Words and Music: The Fair

February 13th, 2022 · No Comments

Here’s the second installment in my collaboration with my husband on “words and music”. This passage for COLD HILLSIDE is the most description-heavy of the excerpts I chose for this project.  It’s the first introduction to the fey and I wanted to try to capture their elusive, unreal qualities before the later part of the […]

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Tags: Books · Music · Uncategorized

Reviews (Part II) and leaving the harbour again. Maybe.

December 6th, 2015 · No Comments

It’s been a year since Cold Hillside was released, which seems unbelievable.  (What, you haven’t read it? Go read it. f you have, thanks!) I would like to thank everyone who took the time to post a review on Goodreads or Amazon or reviewed it on their site. It’s been really gratifying that most of the people who enjoyed […]

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Tags: Books · Influences · Writing

Back in the World: Matriarchy Edition

October 17th, 2015 · No Comments

  There have been one or two comments about the fact that Cold Hillside appears to be set in a matriarchy.  One person objected to this, on the grounds that reverse oppression is not an improvement over the original brand (a fair opinion). I didn’t set out to create a matriarchical culture for Lushan.  The […]

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Tags: Books · Influences · Uncategorized · Writing

The sound of my voice (on reading aloud)

March 1st, 2015 · No Comments

    I just finished the rather long process of recording an audio version of Cold Hillside as a gift to a friend. I’m not a bad reader, but it was definitely a challenge.  First of all, I had to actually listen to a few audio books.  I found that interesting but time-consuming – I could have […]

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Tags: Books · Writing

Nature, description and breaking the rules

August 4th, 2014 · No Comments

    I know that Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules for writing include “Don’t go into great detail describing places and things” but I love writing those. Part of the pleasure of travelling is watching out the window of the train, finding ways to describe what I see, or discovering the perfect graffiti on a dumpster […]

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Tags: Influences · Writing

Cold Hillside Cover!

June 7th, 2014 · No Comments

The cover of Cold Hillside is done and it’s gorgeous.  It wasn’t at all what I was expecting but it works on many levels with the story.  Thanks to Vince Haig and the team at ChiZine.            

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Tags: Uncategorized