This arrived today!
I am over the moon… Nugget would love my current state.
I love the cover.
I love that it’s a slip cover.
I love the image of the wombat and those with whom he interacts.
I love the little paw print at the end of the story and underneath the publisher’s name on the last page.
Being published is tremendous, talking with one’s readers even more so. I count myself fortunate to have been able to correspond with so many readers since 2008 owing to this amazing technological world we inhabit. But one of the most exciting developments in my writing life has been establishing the informal partnership with Pat Sweet.
I’m a miniature book collector, but I’m sure those of you who know Mesmered’s blog are quite aware of that. Quite aware also that I have an occasional creative partnership with a highly respected miniature bookmaker from the USA. Pat Sweet of Bo Press Miniature Books
On Friday, Bopress Miniature books asked if I was interested in writing a short-story about Gisborne for the studio to create and bind a special book. I needed no urging because last year the studio did a beautiful version of The Masked Ball around the time that we were actually holding a ‘virtual’ masked ball on the blog.
‘The strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him.’ (Garrett Fort)
When I was writing the first draft of Paperweights/Glass Flowers two years ago, I had constructed a crucial scene where the protagonists are chased through a forest at the risk of death.
What makes people become collectors? Is it something that chimes in the soul? Here in Australia, we have a marvellous TV show called Collectors. It isn’t Antiques Roadshow styled, although antiques feature. Essentially it is about the collections that people make, why they collect them, even where they collect their ephemera. I collect blue and white Cornish Ware because I love the colour and the stripes and it reminds me of everything that Rosamund Pilcher has ever written about. As a child I dabbled in stamps and then model farms made by Britains (which I still have and which Dad built farm fences for. And stables and a tack room and fed shed.). I collected dolls from different countries too and when I travelled to different parts of the world, I bought a gold charm in every city. I also collect old books that appeal: childrens’ books mostly.
I’ve not been able to get into the vampire in literature thing. Not in any way. Whilst I enjoyed the splendour of the Masked Ball in Van Helsing, much of the rest of dracule-infested life left me for dead, if you’ll pardon the pun!
My writing life has the capacity to be chaotic at the moment. Flittering from one direction is the fine-tuning of Paperweights, from another comes the continued creation of the story of The Shifu Cloth, from another direction still comes the writing of a short-story for Bo Press’s new limited edition Masked Ball box and book, and from the busiest corner of all, the development of the ‘virtual’ Masked Ball.
I’m still frantic editing Paperweights (again), so I’m leaving my blog in the very capable hands a long-distance friend of mine who is going to be helping me run the Masked Ball. She is a former costumier
