Twelfth Planet Press has announced the forthcoming publication of my novella, Salvage — big smiles all round. The novella was written primarily over three consecutive years, at my writers’ group retreat on Bribie Island, and then finished off in a fourth retreat on the shore of Lake Weyba at Noosa. The cover art is by Dion Hamill, who also provided covers for TPP’s Horn, amongst others (and not, as previously written here, TPP’s edition of Marianne de Pierres’ Glitter Rose). Now, the edits…
Melbourne’s Wendy Rule played ‘south of the river’ on Saturday night when she took to the stage at the cosy Caravan Music Club, at Oakleigh’s RSL Club. With a cemetery for a backyard, it was a suitable venue for the pagan singer-songwriter, given a cabaret air with the red-and-white checked table cloths and candles.
Saturday’s gig drew a small but appreciative crowd on a wet night on a soaked day — my sister had retreated, saturated and mud splattered, before the main act at a vineyard concert earlier in the day — and it was a shame there weren’t more on hand to hear a wonderful performance.
With the air scented with white sage and red wine on stage, the gig was engagingly laid back. Rule was effervescent as always but with an extra sparkle in the wake of her recent wedding, and husband Timothy on stage with guitar alongside regular companions William Llewellyn Griffiths on percussion and Rachel Samuel on cello. I love the cello in particular, such a great accompaniment to Rule’s hybrid brand of folk/rock/world/jazz, the notes penetrating all the way to the spine.
There were several highlights over the two sets, timing in at around an hour and a half and leaning on latest album Guided by Venus: an a capella Celtic ballad in ‘John Riley’, stirring ‘Wolf Sky’ and ‘Artemis’, a fetching rendition of ‘Horses’, two promising fairytale-inspired tunes being worked up for side project Don’t Be Scared, and Rule and guitar providing the encore, ‘La Vie En Rose’ (I think).
The sound was superb and the lighting rig sufficient to embellish the dark, romantic mood evoked by Rule’s music.
The night was well worth venturing out into the rain for, well priced and well presented. Blessed be, indeed.
Cute Macbeth tea towel, for the writer, reader or theatre lover who has everything? From Readers’ Niche. They have the same pattern on erasers, too — *chortle*.
And while I’m throwing shopping suggestions around for the festive crowd, one of my happiest hunting grounds for pressies for my Significant Other is Poppet Planet. We fell in love with Lisa Snellings’ work at World Fantasy in San Jose a couple of years back: writer poppets, Halloween poppets, Dr Who poppets, cute and melancholy and downright adorable poppets… oooh. Awesome service, too.
Tasty cover for Kirstyn’s Madigan Mine thanks to Piper, who is publishing the German edition — and keeping an English title. Not quite as poetic as the Aussie version, perhaps, but you get the gist straight up! The edition is due out … later.
Golem was staged in one of the downstairs theatres — there are three in total — and the set was spectacular. With seats ranged around three sides of the central stage, the rear wall of slatted timber was fronted by a grid sporting candles. The central stage was a rough timber floor which could be lifted away to reveal a mud hole — just what you need for making a golem.
The play is set, for the most part, inside a synagogue in Prague where the authorities are responding to the disappearance of some children by threatening a purge of the scapegoat Jewish ghetto. The opening scene has a young woman prone under a low-hanging candelabrum that is to die for. It gets cranked up and down by a winch at the back of the stage: it clunks most atmospherically and is one of the few physical props used in the play. At times, light beams through the rear wall to make criss-cross patterns on the floor; a spotlight weaves to show the golem’s location but it is left to the audience to fill in the details of the creature, created by the Rabbi to defend his people.
The aforementioned young lady is the centre of the piece; a rather mysterious woman employed as the maid who has undergone a severe trauma at the hands of one of the Rabbi’s former students who has shuffled off his mortal coil. There is magic and intrigue, and lots of discussion about humankind’s right to create life in the shape of itself a la God, and humour from an almost farcical emperor who is more dangerous than his camp demeanour might suggest. And of course there’s the faithful of the synagogue, primarily the driven Rabbi and his diffident, doubting student.
One of the most striking elements of the play is the music: male choir, at times joined by the young woman (the only female actor), and one over-long solo as actors scramble up ladders to light that impressive wall of candles though the lag — at least for those of us who can’t appreciate the drama of the song due to it being sung in, presumably, Yiddish — perhaps isn’t quite justified by the eventual effect.
The story itself is engaging, thanks to the power of the actors and their splendid singing voices, though there’s a wee logic bounce that, well, despite the explanation, kind of sticks in my throat in much the same way as a stone tablet inscribed with the secret name of God sticks in the mouth of a golem: we both find it hard to swallow. I can’t say more about that because it would ruin the attempted twist in the tale, though really, the twist is not that unexpected. Fortunately, it doesn’t really matter to the overall impact of the story.
Golems rule, okay?
Hannett, who shared the Aurealis Award for best fantasy short story with Angela Slatter for their co-written ‘February Dragon‘, knows her recipes. There’s just the right amount of fantasy in the dozen shorts here to make a very tasty meal indeed: it all looks very normal but the flavour, it really hits you.
Bluegrass Symphony an amazingly consistent and accomplished debut, and due out in August. A full review is at ASiF.
Continuum is over, my throat is sore, I’m a little tired: standard convention hangover, then. Kirstyn has a new Chronos award — for Madigan Mine. There was much talk of vampires, fairytales and steampunk. A debate about the pros and cons of immortality…
In short, it was an excellent con, with long dinners and impromptu panels at the bar, great company, some slivers of inspiration amongst the panels. Catherynne M Valente was an amazingly giving and erudite and witty guest who cut a hell of a rug on the dancefloor. Her comments about reviewing, made during a Writer and the Critic podcast, are worth catching up with.
Two of the most affecting panels I attended were both, not surprisingly, darkly themed, and I’ll single them out from what was a very strong line-up.
The first was late on opening night, Friday, and involved the attraction between horror and beauty. Kyla Ward read a superb poem in her inimitable, theatrical fashion; Kirstyn read from her spooky-sexy short story ‘Monsters Among Us’; and Talie Helene lifted the roof with an acapella rendition of a ghost folk song. Discussion was informed and interested and on-topic and reluctant to stop.
The next morning, Talie and Kyla backed up on a dark poetry panel with Earl Livings and Danny Lovecraft. Kyla blew the room away with an excerpt from ‘The Raven’ and Talie pretty much felled anyone left standing with some truly wrenching World War I poems. Great stuff. And do note that P’rea Press is releasing a collection of Kyla’s poetry later this year!
In my absence, the last short story I had roaming in the wild found a home — very happy about that! — and Devil Dolls and Duplicates in Australian Horror received a fetching review. Add in a splendid night last night with friends from up north and the good time vibe has definitely lingered…
We’ve already bought our memberships for next year’s Continuum, which is the natcon and boasts the awesome paring of Kelly Link and Alison Goodman as guests of honour. And then there’s the bid from Canberra for the 2013 natcon (at Anzac weekend) and London’s push for the 2014 Worldcon … Let the good times roll!
(the awards are for Victorian residents)
Best Long Fiction: Madigan Mine, Kirstyn McDermott (Pan MacMillan Australia)
Best Short Fiction: ‘Her Gallant Needs’, Paul Haines (Sprawl, Twelfth Planet Press)
Best Artwork: Australis Imaginarium cover, Shaun Tan (FableCroft Publishing)
Best Fan Writer: Alexandra Pierce
Best Fan Written Work: Review: The Secret Feminist Cabal by Helen Merrick, Alexandra Pierce
Best Fan Artwork: Continuum 6 props, Rachel Holkner
Best Fan Publication: Live Boxcutters Doctor Who at AussieCon IV, Josh Kinal and John Richards
Best Achievement: Programming at AussieCon IV, Sue Ann Barber and Grant Watson (lovely to hear these guys pay tribute to the non-Victorians who also contributed to the programming, an awesome effort all-round)
Note: the amazing Conquilt of signatures is up for grabs on eBay till 20 June.
I was saddened to hear tonight that the wonderful Ingrid Pitt has died.
Strangely enough, the news came just before Kirstyn and I went into the Joy 94.9 studio for a Sci-Fi and Squeam segment on Hammer Horror with a particular focus on the Karnstein Trilogy. (Dear Christopher Lee, please do take care of your health!)
Pitt starred in one of my favourite movies, The Vampire Lovers, a classic from the Hammer stable and the first of the Karnstein Trilogy, and also the erstwhile Countess Dracula (trailer). Non-horror viewers might know her from war film Where Eagles Dare.
But it was the elegance and fragility of Carmilla Karnstein that I most associate with the Polish actress who made her way to cult stardom in England. Vampire Lovers was one of the first movies to break the lesbian taboo on the mainstream big screen, and it did it with a poignancy that still holds in a day and age of much fancier sets and production values, and of course much greater overtness.
As one of Hammer’s women of horror, she’ll always be remembered.
Note to self: do not — DO NOT — leave it until the last minute to visit a best-selling exhibition.
I was mightily impressed by the Tim Burton exhibition at Melbourne’s ACMI, even if I could only see maybe half of it through the barely moving wall of heads and shoulders. There were LOTS of the gothically inclined directors drawings, both artistic and conceptual, dating back to his childhood, a stint with Disney, and of course, his famous work — Edward Scissorhands, A Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow, a touch of Sweeney Todd, to name some of my favourites.
In fact the exhibition was heavy on the artwork, showing his preoccupation with distorted perspective, particularly with the human form, body modification, zany critters, the lonely and the outsider, a touch of disfunctional family and the opposites that attract. Particularly eye-catching was a display of costumes featuring The Mad Hatter’s exquisite outfit from Alice in Wonderland, Catwoman’s slinky bodysuit from Batman (the Batmobile was parked in the foyer!) and, of course, Edward’s striking leather and scissor gloves. Add some puppets and sculptures and audio-visuals and you have a comprehensive round-up of the man’s career.
The audio tour (a mere $5, taking the price of admission to only a very reasonable $24) definitely value-added, with commentary from curators and Burton himself about the themes of his work.
And how great was it to see and hear Vincent Price in short early films being screened as part of the exhibit: a bizarre Hansel and Gretel with edible architecture and the touching stop-motion Vincent.
I’m sorry I didn’t take the opportunity to see the exhibit at a more relaxed time, but I’m glad I went, if only to appreciate the sheer magnitude of Burton’s creativity and imagination.
It’s old news, but it’s worth another bite: Stephen King, the man who brought us Salem’s Lot, is at it again, this time with a comic — American Vampire (note the rather tantalising hardover collection being plugged on his site — how long till Xmas?). King’s contributed a story to the opening gambit of the series, helmed by writer Scott Snyder and artist Rafael Albuquerque, aimed at putting the red back into the red, white and blue, he tells the Guardian, a kind of ‘so there’ to the fangheads with issues rather than appetites. Bless!
Salem’s Lot is an ace book, and I can’t help but wonder how it would go today, given the gorgeous slow burn as he lays the whole town out on the table before ripping it to bloody tatters. Not much teen angst and/or suppressed sexual tension going on in the vampire world, there; just a good old-fashioned homage to Stoker’s Dracula, beautifully done.
The link to top vampire books is worth a look, too.