A Novelist Speaks: July 2011

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Vodka Martinis with Jeffery Deaver

A week ago, I did a spur-of-the-moment thing: I booked a ticket to attend a talk with Jeffery Deaver that very night. Usually I um and er about outings, particularly if they're to happen the same day. I consider the price. I consider the traffic. I consider, very considerately, my family abandoned to cook dinner for themselves as I swan out to hobnob with bestselling authors.

But abandon and hobnob I did. I had cocktail snacks. I drank a martini and a glass of bubbly. I listened to Jeffery, talked to the media and bought Carte Blanche.

Better than cooking dinner? You bet!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Review of Dead Red Heart

(Dead Red Heart is an anthology of vampire tales in Australia, which features one of my short stories, "Just a Matter Of Economics")

Excerpt from the review by She Never Slept:

"I have been fortunate in this volume not only to be entertained but to actually learn something as well. I recommend Dead Red Heart for readers without a fixed notion of what monsters should be like (or at least the ability to put those notions aside). Non-Australian cultures contain similar themes and myths (Adolf Bastian, a 19th century multidisciplinarian or polymath, called these commonalities in Elementargedanken or “elemental ideas”), but, due to regional proximity, these have their own heritage stamp.

These are cool stories and I believe anyone with an interest in world cultures will enjoy the folkloric as well as the modern ideas in this book. I give this collection 4 out of 5 tentacles."

Read the full review