Matariki (Pleiades)

On June 23, I first wrote about influences on story in terms of festivals such as Matariki, the Maori New Year, which is marked by the rising of the Pleiades constellation into southern hemisphere skies; May Day; and the related festival of Valborgmassafton (May Day’s Eve) in Sweden. (This festival is also known as Valpurgis Night in Germany). Part of what sparked that reflection was writing an episode in the second book of the Wall of Night quartet which dealt with a festival called Summer’s Eve, which is “always held on the first new moon of summer.”

Earlier this week I received an email from Finland, from “Seregil of Rhiminee”, the pseudonym for a reviewer and moderater for the RisingShadow website, which has sections in both Finnish and English. Well worth a look if you’re interested in Fantasy, because I understand the English language site has over 28,000 fantasy and science fiction listings (although not all have been reviewed). This—of course!—got me remembering Finland, which I visited when I was living in Sweden: taking a summer boat trip through the archipelago adjoining the old capital of Turku (or Abo), and making the winter train journey from Helsinki to Leningrad (as it still was then—before the name of St Petersburg was restored).

The summer trip was wonderful, but I have to admit that it was my winter journeys that made the most enduring impression on me, both in Finland and Sweden—perhaps because they were so different from anything I would encounter in temperate New Zealand (except in the very high mountains or exceptional circumstances, such as the Big Snow of 1992.) I made two journeys into winter country, the first being the trip along the Gulf of Finland through snow covered forests of fir and birch; the second to the far north of Sweden in the very heart of winter. I still remember the tremendous depth of snow lying, the vast forests stretching away beneath whitewashed sky, the air like dry ice in your lungs when you went outside—and the stillness was profound. I saw elk and reindeer for the first time, as well, and visited the small museum in Arjeplog with its account of the Lapps’—or Sami’s—history in the north.

Sea ice, Gulf of Finland

Years later, those memories are still working their way through my writing. It’s there in poems such as North and also in the Winter Country and the Winter People in my new novel, The Heir of Night. Heir is coming out in the USA, Australia and New Zealand in October (UK folk have to wait until March 2011) and although the Winter Country is not Sweden or Finland, my vision of it has definitely been influenced by my personal experience of those landscapes. Similarly, the Winter People are not Lapps or North American Indians, but some of what they are has definitely evolved from my reading about/understanding of those cultures and their histories.

I find that story, characters and the landscape of my stories all evolve out of myth, imagination—I hope you will agree, once you get a chance to read Heir, that the Wall of Night is almost completely imagination, and the Gate of Dreams steeped in myth—but also from experience. My vision of the Winter Country, especially when writing passages like the one immediately following, has undoubtedly been shaped by my winter experience of both Sweden and Finland.

“It had been one of those bright-as-diamond days between blizzards, with the sky pale blue crystal and the snow stretching away forever, white and gleaming.  She had been out hunting and come upon him some distance from the camp, a solitary figure in the circling world of white and blue, staring at something far up in the sky. Rowan had stopped, following his gaze, and seen the hovering speck that was a snow falcon, riding the currents of the air.

The Earl had watched it for a long time and when at last he turned his head he had looked straight into her eyes and smiled, an expression as rare as winter sunshine in the grimness of his face.  “It is Winter itself that hawk,” he had said, “the brightness and the wildness and the freedom of it.  I could watch it forever.”

from The Heir of Night, The Wall of Night Book One
—

What about you? Writers—are there landscapes that have strongly influenced your work? Readers—are there landscapes in fiction that you have either particularly enjoyed or thought shaped the work?

Just to get the ball rolling—and in the spirit of this post—I would cite the wintry north of Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, with its snow, northern lights, and panzer bjorn (love those armoured bears!) Also the alternative University of Oxford that opens the book.

"The Heir of Night" Cover Flat

By way of extra encouragement, everyone who comments will go in the draw to win a signed cover flat of The Heir of Night. 🙂

Oops, late addition(!): Because tomorrow is Tuesday Poem day (where landscapes of Mars will feature) the commentary and giveaway opportunity for “Influences on Writing (2)” will run until 9 am Wednesday morning, NZ time.

Tethys

This is a photograph of Tethys (pronounced ‘TEE-this’), one of the moons of Saturn, taken by the Cassini probe. Cool, huh?

As “Bad Astronomer” Phil Platt said: “How forbidding and lovely!”

To find out more about Tethys, check out these links:

Bad Astronomy: A Billion km ice mountain against the black!

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/tethys.htm

Good friends, good times, lots of good loot—’nuff said! 🙂

Palimpsest: Catherynne M Valente

In terms of “what I’m reading” right now, I’m on a big push to read all the fiction finalists for the Hugo Awards, and this week I finished Catherynne M Valente’s Palimpsest, which I found an intriguing read, but not a particularly easy one—although the story did come together at the end. I don’t want to say too much about any one book in the Hugos finalists’ lineup until I’ve read them all, but I know a couple of other readers who gave up on Palimpsest before reaching the end, and in one case, after only a few chapters. So this is definitely not a book for everyone . . . but for myself, I’m glad I read it. I don’t know whether or not it will turn out to be my favourite of the six finalists (I have read three so far, with three to go including Robert Charles Wilson’s Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, which I have just started reading)—but yes, definitely glad I’ve read Palimpsest.

Taking a little time out from the Hugo reading, I also finished the second book in Tamora Pierce’s Beka Cooper series, the novel called Bloodhound.

Bloodhound: Tamora Pierce

I have been a fan of Tamora Pierce’s writing since reading Alanna: The First Adventure, way back when, and was pleased when Beka Cooper: Terrier returned to the Tortall world of that first Song of the Lioness series, although at an earlier time period. I really like the character of Beka Cooper—she’s a smart, resourceful, tough, but also compassionate heroine. My kind of gal, definitely, and I enjoyed reading the Bloodhound story.

But as regular readers may have guessed, since I interview poets for the Women on Air programme, Plains 96.9 FM, I also read a lot of poetry books. At the moment I am re-reading Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand (Interactive Press),

Voyagers

edited by Tim Jones and Mark Pirie, as well as reading Pascale Petit’s The Treekeeper’s Tale (Seren) for the first time.

I suspect many people may have thought there would not be sufficient science fiction poetry written in New Zealand to make up an anthology, but Voyagers proved any doubters wrong with a wonderful compilation of poems on topics as diverse as space travel, apocalypse, extra-terrestrials and altered states. It’s up for a Sir Julius Vogel Award this year, too, in the category of “Best Collected Work”—a well-deserved nomination, in my opinion.

The Treekeeper's Tale: Pascale Petit

The Treekeeper’s Tale is the third collection from celebrated UK poet, Pascale Petit, that I have read (or will have read, once I finish). Petit’s poetry is emotionally powerful, savage even, in books such as The Zoo Father and The Huntress, but she also has a powerful command of language. So despite finding these first two books challenging reads, I also found the poetry extremely inspirational. I am finding The Treekeeper’s Tale a gentler read, but no less inspirational poetically. The subject matter (so far) is of nature and archaeology but with the same mythological overtones I remember from the earlier collections. I am really enjoying it and although I won’t know if I have a favourite poem until I finish, so far Siberian Ice Maiden is a strong contender.

Just to give you a feeling for Petit’s use of language, here are the opening lines to the poem Hieroglyph Moth:

“When the white ermine wings
opened at night

like a book of frost
smoking in the dark,

I understood the colour of vowels
painted on moth fur –

the black, red, saffron signs
of a new language.”

(c) Pascal Petit

from Hieroglyph Moth, in The Treekeeper’s Tale

—

So now, time to share—what are you reading currently?

The Christchurch Writers’ Festival Programme was out today and I’m in it!

I’ll be involved in two events, both on Friday 10 September: Hot Off the Press in the morning and Speed Date A Writer, a NZ Book Council event for school kids in the afternoon.

This week has been somewhat mixed on the writing front, with a lot of interruptions and other commitments to be met, so I only managed 6078 new words for Part 3 of The Gathering of the Lost (The Wall of Night, Part Two). But it’s good to feel that I’m growing the manuscript and I hope to the word count by at least 50% again next week. In fact, I’ve set myself the writing challenge of finishing the first draft of Part 3 within the month, ie by 12 August, so I’ll definitely have to both get writing and keep the words coming!

So what reward do you think I should give myself if I meet the challenge? Just the reward of a job well done, or something more? I think it will have to be something special if it’s to be an incentive—but feel free to put forward ideas. 🙂

Congratulations to fellow Christchurch-based writer, Jane Higgins, who has just won the Text Prize for her Young Adult, speculative fiction novel, The Bridge, which will now be published in Australia and New Zealand in August 2011.

The Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing is an annual prize awarded to an outstanding unpublished manuscript by an Australian or New Zealand writer.  Text publisher Michael Heyward had the following to say about The Bridge:

“The Bridge is a superbly written, fast paced adventure set in a world in which just about everything has gone wrong … Jane Higgins’ cast of characters must make life and death decisions to survive, but this novel is also about choices, about connections, and the quest for identity. It asks essential questions: Who am I? Where do I belong? It is a thoroughly deserving winner of The Text Prize, and we know it will find a lot of fans. We very much look forward to putting The Bridge on the international rights market ahead of publication.”

Jane Higgins is a research sociologist at Lincoln University in Christchurch and a graduate of the Hagley Writers’ Institute.

Congratulations again, Jane, for this tremendous & very well deserved success–I know we’ll all be looking out for The Bridge in the bookshops, come August next year.

Cowarral:

iii  A Summer Storm

—

(c) Joanna Preston

Cowarral is one of two main sequences in Joanna Preston’s first collection The Summer King (Otago University Press, 2009). A fellow Tuesday Poem poet, Joanna won the inaugural Kathleen Grattan Award, currently NZ’s richest poetry prize, in 2008 and has just received Australia’s  Mary Gilmore Prize 2010, which is conducted by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature and presented every second year to a first book of poetry by an Australian writer. Both awards were for The Summer King.

I was sitting in the sun reading Tamora Pierce’s Beka Cooper: Bloodhound—despite the sunshine there was an iron hard frost outside so inside was definitely the place to be—when my cellphone rang. I made pickup—just—but there was a glitch, so no voice connection although I could see the caller’s number. And not only was it not a number I recognised,  but I was pretty sure that it wasn’t even a NZ number. Fortunately, by the time the call came though again a minute later I had been able to join the dots—mainly because my agent, Robin, in the States, had told me that she had passed on my cellphone number to Bella, my English editor, who might be calling about covers. So when I picked up the second time and there was that time-distance pause, I was able to say: “Hello. Is that Bella?”

And indeed, it was—calling me from the UK at 12.45 am in her early Sunday morning (the UK is eleven hours behind NZ at present). True editorial dedication, but as she explained to me, there is only a 30 day window for Orbit (my UK/ANZ publisher) to bring The Heir of Night out in Australia and New Zealand after it has been released in the USA. (My publisher there is Eos.) So the race is on to get the Australia/New Zealand edition ready to go, including the cover—and it was the cover that Bella was calling about. She says the Orbit team are keen to get a design that reflects the adventurous feel of the book; also one based around Malian (the central character in Heir) so they need information on clothes, armour and ‘all that jazz’ pretty much yesterday.

So guess what I spent the rest of yesterday afternoon doing? No, no, I’m joking really, because of course I keep files on what characters look like, what they wear, and armour, so it was really just a matter of pulling that together and finding a few images that might illustrate the notes a little better … Fun stuff, especially when you know that it is all part of developing the cover look and getting the story out there into the world.

Also (call me old fashioned here) but it was just really nice to speak with Bella and “hear” the person: email is a great medium, but the telephone call—despite the occasional time-distance delay—definitely added another dimension. But I can well understand Bella not wanting to make too many at 12.45 am in the morning. So next time, maybe, I will have to take that hit for the team!

Meanwhile, I’m really looking forward to seeing the Australia/New Zealand cover. 🙂

Yesterday I blogged about attending the launch of my friend Rhian Gallagher’s book  Feeling for Daylight: The Photographs of Jack Adamson, which was held at the South Canterbury Museum in Timaru.

Sefton Homestay

Timaru is a small city in South Canterbury, about two hours drive south of Christchurch. Like many of the South Island’s smaller cities, it’s hey day was in the gold rush era, which was followed by the wealth of refrigerated meat and fine wool. These glory days left Timaru with a fine legacy of late Victorian/Edwardian brick and stone architecture, so since we were going to be in Timaru overnight, we thought we’d enjoy a little of the local atmosphere and stay in one of the town’s historic homestays.  In our case, this was the delightful Sefton Homestay, which I thoroughly recommend for anyone wanting to experience genuine southern hospitality in an authentic Edwardian villa setting.

There's snow on them thar mountains ...

One of the other charms of Timaru is Caroline Bay, a traditional summer holiday spot which was revamped by the Timaru District Council a few years back. In our small amount of downtime between events, we enjoyed a stroll around the bay area and a coffee on the hill overlooking the sea. And it being midwinter here, particularly enjoyed the juxtaposition of the the Bay’s palm trees with the snow clad Southern Alps in the background.

Visiting Timaru is always an opportunity to catch up with Owen Marshall,

Owen Marshall

one of New Zealand’s pre-eminent writers—and his latest short fiction collection, Living as a Moon, is a finalist for this year’s NZ Post Fiction Award. Owen was also my creative writing mentor a few years back, through the NZ Society of Author’s/Creative New Zealand programme, and although we worked on short stories rather than novels, I know his feedback assisted in the development of my writing. (I have said as much, too, in the Acknowledgments to my forthcoming novel, The Heir of Night, to be published October in the USA, Australia and New Zealand.) It was very pleasant to have the opportunity to catch up over lunch and “talk writing”. In fact, it is always fun to talk writing, so with both Rhian and Owen in residence, plus that wonderful Ewardian architectural legacy, Timaru will always be more than just another small provincial town to me.