Back home

Got back late Monday from nine days in tropical, northern Queensland. Bliss!

There are a couple of stories (involving crocodiles) from this trip that I'll share in a later post, but the first thing I've been trying to do is re-establish some sort of routine. It went to pot for a few weeks before our escape north, what with the book getting released and a rush on at work and the dreaded lurgy that knocked me for six (well, four perhaps) and...

But how wonderful it was to open my e-mail and, amongst the 80+, get a batch of enthusiastic responses to The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore. Not only that, but Mike French posted a tremendous review at The View From Here and Revish, and Fossfor created an illustration that superbly captured a scene from the book. Also discovered today that the Daily Mail Online featured The Snowing and Greening, although the review (a paraphrase of the blurb followed by a one line crit) didn't recommend it: "Promising though this (storyline) sounds, the narrative darts down far too many lyrical dead ends"!

Never mind, I don't expect everyone to 'get it'. That's just the way it is, and it's fine. It makes every other review so much more delicious.

However, The Australian Times put together a very substantial response, based around a recent interview. So, all up, it's been a good couple of days, even if the temperature has been about a hundred degrees cooler in not-so-tropical Victoria.

PS. The pic shows the only place in the world where two World Heritage sites meet: the Daintree Forest's Cape Tribulation (Captain Cook had a tough time here after ripping a hole in his boat) meets the Coral Sea of the Barrier Reef. Pretty special.

Oh, and I forgot to say...

I'm definitely a tad short in brain space at the moment. One of the things I meant to announce in today's earlier post was the launch of the third print edition of The View From Here. Now available to preview and buy.

Pics more than words

Bit of a photo blog this week --- a phlog --- because I've run out of hours and brain space to string too many decent sentences together. So here are some pics of recent happenings.

The whales are back in town. Three or four Southern Right Whales have been off the coast this winter. Captured this image of mother and calf off Logans Beach at end of August. Very special visitors.

Port Fairy Book Fair, and yours truly introduces and discusses the excellent memoir Mother Land with its author Dmetri Kakmi.

Book Reading at Cape Nelson Lighthouse cafe in Portland. Thanks to an 'interesting' postal system and the presence of only one copy of The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore, the book signing became a book reading. Regardless of this, it was great to catch up with old friends on a beautiful and warm moonlit night to celebrate the novel's UK release (and a very appropriate venue for the selected reading). Lots of eating, drinking and laughter.

This is what the lighthouse looks like at night, according to my camera, but I thought I should include a daytime shot too.

BlogTalkRadio with Magdalena Ball and Mike French

Wednesday

8:00--8:30 am: interview via conference call for The Compulsive Reader on BlogTalkRadio. Magdalena Ball interviewing Mike French and myself about The View From Here, The Dandelion Tree and The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore.

7:52¾ am: dial number and receive Telstra error message advising me to use a different overseas code.

7:54½ am: inadvertently phone New Zealand. No one answers. All the same, begin wondering what sort of conversation I might have if the Kiwi I'm phoning picks up. It seems a good idea to phone Australia-based Maggie Bell as if phoning from overseas.

7:56 am: dial number and receive Telstra error message advising me to use a different overseas code, or contact their Helpline.

7:56½ am: dial Telstra Helpline. Listen to menu.

7:57am: still listening to menu.

7:57¾ am: no option on menu for difficulties with conference calls, but plenty of options for reporting different sorts of faults. Never knew there were so many different sorts of fault. Fascinating really.

7:59 am: staring at telephone in disbelief.

7:59¼ am: phone rings! It's Maggie Bell and Mike, and a quick countdown into the show. Very quick.

It was great fun doing this interview, even though the call quality on my phone was poor and I couldn't quite hear everything; this just ensured my responses were even a little more random than normal. I sound like I'm standing at the bottom of a pit with the telephone receiver at the top, which is much the way it is. And whilst the evil cackle I produced at the start of the interview doesn't reflect my normal melodic laugh, I do get to sound like this when no one's thrown food into the pit for a few days.

I was going to read a longer extract from the book, but as I started each new sentence, the previous sentence was still coming back at me, which was a little trippy and reminded me of singing London's Burning as a 'round' when I was at school once. Kept expecting the altos and sopranos to kick in with the previous line and found myself beginning to listen for it.

Listen to the interview here.

Everything's happening

There's a fair bit happening at the moment.

Have just posted Part One of an interview with Gary Davison over at The View From Here, in preparation for the release of his novel Fat Tuesday on 27th September. Since meeting Gary through our involvement with PaperBooks, we've trod parallel paths --- with similar high points and low points --- in our journey towards publication. It's much easier when you can share moments of insanity with someone else!

The Ex Libris Port Fairy Book Fair & Literary Weekend is coming up. On Saturday, I'll be hosting a discussion with Dmetri Kakmi, author of Mother Land (Giramondo, 2008, ISBN 978-1920882433), which is described as 'a vivid portrayal of Greek-Turkish life on the Aegean island of Bozcaada, in all its beauty, poverty, and ignorance.' It's a stunning piece of writing---a powerful memoir. Lots of superlatives spring to mind, but for the moment I'll just say that his story-telling has a compelling tug to it and his prose is quite simply exciting. As you can tell, I'm loving it.

We'll be talking about his journey as a writer and the process by which Mother Land revealed itself, as well as exploring the overlap between memoir and fiction, and what it's like for an editor (Dmetri is a senior editor for Penguin) to be edited.

This is one of a number of events that'll take place across the weekend (art exhibition by illustrator Shaun Tan, talk by author Alice Pung, second hand book sales, etc), but one of my favourite annual events is the Barbara Cartland Hurl. Visitors are invited to dress up in something pink, read an excerpt from one of Barbara Cartland's romances and then see how far they can hurl it across the town green. This is a slightly less demanding activity than tossing the caber, but there are prizes for the best reading and the best hurl.

Was feeling a little out of things on Sunday, being so far from British book shops, but then some excellent news, accompanied by pics, arrived. A big thanks to Gary, who let me know that Borders, Newcastle, had The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore on the shelves and in the 3-for-2 displays. This was followed by pics from Paola and Joel, proving (because seeing is believing) that the book really did exist and was on the shelves in Borders, Swindon. Thanks Paola and Joel. And then yesterday, Mrs T absolutely knocked my socks off by dedicating a whole post to her sighting (and capture) of The Snowing and Greening in Waterstones, Milton Keynes (which town incidentally rates a mention on p.164). See her pics, read her post.

And today my copies of the book arrived!

I pick them up, I prod them and turn them over... and they don't vanish. Wow!

The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore

What's to be said?

It's out there. It's released.

Can't think of anything else to say.

Gob-smacked!

Six Unspectacular Facts

I’ve been tagged by Stella with a meme: to provide six unspectacular facts about myself. The rules of the meme also include linking back to he/she who tagged, mentioning the rules, tagging a further six bloggers by linking, and leaving a comment for each blogger.
Here goes:

1. Because I’m not very good at handling animals, my first pet was a tortoise (easy to catch and easy to pick up).


2. My first ambition in life was to be a stage coach robber (not sure who would’ve looked after my horse, given my poor animal-handling skills, but I couldn’t have made a quick getaway on a tortoise).


3. I’m better at swimming underwater than on the surface (I suck – literally).


4. Was a vegetarian for over twenty years, but started eating fish after almost colliding with an edible-sized whiting, which had a length of fishing line hooked to its mouth. Tried unsuccessfully to catch it, and was unsure whether I’d release it or eat if I did, but started craving fish from that point on. (Fortunately, I haven’t been tempted to jump into paddocks and wrestle with cows or sheep, or any other living thing... except the occasional carrot and potato.)


5. When people ask me what the R of my middle name stands for, I tell them Rumpelstiltskin (even though I can’t spin gold from straw).


6. When I stopped working for the Post Office, I had to sign the Official Secrets Act (which I’ve probably contravened by mentioning it), even though I never could remember the price of a first class stamp.


7. I believe it’s healthy to question accepted values and beliefs, and that some rules need to be broken. (Hence a seventh unspectacular fact and, in the absence of directly tagging six other bloggers, an invitation to join this meme if it interests you. If you choose to, let me know and I’ll post a comment.)

Countdown

It's been a busy and exciting week. The Portland Observer ran an interview on Monday 11th August (click here), the PaperBooks website has leapt into high gear (regular blogs, an Online Shop with special offers, heaps of useful links...) and The View From Here launched the second edition of its print magazine (click here to preview and/or order).

And The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore is now less than two weeks away from appearing in UK bookstores!!! (If anything deserves three exclamation marks, for me this is it.) I'll be posting the occasional blog over at PaperBooks before and after the release, so if you get a chance it'd be great to see you there too sometime.

Welcome

Welcome to the new blog. I thought it was time for a more dynamic site, with the opportunity to include additional pages, and where I could maintain a series of links instead of having to bounce these back from the website. So here it is. A new roost.

And timely, given the massive changes that have taken place on the PaperBooks website.

Have been looking for a follow-on to the Thunderbirds opening sequence, and had fun at YouTube revisiting some old favourites (Fireball XL5, Stingray, The Saint and a heap more), but decided to stick with the bird image for the moment. Just in case anyone gets to feeling too cosy!

Welcome.

Thunderbirds Are Go!

Lucy, the dynamic publicist at PaperBooks and Legend Press, has been channelling some of her dynamism towards promoting The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore in recent weeks. There's been an online interview at WriteWords (which I haven't seen because I'm not a member), a short piece in the UK's Northampton Chronicle & Echo (which my Mum and Dad discovered for me) and an interview in one of my local newspapers, The Standard (which the world and his dog seemed to read yesterday).

It's been a busy, fun week. This is something I could get addicted to.

I've also enjoyed interviewing Caroline Hamilton, author of Consumed, which is a particularly fine novel I reviewed on this blog a couple of months back. You can read this by clicking The View From Here.

What's more, it's only four weeks until ...

Saturday, 30th August!