Over on the Tuesday Poem hub our second birthday poem is nearing completion—and Hub curator, Mary McCallum, discusses the creative process on her blog, O Audacious Book, here.

I hope you will visit the Tuesday Poem blog and enjoy our community’s collective work: Birthday Poem (Working Title.)

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Meanwhile, as my Tuesday Poem feature I am linking to my recent radio interview with Christchurch poet, Jan Hutchison, where she reads three poems from her new collection, The Happiness of Rain (Steele Roberts, 2012.)

The poems featured are:

• The title poem, ‘The Happiness of Rain’

• ‘John Clare’s later life’

• ‘Colette travels through her room’

I hope you enjoy the interview and the poems.

To listen: click here

Then either click on the ‘Play’ button or download the MP3

I am thrilled to announce that Malian of Night has agreed to do her very first blog interview—with the very talented Kim Falconer on the Supernatural Underground.

Here’s how the interview begins:

“Kim: Hello Malian. *small bow* Thank you for coming to chat with us at the Supernatural Underground. First up, to clarify, you are Heir to the House of Night in the Derai Alliance. Can you tell us briefly what that means? Why an alliance and what is the Wall?

Malian: [inclines her head in the Heir of Night’s acknowledgment of an equal] Thank you, Kim. It is an honor to be a guest of the Supernatural Underground; I have heard so much that is good about it through my chronicler, Helen Lowe.

…”

To read the full interview, just click here

Plus—to celebrate this unique event, there’s double giveaway goodness:

1 x The Heir of Night and Kim’s Path of the Stray and

1 x  The Gathering of the Lost and Kim’s Road to the Soul

All you have to do to get your name in the draw is post a comment—or a question for Malian—on the interview, here.

USA

UK/AUS/NZ

It’s Monday—and time for a quick update on the Blog Tour to celebrate publication of The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two, in the USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Last week’s stops on the tour were:

* an interview with US entertainment site ismellsheep here; and

* a guest post at The Shared Desk with steampunk authors Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris, here

Bonus gigs included:

• my interview of Australian FSF author, Ian Irvine, about his new book Vengeance, on the Orbit blog, here; and
• a radio interview with crime author, interviewer and reviewer, Vanda Symon, while I was in Dunedin—although it will not air until May.

Also not airing until May is an extended interview based on my Skype Q&A with Nalini Hayne of Australia’s Dark Matter fanzine.

And coming up this week on the Tour:

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  Kim Falconer

  an interview with a difference! This one is not with me—instead my friend and fellow author, Kim Falconer, is going to be interviewing Malian later today (April 16, but US time) on the Supernatural Underground: all very exciting!

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  John R Fultz

  And I shall also be doing a Q&A with John R Fultz, fellow lover of epic fantasy and author of Seven Princes, later in the week.

• And I believe Ian Irvine’s reciprocal interview with me may be appearing on the Orbit blog around Tuesday (UK time)—a space to watch.

Plus, plus, plus—there is more:

Just to tantalise you there’s an as-yet-under-wraps gig for the Tour still being out together … All I can tell you right now is that it’s very exciting indeed from my point of view, but again, watch this space: I will bring you more news here as soon as I can.

Otago Harbour, from the peninsula

For five years, I lived on the Otago Peninsular, which I think is one of those very special places, with tremendous natural beauty and scenery.

The Pyramids

So yesterday I revisted a few of my favourite haunts, including a walk out to Victory Beach via the Pyramids.

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Detail of the Pyramid formation

The tide was in so the paddle wheel of the SS Victory, wrecked on this beach in the 19th century (although I believe without loss of life, the very good news), was not visible in the surf.

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Approach to Victory Beach

But it remains a very beautiful spot.

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On the beach

And on return journey I checked out the cottage where I used to live–still looking good!

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Once, a writer's cottage

Just taking a little time out from the Blog Tour to talk about what I’m reading right now—I have just picked up Robin Hobb’s City of Dragons, the third novel in her “Rain Wild Chronicles.”

This book continues the story begun in Dragon Keeper and Dragon Haven—and further develops the Rain Wild world first encountered in the “Liveship” trilogy:

“Once, dragons ruled the Rain Wilds, tended by privileged human servants known as Elderlings. But a series of cataclysmic eruptions nearly drove these magnificent creatures to extinction. Born weak and deformed, the last of their kind had one hope for survival: to return to their ancient city of Kelsingra. Accompanied by a disparate crew of untested young keepers, the dragons embarked on a harsh journey into the unknown along the toxic Rain Wild River. Battling starvation, a hostile climate, and treacherous enemies, dragons and humans have begun to forge magical connections, bonds that have wrought astonishing transformations for them all. And though Kelsingra is finally near, their odyssey has only begun …

… Now the dragons must plumb the depths of their ancestral memories to help them take flight and unlock the secrets buried in Kelsingra. But enemies driven by greed and dark desires are approaching. Time is running out, not only for the dragons but for their human keepers as well.”

I am looking forward to finding out what surprises lie across the Rain Wild river in the ancient dragon/elderling city and the extent to which the “Live Ships” dragon, Tintaglia, comes back into the story.

USA

UK/AUS/NZ

The latest stop on The Gathering of the Lost Blog Tour is with Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences afficionadoes and fellow Voyager US authors Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris at “The Shared Desk”—with a guest post on my love of adventure in storytelling and the overlaps I see between epic fantasy and steampunk:

“I was delighted when Pip and Tee asked me to stop by here at The Shared Desk:  not least because when I read the rambunctious, rollicking opening to their Phoenix Rising, the first in the The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series, I thought, ah—now here are a pair of storytellers who share my own love of an adventurous tale!

This of course got me thinking, because although the Wall series is epic fantasy, steampunk is a genre I have loved since first reading Tim Powers’ The Anubis Gates—and I have been a keen follower of Phil and Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius Online for quite some time now… “Adventure, romance, mad science”—what could be better? Unless, of course, it is “adventure, romance, and ‘strange magic!’”

To read on, click here.

It’s been a quiet time for reviews—but then two came though in the same twenty four hour period!

US

UK

So here they are: an in-depth look at The Heir of Night — recently shortlisted for the Gemmell Morningstar Award, here — from Paul Weimer of SF Signal. You can read it here

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USA Cover

UK/AUS/NZ

And a review for The Gathering of the Lost from SFFANZ reviewer Simon Litten — here

This interview is not officially a stop on the Blog Tour, but is part of the launch of The Gathering of the Lost.

My fellow Orbit author, Ian Irvine, is also releasing an epic fantasy novel now: Vengeance, the first in his Tainted Realm series—and my UK editor, Jenni Hill, suggested an “epic fantasy interview swap.” So that is exactly what we have done!

My interview of Ian Irvine is up first and you can read it now on the Orbit blog. And next week, Ian will interview me, again on Orbit. All good fun–and a nice “extra” to the Blog Tour. 🙂

To read the interview and find out about Ian and Vengeance, click here.

And don’t be shy: do leave a comment! I am sure Ian would love to hear from you.

USA Cover

UK/AUS/NZ cover

For today’s stop on the Blog Tour I’m stopping in at FSF Entertainment Site, ismellsheep, where Katie and Sharon have put together an excellent—and occasionally amusing!—set of questions for me to answer.

I also get theme music, which I think is awesome! And moon pies by way of virtual hospitality—excellent!

And Kiwi readers, take due note: I even got in a mention of the All Blacks—which just goes to show that bookish type or not, you may be able to take the gal out of the King Country, but you can never quite take the King Country out of the gal! 😉

But anyway, I think you’ll find the interview is worth a look: there is some new material and also a few more giveaways.

Just click HERE.

Ithaca Conversations:

The Trojan Shore

Tonight, the wind blows bitter
from the stony heights
beyond the city, gusts
at the thousand cook-fires,
lifts dust and grit from the plain,
driving through tent flaps
and into eyes, rank
with the stench of a siege camp –
combined sweat, wounds and excrement
assault every sense, beat at him
where he stands apart,
one more shadow on the beach,
one hand pushed hard
against his black prowed ship
while his eyes strain towards
the long horizon, strive
to see beyond it to the forsaken wife
and unknown child, to the island
hidden behind rising wind and wave –
lost, all lost now, abandoned
for barren conflict
along the Trojan shore.

(c) Helen Lowe

Published in JAAM 2008

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Currently, we in the Tuesday Poem community are celebrating our second birthday with an evolving poem on the topic of “the sounds of  a birthday.”

You can check out the work in progress on the Tuesday Poem hub, here—as well as the Tuesday poem on each individual poet’s site via the side bar.