, aka Baby Jayden

This Monday 21 I’ll have a very special guest posting here on the blog.

My friend and fellow SpecFicNZ-er Wen Baragrey will be telling us about the Help Baby Jayden Fund, a fund raising programme and in particular an auction on June 2 to assist with the care needed to keep this valiant little chap with us and help him grow.

Jayden is Wen’s grandson and I am not going to jump her gun in telling you all about his situation and the whys and wherefores of the fund raising campaign and auction on Monday—but if you do want to find out more there are a few pertinent posts on her blog, starting here and also check out the “Help Baby Jayden” blog here.

But otherwise, do watch this space for Monday.

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Women on Air & Bernadette Hall, Editor of Best New Zealand Poems 2011

If you’re a local Christchurch person and able to tune into Plains 96.9FM this morning at around 11.10 am, you will be able to hear poet Bernadette Hall talk with me about her role as guest editor for  the on-line anthology, BEST NEW ZEALAND POEMS 2011 –  www.victoria.ac.nz/bestnzpoems—and the process of selecting the 25 poems that comprised her “ crown of good company” for 2011.

But if you can’t tune in or live otherwhere than Christchurch, it should be on podcast soon. 🙂

So yesterday I did my very first “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit Fantasy, hosted by international Fantasy author, Robin Hobb.

And I have to say it was huge fun—I had a great time although, boy, were those fingers flying across the keyboard. And I was rather tired at the end.

But there were also some very good questions that I think elicited some new information around my writing and process. And then there’s the famous toilet roll question, so far unresolved for posterity… 😉

Interesting to have a look just to see it how it all works, though, so I hope you will if you get the chance.

The link through is HERE

And if you still have a question ask away. I’ll be popping back around mid-day NZ time, early evening US Central time, just in case there are any latecomers to answer.

Reddit Fantasy Icon: 'You Shall Not Pass'

At 1 pm today, NZ time—8 pm US Central Time—I shall be live on Reddit Fantasy, hosted by well-known Fantasy author, Robin Hobb.

Robin Hobb; photo by Alex Ogdan

The intro post is here. (And you can already see a few early questions from Robin, which I have to say is very exciting!)

The idea is that you ask me questions and I do my best to answer them, which should be  a lot of fun. And although I know it will be the working day for some of you and the wee small hours for others, I do hope a few of you will be able to make it along.

I also hope that there will be lots of questions, that I can type fast enough, and that my hands will stand up to all the typing! 😉

Here’s how I think it works (so I hope I’m right):

To check out what’s happening, you click on this link Here

URL in full is:  http://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/tpy9e/hello_im_fsf_novelist_helen_lowe_ama/

I *think* you can then just read the evolving Q&A without doing anything further.

But if you want to ask a question, you do have to register and log in, so if you’re new to Reddit you may want to do that a little in advance. Apparently it’s very simple: you just click the ‘register’ link in the upper-right of the page.

Once you’re registered you ask away and I will do my best to answer!

Now—let’s go have some Q&A fun. 🙂

New Zealand will be the featured country at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair and as part of the run up the “Aotearoa Affair—from Kiel to Kaitaia” blog is now up and running. Part of the “Affair” is a monthly blog festival—and the fourth instalment, on the theme of “Bi–“ has posted today.

This month’s carnival has been edited by Christopher Allen and there are many wonderful entries from Hinemoana Baker to Tim Jones to Michelle Elvy: definitely worth a look—Here!

And yes, I do have a post that is part of the carnival: Out of Middle Earth: Reality & Imagination- New Zealand’s Landscape Influence on The Wall of Night World.’ 

Die Erbin Der Nacht: The Heir of Night; forthcoming in Germany Aug '12

And because the theme was “Bi-” the pairings within the post include:

• landscape in reality and imagination
• “Middle Earth” in New Zealand, as opposed to its UK origins
• Central Otago (NZ) & The Great Dividing Range (Australia) as landscape influences on ‘Jaransor’ in The Heir of Night
• The Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth as epic fantasy imported into the NZ landscape; my own Wall of Night series as “homegrown”  epic.

You can click through to the full carnival to find it, via the link above, or go directly to the post, Here

Enjoy!

UK/AUS/NZ

On April 28 I posted some early reader feedback on The Gathering of the Lost, which you can check out here.

Meanwhile a few more comments have come through here on the blog, distributed across different posts, so I thought I’d pull them together for you in one spot.

(Although it’s possible you may not enjoy them quite as much as I did… 😉 )

Anyway, here we go:

• “I’m reading, and thoroughly enjoying, Gathering of the Lost (after rereading Heir of Night to refresh my memory). What a fabulous read. I’ve just discovered Malian and Kalan. I knew they were hiding there – well I was pretty sure of it anyway… And now I must get back to it. Thanks for such a great read, Helen” ~ Deb

USA

Deb, needless to say, you’re very welcome!

• “Well I think until the [next] book is published I will have to read the books again to curb my enthusiasm I have enjoyed the first two books I found that I was speed reading because they are so exciting I had to slow myself down and they were difficult to put down. This time I will be reading them at a more sedatespeed and enjoy the scenery more, brilliant.” ~ Steve

Steve, thank you—just to assure you that I am writing the next book as fast as I can! And in the meantime, there is also Thornspell, which quite a few adult readers have also enjoyed, as well a few short fiction offerings on my website, here (although they are not all FSF.)

• “… just finished “The Gathering of the Lost” last week and once again really enjoyed your work! The characters all have so much depth and the story carries me along into it as I read. It is also great to read the excellent reviews and hear others mention hearing them on National Radio. Well done, another excellent effort – and even more so that you achieved it amidst 1000s of nasty earthquake aftershocks and “all the rest” that goes with that. … Keep up the good work as I am now ready to read the next book (no pressure though). (<: “ ~ JennyG

No-o, [in hollow tones], no pressure … 🙂 But seriously, I’m glad you enjoyed the book, Jenny, and very glad it wasn’t a disappointment after Thornspell and The Heir of Night.

.

Plus ‘wait there’s more’, a reader review from Robin Sutton on the WargamingNZ site, which you can read in full here.

Conversations

Going to the shop
to buy more lemons
the wind riffles my hair

tells me a dirty joke
gleaned from old papers
blown along the street

we laugh together
are still laughing
when I walk home

put the lemons
into an azure bowl

winter sunshine
across the window sill

put the rest
into a lemon cake
on a Kosta plate

chrysanthemums
brushed around the rim
by an unknown hand

a message in a rare language –
until today,
untranslated.

© Helen Lowe

Published in The Christchurch Press, 2009

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Last week I was the guest editor on the Tuesday Poem Hub, where I featured “VA Hospital Confessional” by US poet Brian Turner, from his 2010 collection Phantom Noise (Bloodaxe.) You may read the poem and my commentary by clicking here.

But because “VA Hospital Confessional” is very much war poetry, today I thought I’d post one of my own poems, which is possibly the quintessence of ‘domestic’ poetry. Both themes, I feel, have their place, and need to have their place, if poetry is to be an art that is part of the fabric (the ‘textured tapestry’, of course! ;-)) of our lives.

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

Robin Hobb; photo by Alex Ogdan

You may recall a while back, when The Gathering of the Lost Blog Tour was in full swing, I hinted that there might be one more stop on the tour, but it was all very much in the process of evolving at that stage.

Well, now it has fully evolved and I can finally share the very exciting news that I am to appear on the Reddit social news website’s Reddit Fantasy page this week in an “Ask Me Anything” q&a hosted and facilitated by Fantasy author Robin Hobb — who has already talked about it on her own blog here.

In terms of what and where for those who are interested, the session will begin at 8 pm, this Wednesday 16, United States Central Time.

This means that I will be live Thursday 17 at:

2 am, UK time

3 am French time

11 am, Australian Eastern Standard Time

1 pm, NZ time

I also believe you may have to register to participate on Reddit, whether asking questions in the ‘live’ session or reading my replies to what others have asked at some later stage–but I am hoping that that I shall see at least some of you there, to ask me some questions and see what questions Robin has to put to me as well. on Reddit Fantasy, Wednesday 16 May at 8 pm, United States Central Time.

I haven’t had a lot of time for reading lately because ‘there’s been  a lot happening’ with both trying to get some traction on writing the next book in The Wall of Night series and doing all the necessary and very important publicity around release of The Gathering of the Lost. Running-just-to-stand-still time, that’s for sure.

But in amongst all of that, I have still managed to read and thoroughly enjoy Jane Higgins’ The Bridge, which is future dystopian SFF for YA readers—although I feel it will appeal to discerning readers of all ages.

And I’m not the only person who thinks it’s  a great read: The Bridge won the Text Prize in 2011 and is currently shortlisted for the NZ Post Children’s Book Awards.

Both very well deserved successes imho.

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I also recently finished reading Kristin Cashore’s latest YA Fantasy, Bitterblue (featured under “Just Arrived” here), which I also enjoyed. In fact  it may just be my favourite Kristin Cashore yet—yes, even though one of those previously read titles was Graceling.

And there is the possibility of an interview with  Kristin Cashore sometime in June—so watch this space for that.

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So how about you? What are you reading and enjoying right now?