• …
  • About
  • Vampire Month Alumni
  • World Book Night

Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: guest posts

[Vampire Month] Rose Jones interview

22 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

A word in your ear, Ann Rice, Bath, Dracula, Greek Myth, guest posts, HG Wells, House of Lillith, Moonlight, Paul Gallico, Prague, Randall and Hopkirk (deceased), Rose Jones, Rose Senior, Shades, Snow Goose, White Thorn


Our next victim is Rose Jones, author of the Shades series among other things. Rose is currently the fourth and therefore last victim our vampiric interviewer has lined up this year, though there were rumblings of a fifth person who had caught our attention… whether our interviewer manages to catch that person before the end of the month remains to be seen… if not we can leave them hanging in the pantry for next year.

41toqhyyppl-_ux250_

 

  • What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

 

I still have notebooks from my Primary School days where I wrote stories about time travel at about age seven. My first published piece was a poem in a school magazine when I was eleven, about rainbows and thunderstorms.

  • When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

 

I’ve spent too much time keeping my writing to myself. I think at some point to have to publish somewhere, just to stop tweaking and re-tweaking a project. Like a painter, if you spend too much time messing with the composition you can ruin it. Besides, I like to share. Story telling is all about sharing isn’t it? Making some money out of it would be nice too, but that’s not why I write.

  • What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

 

As a teenager around 13, I wrote two scripts for my then favourite TV show (Randall & Hopkirk Deceased) – I thought I could do as well, if not better than one particular scriptwriter on the show. I think that ever since then my main strength has been in dialogue. I hate writing long exposition and tedious descriptions and I prefer not to dump long words that make you reach for the dictionary! I like to keep things simple and put in just enough to let the reader form their own world from my words.

I think my greatest weakness is dwelling on criticisms and procrastinating too much. Writing is a very personal thing; well it is for me; but I have learned to harden myself to at least constructive criticism. We need to understand how others see our work and it’s an important part of the writer’s journey. We can’t grow unless we learn and we can’t learn unless we can accept criticism. Procrastination is something I’m still working on!

  • Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

 

I live in a small town between Bristol and Bath in the UK. I haven’t really used my home environment as inspiration, but I have used past experiences and places where I have been on holiday. Sometimes I pick a location just because I want to get some spatial awareness of it for a project – such as Prague for my current project, White Thorn. I’m looking forward to seeing if it got it right in Savannah, for my Shades plotline. As a geographer and a historian I think it’s important to maintain spatial continuity and research your material well enough to avoid the major faux pas. Quite often I find that researching a place or a time gives me ideas to advance the story I’m working on. It’s one of the good reasons to side track and procrastinate!

  • Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

 

51cc7ly30ol-_sx331_bo1204203200_Difficult question as there isn’t just one. As a child I absorbed the Greek myths and Arabian Nights and the various fairy stories. I also loved the Trigan Empire strips, which probably spurred on my interest in Science Fiction – along with Thunderbirds and Star Trek. My favourite book is probably Paul Gallico’s The Snow Goose and my favourite Science Fiction book is HG Wells’ The Invisible Man. When I write SF, it tends not to be hard science, but soft, psychological issues. I like using mythology and SF to play with ideas that plague us in the modern world. It gives you a different perspective.

  • What drove you to write about Vampires?

 

I’ve always been interested in mythology and the supernatural and I went through a phase in my youth where I read everything I could about ghosts and spirits. Liminal spaces and metaphysics fascinate me. Playing with ideas in fiction is a way to try and get a handle on these slippery issues.

As for vampires, I woke up one morning with a cracker of an idea involving a character who might be seen as one. I wrote it down real quick as the detail of dreams tend to vanish like a will o’the wisp and it’s still in my box of futures. It’ll be a cracker when I finally get round to it, but it still needs a lot more work.

I was never really interested in vampires in fiction though until the short-lived TV series Moonlight. I enjoyed the different take on the genre as I was never into horror and gratuitous bloodletting. This is still the case. In my opinion, there always has to be a reason for someone to behave the way they do. When the show was cancelled, I decided to try my hand at writing in the genre with a similar sympathetic vein (!) and in the process of research, got stuck in to all the vampire fiction out there to see where mine might fit and to try and provide something different. I read the good, the bad and the atrocious, the classical and the modern, but in the absence of much ‘factual’ evidence, I found out how writers had manipulated the mythology for their own purposes. I have now followed suit and done the same myself.

  • What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

 

It’s the lure of immortality and how we might cope with it. It’s how we deal with otherness and the scope of time. In some areas, like the JR Ward Black Dagger Brotherhood, and its knock offs, it’s definitely the sex. For me it’s how you cope with desire and how you learn to fit in with a world that is different from you. The genre appeals to young adults because for teenagers, it’s a time of change in their lives, of feeling alienated, of having feelings and emotions they might have difficulty controlling or expressing. They also feel as if they’re immortal.

I personally like the vampire novels that have a historical flashback element. You can see the past through their eyes, as well as their present. A previous favourite show/film was Highlander, which did this really well. The immortals in that are similar to vampires, but they’re not bloodsuckers. Another current favourite is the Outlander series (books and TV – no vampires, but the person out of time trope and the history hopping is similar)

  • In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

 

In the literary realm, I still don’t think you can beat Dracula, but Marcus in Ann Rice’s books, rates up there, as does Yarbro’s Count St Germain. I also like Matthew in Deborah Harkness’s All Souls trilogy, Henry in Blood Ties and the Charlaine Harris books (but not the TV series). TV it has to be Mick St John and Eric Northman (So sue me, I made an exception to the True Blood, but then he was my favourite in the books too).

  • What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

 

Are we talking vampires or me here? As Mick St John said in Moonlight ‘perpetual coolness is the vampires’ curse’. I just dress for comfort, but try to be quirky where I can. Sexiness – that’s none of your business! As for sexy vampires, it’s Mick and Eric for me.

  • How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

 

They’d definitely kick ass whoever they were up against. After all, some of them have managed to survive for thousands of years. My male protagonist is a newbie, but he’s learning and being taught by the best. He has a conscience, but that’s not going to stop him surviving and protecting the people he loves.

  • Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel. 51linlhvlal-_sx258_bo1204203200_

 

White Thorn is the third novel in the Shades series, the first two being Shades and House of Lilith. The first two books interweave the story of the main protagonist and his associates with the story of the characters they play on the TV show they are making. This means that you get two completely different novels between one set of covers, linked by the actors. This gave me an opportunity to write two different versions of the vampire genre. Flashbacks with a difference! In the third book, my protagonist is still acting, but the Shades TV series is over, so the storyline is concentrated just on the problems he has to face in real life. I am hoping to eventually write the story of the film he is making, but it will be a standalone Noir novella.

At the beginning of this third novel, my protagonist, Alex Keating, is still coming to terms with the fallout from events in House of Lilith, as well as with his new life as a vampire. The story picks up from the end of the last book which ended with him and his ancient vampire wife, Lilith going to visit the others of her kind. He then comes back to a new filming project and has to get back to pretending he’s a normal human. He and his assistant, Annabel, go off to Prague to film a cold war drama.

Alex hopes that his life will settle down after the excitement of his first year as a vampire, but it seems trouble can be found in Eastern Europe, not least from his mortal co star, who seems determined to get him in her bed. The filming does not run smoothly and he is running out of blood supplies, due to delays on the production and a rogue vampire who seems to have an agenda of his own. This results in Alex being staked by a vampire-killing priest and rescued by another of his kind who is known for writing historical fiction. Together they hunt for a vampire serial killer who is murdering women in the city. Alex finds that real life seems determined to overshadow his acting yet again. The denouement of the story happens with a fight to the death on a rain soaked night on the roof of St Vitus Cathedral. There are flashbacks in this novel, but this time they give the reader the back story of the serial killer.

 

Bio:

Rose has been putting pen to paper and fingers to keyboard all her adult life. She lives near Bath, UK with her ‘rocket scientist’ husband and a house full of books and quirky stuff. She considers herself to be a recorder of moments in time and is a keen photographer as well as a writer. The picture for the covers of her books were taken by her. She has a Masters in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology and a love of all things mythological, paranormal, really ancient and really futuristic. She loves to travel, both in body and mind. She doesn’t really mind where, so long as it’s interesting and there’s something to learn.

Listen to two of Rose’s short stories as performed by actors from Word in Your Ear  in Bath at these links:

http://www.awordinyourear.org.uk/storyfridayarchive/story-fridays-harvest/

http://www.awordinyourear.org.uk/storyfridayarchive/black-sheep-2/

 

IN THE SHADOWS, A VAMPIRE LURKS… by Megan Cashman

13 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

books, guest posts, Lestat, Megan Cashman, Vampire, Vampire Month, Vampires


Today we have a guest post from Megan Cashman, author of The Dark Proposal. Here she speaks about the social isolation of vampires.

IN THE SHADOWS, A VAMPIRE LURKS…

                Vampires are often portrayed as living apart from the human world. They have to avoid sunlight, and humans are their blood source. These creatures of the night tend to rarely interact with humans on a personal level, and if they do, their motivations may not be so kind.Image

Which makes one wonder: how would a vampire see the human world? They live detached from it, sometimes for many centuries. Even a newborn vampire would have to eventually let go of their emotional connection to humans so they can adjust to their new existence.

So what does the human world mean to vampires, aside from being sources of nourishment? I would think they obviously see us as being physically weaker, and maybe that would inspire a vampire to see themselves as superior, at least physically. That doesn’t seem avoidable.

What about our intellectual level? If a vampire has been around for ages, then it has consumed enough knowledge and possibly intelligence to outdo many smart humans. Now if that vampire is a dimwit, then it is a question if that can be cured after many centuries.

How about our emotions? I’m sure vampires feel empathy for their own, but it will be hard for a vampire to have much empathy for its source of blood. How many of us think of cows or pigs when we eat beef or pork? You might if you were a vegetarian or vegan. But if a vampire drinks from humans, then it could have the same attitude that we have toward the animals we eat.

This is why vampires can be such frightening creatures. They are definitely stronger, possibly smarter, and less emotionally inclined towards us. Depending on the vampire’s age, there’s a chance that spending centuries living apart from humans has decreased any empathy levels the vampire might have. It certainly doesn’t help if humans are its source of blood, and it certainly doesn’t help that a vampire has more strength and life experience to likely look down at humans. So, I would not be so surprised if a vampire is callous and even brutal towards humans.

If it were compassionate toward humans, I would wonder its age. Is it a few years into its vampire existence? Then it’s still holding on to its humanity. A few decades old? Then its probably being nostalgic. A few centuries? I would say that compassion is an act and I would advise anyone to think twice of ever spending a few minutes with that vampire. Unless, of course, it has enough age and experience to trick anyone into thinking it is not a vampire, and one with ulterior motives.

If you are interested in learning more about Megan, feel free to explore the following links:

Blog: megancashmanbooks.wordpress.com
Twitter: @MeganCashman
Facebook: Facebook.com/megancashmanbooks
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6519000.Megan_Cashman
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009AL4RKE
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/276775

[Vampire Month] Interview with Isabella Favilli

08 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ann Rice, Bites, Dracula, Fine art, graphic designer, Graphic Novel, guest posts, Interviews, Isabella Favilli, Last of the Blood, Lestat, Ninfa Hayes, Photography, Vampire Month, Vampires


Here we have an interview with Isabella Favilli, a former graphic designer turned fine artist turned photography editor turned graphic novel artist…

1) What is the first thing you remember drawing or painting?
A horse, I was four and everyone was kinda impressed, my mom still has it.Isabella
2) When did you first think you might be able to make a living as an artist?
When I was choosing my high school at fourteen, the idea was to become a graphic designer but after graduating after 5 years I realized that it was not the kind of art I loved the most; Fine Art was more what I loved and althought I was not quite sure I could make a living out of it, I still loved to paint and draw, but it stayed as a hobby for a long time, there was not much work to be found back in Italy.

3) What would you consider to be your greatest strength as an artist? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?
My greatest strength is something I have been told more than realized myself.
People often tell me that the people (fantasy or real) that I make a portrait of have eyes with a soul, they can communicate real emotions, which I think it is a good thing.
My weakness? I sometimes think I might not be anything special to stand out.
As for how I overcome my weakness, I try to listen to my heart and how it feels when I look at my art work, and I also listen to what other people feel about my work, see if they receive the message I was trying to put into it; sometimes we are our worse critic, but what’s more important to me is that my work makes someone feel something, even if it isn’t what I was trying to say, any interpretation is as valid.

Figurative Art is a bit like music, it can take people to their personal place and it does not matter if it is not the same as the one that inspired the artist, once it is out, it’s for everyone to see in it what they like. It’s not good to be stuck to your own interpretation.

Petrov

Petrov

4) Tell us about the places where you have lived. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?
I was born in Rome, Italy and lived there till i was twenty six, when I moved in Manchester, and after I had my daughter in 2009, I moved in Yorkshire.
I have visited many regions in Italy, Tuscany is one of my favourite and I spent a very long time in it, I found Prague very inspiring and Paris. I particularly enjoyed seeing The Impressionists in Jeux De Paume in Paris, because together with Caravaggio they are my favourite painters.
Being born in Rome has surely given me an input when it comes to the variety of Art I got to see live, but my favourite subjects are people more than places; I have however painted a scene which was inspired by ancient roman ruins, it is still one of my favourite paintings and my best friend has proudly hanged it in her living room, when I look at it I can almost smell the air of my home town.

5) What would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?
I find my heart’s darkest places to be the greatest influence, pouring that darkness out has often helped me overcome the toughest times of my life.

6) What appeals to you about Vampires?
The are beautiful, immortal and merciless but some humanity still lingers in them. I like that battle behind their eyes: between their hunger and their feelings.

7) What do you think is the attraction for Vampires? Why are they such a popular topic?
I think there is something very erotic in them, and that battle I was talking about is often present in us humans. The instinct of our nature often battles against our feelings or our society conventions. I see my own struggles in them sometimes, I am sure many others do to.kiSS
And just imagine, being immortal and powerful, with great power of seduction, I think there is a lot to be attracted to.

8) In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?
Lestat: no one has killed him yet. He has been burnt, switched body, taken to Hell, taken to Heaven, loved, killed… he is around, as glorious as he has ever been.

9) What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?
Dracula, from the movie Dracula 2000 by Wes Craven. I
have never seen a sexier vampire than the Dracula that walks in the Virgin
Store  in Dracula 2000. Gerard Butler totally got the sexiness of his character, even the Scottish accent suits him! Ok, I do have bias in this case tho…
Gary Oldman also did an amazing job as Dracula, the moment in the movie that he introduces himself to Mina is a total swoon, it is also my favourite Dracula movie, I have seen it more times that I can count and know it by heart.

 

10) How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?
I am afraid my characters would not stand a chance between the most powerful and the most ancient vampire, but then again they would probably be willing victims. I think my characters secretly dream to be Lestat or Dracula’s eternal companion.

11) Tell us about your latest work.
It’s a vampire kiss, only the mouths are visible, are they gonna bite? Are they gonna kiss? There is a suspension there, open to everyone’s fantasy.

I also drew the characters from a novel called The Last Of The Blood, they don’t look particularly vampirish, but they are none the less vampires. I liked the story, written by Ninfa Hayes, and felt inspired.

[Vampire Month] Doing what you love by Isabella Favilli

06 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

art, Bites, books, Fine art, graphic designer, guest posts, horror, Isabella Favilli, Last of the Blood, Ninfa Hayes, Vampires


My name is Isabella Favilli and I was born in Rome in 1973, I moved in UK in 1999 and after spending nine years in Manchester I moved in Yorkshire with my boyfriend, my daughter and my pooch and lived there since. Isabella

I like to think about myself as born with a pencil in my hand, as I cannot recall a moment in my life in which I didn’t like drawing.

I can remember myself drawing as early as back to my first childhood memories; all I wished for were colours and sketch pads, I loved nothing more than to spend hours drawing the fantasy stories I created in my head.

I used to copy Manga cartoons, as they were incredibly popular in Italy back in the 80s and 90s.

At school I truly excelled in Artistic subjects so it seemed like a natural step when it came to my education to pursue my love for drawing too.

I always thought that I would have ended up attending Art Lyceum and then Art Academy, but when the time to make the choice came, I was advised to go for Graphic Design instead, because at the time it was a very sough after job and many schools in Italy were creating courses to be trained to such a career.

Nataliya_human I must admit, when I graduated I did leave with a much more refined hand and more expertise in various techniques but with hindsight, my first idea would have suited me best.

After spending a year working in a Graphic Design studio it became clear to me that Graphic Design was not my passion at all and that Fine Art was what I truly loved.

There was no room for an artist in the employment world, especially in Rome, where you are lucky if you get a cleaning job with recommendation. For many years I didn’t know what to do with myself but never stopped drawing just for the pleasure of it.

Eventually I gave up on making my talent a bread winner and left it for my pleasure only, I would just grab whatever job I could, and at some point I moved in UK.

I think I never really put the pencil/brush down for a long time, until I moved to Yorkshire and I became a stay at home mom.

I suppose I was too immersed in my new role that I felt like I really didn’t have time for myself, in fact at some point I felt like I forgot who I was.

I could feel I was unsatisfied with my life but could not really grasp why, until one random evening one year ago I found myself talking to a total stranger on Twitter.

This person had just spoken of how they totally moved from one career to another, doing what they really loved, they had described their feeling before deciding to become who they really wanted to be, and I saw myself in them: deep inside I was unsatisfied with who I was just like them had been.kiSS

So, I told them that, I told them I was feeling that way and I didn’t know anymore where I was going; they asked me what I enjoyed to do, and it came out as easy as a breath “drawing”, and I haven’t done it in ages.

Their reply to me was very simple and to the point “Then draw, do whatever makes you happy”.

It’s strange how sometimes, a random person can give you more insight to your true self that your own self, but that’s how I came back to my first love.

Together with drawing there is always been another passion/obsession, and that was vampires, so it is really no surprise my first subject after my re-awakening happened to be the character of Ninfa Hayes’ novel The Last Of The Blood.

KatrineI am currently working to turn the novel into a comic/manga, but I have noticed how  this subject seems to find me when I am planning to draw something else  too.

There is something incredibly sensual in drawing by hand, I cannot find the same feeling when I use a computer tablet or a graphic software. It is in the holding of your pencils, the brushing through the paper or the feeling of the colour, it is a physical sensation just as intense as a vampire kiss, not that I have ever been kissed by a vampire, but I guess the idea that I have of it mirrors sometimes my art: while consuming the graphite, squeezing the colour and spreading it on a piece of paper I create a new, strange immortal life, a bit like a vampire kiss.

I put my whole soul in any drawing I do, because most of all I draw for the love of it, and if it becomes my bread winner jolly good.

 

[Guest Post] Paige Dearth – write what you know.

18 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Believe Like a Child, books, guest blogging, guest posts, Paige Dearth, Thriller, When Smiles Fade, Write what you know, writing


Making Connections Paige Dearth

Today we focus on the work of Paige Dearth, author of Believe Like a Child and When Smiles Fade.

In her debut novel, Believe like a Child, the main character Alessa is the victim of child abuse from her uncle. The story is one of redemption and of a woman taking control of her own life.

In When Smiles Fade, her latest novel released this year, the main character Emma is also abused as a child as you can see from this synopsis:

Emma was unloved from the moment she was born. Her earliest memory is being severely beaten by her father, Pepper Murphy, when she was just eight-yearsold. Seething with resentment over the sacrifice of his dreams for a woman he cares little about and children he never wanted, Pepper chooses to blame his older daughter. Her mother, Valerie, makes matters worse with her verbal abuse, leaving Emma isolated with a man that had no boundaries in punishing his daughter, taking his abuse to unimaginable levels. Emma’s father’s coldblooded beatings and the ultimate abuse to which he subjects her, lays the foundation of the person she becomes. As she matures into a resourceful teenager, she is unwilling and unable to stifle her desire for revenge. Reaching her breaking point she can no longer control the impulse to fight back and finally takes matters into her own hands. Having learned the art of hatred from her father and the mastery of manipulation from her mother, young Emma now sets out to make a better life for herself, leaving the memory of the abused child she had once been behind her. Hardened by the heartless brutality she encounters and the dangerous situations she must overcome in the course of her journey, she faces every challenge that comes her way in her quest for a normal life for herself and for those she loves. Finally a person emerges from within that guides her toward a better life until she learns of a secret that sets her on the path of ultimate redemption.

Both stories contain inspiration taken from Paige’s own life. She herself was a victim of child abuse at an early age and spent her childhood not believing that she had the potential to much in the way of ambition. When she finally went to college at the age of 29, she did not even believe that she was capable of passing the college level courses and yet she finally left college with an MBA 8 years later and a feeling that she had conquered her fear of learning. There followed a successful career in corporate America and finally a writing career that has seen her earn a finalist place in the thriller category of the National Indie Excellence Book Awards. Paige’s own life is an example of someone seeking to improve their lot.

So, both novels mirror events in Paige’s life, she has used her real life to inspire her writing. This ties in with the common author’s adage of ‘write what you know’. This saying is often mocked, especially in fantasy and SF, because you cannot ‘know’ what it is like to be a Dragon or an Orc or a wizard. However, this is applying an ad absurdum argument because there are still elements of a person’s life which will apply to any fictional character. Likewise in a suspense thriller, there are almost certainly going to be things in there that an author has not experienced but the trick is to take the things that have happened to you and apply them. Writing what you know is all about adding a level of emotional veracity to the writing that is conveyed to the reader. The use of the term ‘what you know’ is actually a misnomer as it really is not about knowledge at all. Knowledge is what you get from books and, these days, from the internet – whether by looking something up on Google or (as commonly happens) asking a question on a forum populated by experts in that area. Instead it is all about the experience – the emotional and physical impact that this has on you as an individual. I believe that this level of veracity is important. You don’t need to necessarily add emotional context to every event in your story but it does help if you have some personal life experiences you can call upon if needed. They may not be as traumatic as those described here, I would not wish such things on anyone if it could be at all avoided, but any life event can be useful – the tastes of food, the smell of the inside of a car, what it feels like to spend all day in a library reading ancient books. An author should be prepared to reflect upon their experiences and consider what they can learn from them and what they can use to improve their writing.

You can find out more about Paige on her website: www.paigedearth.com.

You can buy her books on the following links:

Believe Like a Child (US)

Believe Like a Child (UK)

When Smiles Fade (US)

When Smiles Fade (UK)

Later this year she also plans to release her third novel so please keep an eye out for that.

Tennis and Football stars from Newcastle by Dr. Jo Bath

04 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

books, city of newcastle upon tyne, Dr. Jo Bath, Football, guest blogging, guest posts, history, Mary Brown, Munitionettes, Muriel Robb, nooks and crannies, Publication, refined ladies, sports, St James Park, Tennis, The British Ladies' Football Club, welsh championships, Wimbledon, wimbledon champion, Women, writing


Today’s guest post is by Dr. Jo Bath, co-author of The Newcastle Book of Days, which is a collection of ‘On this Day’ style anecdotes and historical snippets centred around the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne. Being as how it is a city close to my heart, being close to where I was born, my interest is especially piqued by this book. I even remember some of the events described, including the building of the Metro described below. Here she talks about some of the stories she came across when writing the book, including one that is very relevant in Wimbledon season…

Muriel Robb

One of the best things about writing a Book of Days has been the freedom to explore more or less any aspect of local history that caught my eye. Of course, some things were always going to be included in one form or another. You can’t cover Newcastle’s history without referring to, for instance, the Great Fire which devastated the Quayside on October 6th 1854, the development of Grainger Town or the birth of the Metro (the largest urban transport project of twentieth-century Britain). But what really excited me were the nooks and crannies of the city’s history, the almost-forgotten figures and stories which have all, in their way, made the place what it is today.

I’m sitting in my office listening to the tennis, and that reminds me that Newcastle has a Wimbledon champion all of its own in 23-year-old Jesmond-based Muriel Robb. Admittedly her victory was on July 2nd 1902, so the contest was very different from the modern game. Wimbledon merely hosted the English National Championships (though participants did come from further afield – Robb had already won the Irish, Scottish and Welsh Championships). At the time, the women’s game was quite sedate, with underarm serves delivered by refined ladies in floor-length dresses and straw hats. But Robb was a blast of fresh air. Despite the handicap of corsetry, she was a relatively speedy mover and probably the first woman to serve overarm. Contemporary Arthur Myers said that “her command of the ball was so striking, her forehand drives so deadly, and her overhead service so effective, while her self-possession was so apparent,” that her opponents were often placed at a disadvantage.
Remarkably, due to a strange decision Robb’s Wimbledon final, against defending champion Charlotte Sterry, was the longest women’s Wimbledon final in history. The match was drawn at a set each when rain stopped play. Rather than playing a deciding set the next day, the committee decided to wipe the scoreboard and start from scratch! This time, Robb won comfortably – after playing a total of 53 games. Despite her powerful play, her health was never that robust, and she retired later the same year. She died less than five years later, of unknown causes – the youngest Wimbledon champion ever to die.

armstrong_munitionettes

Armstrong Munitionettes

Speaking of female sports players, Newcastle’s ladies (as you might expect) were also pioneers on the football field. The British Ladies’ Football Club played at St James’ Park on April 20th, 1895, only a month after they formed, and a crowd of 8,000 gathered to watch the “spectacle”. The reporter for the Sporting Man was obviously confused by the whole thing, and spent all his time describing the women’s attire. He concluded that “the young women presented a pretty appearance on the field, and this was in great measure due to the nice assortment of colours, as well as the dainty way the women set them off”! The quality of football played on this occasion is unclear, but certainly twenty years later a new generation of teenage girls embraced the sport with enthusiasm. The Munitionettes League was formed in 1917, made up of teams from the women workers of the factories of the north-east, and was the first ever league for women’s football. Made obsolete by the end of the war, the League lasted less than three years, but St James’ Park, host to the cup final, saw some remarkable young women in action. Mary Brown, playing for Palmer’s of Jarrow, not only played in the 1919 final (March 22nd) but at 14 was the youngest-ever footballer, of either gender, to play for England!

Interview with Neelima Vinod

09 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

books, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dracula, good poems, greatest weakness, guest blogging, guest posts, Interviews, Neelima Vinod, paranormal romance, poetry books, sense of rhythm, Unsettled, Vampire Month, Vampires, writing, Yakshi


Today we are back with Neelima Vinod, author of the recently released novella, Unsettled. Neelima was originally supposed to be contributing this interview to Vampire month but circumstances conspired and instead she sent us a piece of fiction. I promised her the chance to answer the Vampire month questions when her book finally came out and so here are her answers…70112929-019 copy

1) What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

I remember writing  letters to my grandparents on blue envelopes that doubled as writing paper. I wrote to them at great length about the things that I did and the books I was reading. I wrote poems a great deal as well. When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step? After my sons were born. It’s been seven years since I made that decision. I had always chosen to do jobs that had a lot to do with language like editing, and literature, like teaching. But  it was not enough. I needed to write more. So I wrote for magazines and blogs. I worked on writing fiction and poetry that I would like.  I searched a long time for my voice. When I was presented with an opportunity to write a novella last year, it happened easily.

2) What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

My strength has to be my love for poetry- that gives me a sense of rhythm when I write. The amazing part of the digital age is the immense access you have to poetry. Although poetry books are not flying off the shelves, there are archives and archives of good poems and readings. This ability to read almost any poem out there has opened my world.  My weakness is that I keep editing what I write. That slows my pace. What I try to do now is write continuously without being overburdened by the possibility of change. Yet I keep faltering….

3) Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

Well my ebook ‘Unsettled’ is straight out of the place where my ancestors lived. The same hundred roomed house, no ghosts though! I’m romantically attached to Kerala in southern India,  especially my mother’s ancestral homeland. I visit Kerala often and  the images of the sunny green palm studded landscape seem to have seeped into my heart and mind.

4unsettled-200x300) Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

Wuthering Heights is a book that I love- it’s the first book about haunted love that held my undivided attention.  The Victorian writers set the stage for the paranormal excesses that we see today.

5) What drove you to write about Vampires?

The story ‘Unsettled’ has a vampire seductress- what is called a yakshi in subcontinental literature. I grew up listening to stories about yakshis- my mother and grandmother are good story tellers. As they spoke about their lives, I lived those lives too and the idea of a yakshi appealed to me a great deal.  A yakshi is normally pictured as insensitive in stories and movies, though she is also worshipped in some parts. The female stereotype irked me a great deal- the idea seemed absurd that a beautiful woman would hang on a tree and devour innocent men who could not help being tempted by their delicious floral scent. The yakshi will make a night of it and then devour the innocent man and leave his nails and hair like trophies for all to see. Why is she so angry? I often wondered. So I decided that my yakshi would be less woman, though she is terribly attractive, and more human.

6) What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

There are so many people in one person- a part of each of us is fascinated by negativity as it is as much a part of life as all things bright and beautiful. People read vampire fiction for thrills- it makes you feel terribly alive when you read it.

7) In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

You can’t beat Count Dracula….he’s a precursor of all the fanged blood suckers that come after.

8) What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

I’m hoping Thathri, my yakshi would win that one Her kohl drenched eyes and lustrous hair give her a slight advantage.

9) How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

Well the Count may just get smitten by the yakshi…she’s far too seductive to ignore.

10) Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

The story is about a search for love. When a couple who fall out of love go in search of the scrolls of love, they come face to face with a paranormal reality. A yakshi guards the scrolls at the hundred roomed house- she has been haunting the Big House for centuries. Although the book is about an outward search, it is a psychological drama of a seductress who is angry at the deck of cards called life she’s been given. The story goes back and forth in time- there is the present disillusioned Indian couple and there is a story that happened five centuries ago.  We all search for love but suppose our search is the very basis of the existence of someone else’s memory? What then? That’s what I wanted to talk about.

Unsettled: A summary by Neelima Vinod

05 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

books, court poet, divya, guest blogging, guest posts, Neelima Vinod, paranormal romance, raghav, Scrolls of Love, Unsettled, Vampires, writing, Yakshi


You may remember Neelima from her appearance in Vampire Month in March this year. When Vampire Month was going live, she was on the verge of releasing her new novella – Unsettled – but did not really have much to tell us about it. This has now been rectified. Unsettled is out now and here Neelima tells us all about it…70112929-019 copy

Unsettled: A summary

The e-novella ‘Unsettled’ is about a search. We all go out in search of something, don’t we? Life is that. This story is set in the subcontinent- a young couple, Divya and Raghav,  have fallen out of love. They meet Dr. Ray with his unconventional methods. He zeroes in on the primary problem in their marriage. The only thing that can fix it is a search for the Scrolls of Love. Anyone who gets their hands on these scrolls will fall in love again, so goes the myth.

There’s a story behind the Scrolls of Love as well- I go back in time, five centuries ago in fact, to tell you the story of these scrolls of love, actually poems written by a court poet who was banished into Cherakad, a snake-infested forest land. Once a court poet, now a homeless man, the court poet walks into a house with one hundred rooms.

The unhappy couple walk into the same house centuries later. There they meet a femme fatale Yakshi spirit, drowned in centuries of loneliness. She’s a vampire seductress who refuses to bury memories and has a taste(a serious hunger) for young men. She knows what the couple are looking for and she is not the sort who will part with what Divya wants most.

unsettled-200x300Where does the search take them? That is what ‘Unsettled’ is all about.

Here’s a link to the book page: http://indireads.com/unsettled

Here’s a link to my author profile at Indireads: http://www.indireads.com/ir_author/neelima/

Bio: Neelima writes fiction and blogs poetry @ neelthemuse.wordpress.com. She’s written a book with a paranormal twist which will be coming out soon.

[Vampire Month] Lynda Bester Interview

08 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

books, guest blogging, guest posts, Lynda Bester, Mermaids, paranormal romance, South Africa, Total Surrender, Vampires, writing


Today’s victim for the Vampire Month interrogation chair is Lynda Bester. She lives in Florida, South Africa and is the author of Total Surrender and apparently has a lot of other books in the pipeline covering a range of genres. Check out her webpage on lyndabester.co.za.lyndabestercropped

1) What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

I was no spring chicken. I was in grade 12, so 17or so and lamenting the fact that I always did so badly in English. Then one day it occurred to me that considering how many books I read that surely I should be able to write. And as they say, the rest is history.

2) When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

Total Surrender was my first book, and it was published September 2012, so last year.

3) What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

I think my greatest strength is I write with humour. No matter how hard I try to make my characters serious, I don’t always
succeed. Although let me add, the one time I set out to right a really humorous book, my character was so, so serious that I didn’t know what to do with him.

My greatest weakness…mmm….well, I have been told I must show instead of tell, and as soon as I figure out how THAT works, I will attempt to correct it.

4) Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

I live in South Africa, on the West Rand in Florida – yes there is one in South Africa as well! –  South Africa is really beautiful, but so far I have not incorporated it into any of my books. I am planning to write an ‘end of the world book’ that will hinge nearly completely on my neighbourhood and surrounding areas.

image0025) Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

I love books. Ever since my teacher in primary school (grade 5 or so) advised me to read more because it would improve my spelling (I still cannot spell to save my life!) I began to devour books. I actually don’t remember much about my high school and would probably walk right past someone who sat next to me in class and not remember them because my head was always in a book. But it was when I read Christine Feehan’s Dark Prince that I was exposed to a world that totally captivated me.

6) What drove you to write about Vampires?

Well as I said, I was totally inspired and set out to read as many vampire books as I could. But there came a day – at the time a very sad day – when I had nothing to read (sacrilege!), so I decided, why not write my own vampire book. And there you have it. The H’lix and Gorr vampires were born.

7) What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?
I think it is all the possibilities that it offers. There is the hot sexy men. The beautiful sultry women. Eternal life and
the selling point for me? Not having to cook or go grocery shopping again. (I am talking about the blood only vamps. Oooh, maybe I can come up with a name for them? You know, like vegetarians have? Or is there already a name for that, besides vampire I mean? What about haemotarian? Or Haemovore? Is that already taken? If not I call COPYWRITE!) Sorry, sometimes I ramble on. (Oh! Just
thought of another one! Bloody guts! Or should that be bloody gutses? Huh? Huh? What do you think? Yes? No? You can vote on it!)

8) In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

Dracula. Cause he is the original (I think) so he has all the moves. Unless Jackie Chang had to be turned, then all bets are off. OR Chuck Norris. Wait, he won’t even have to be turned.

9) What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

Well my vamps are quite hot. But um let’s see…I think J R Wards

Vamps are quite sizzling in the dress department and out of it if you know what I mean. But then again, there is a lot to be said for the elegance of the vampires of old. I like leather and exposed flesh and sweaty…so either one I suppose. But I think the Black Dagger Brotherhood.2Mermaid's Cove book cover

10) How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?
I think Devlin would stomp anyone of them if they threatened Sable. But other than that he would just smirk at them and walk
away.

11) Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

If my mean my latest, latest novel, well then that is about mermaids. It should be on Amazon as we speak. Mermaid’s Cove. Sorry vampire fans!! But I do have a number of vampire books in the pipeline, including the really serious vamp one and book 2 and 3 and 4 etc of the Surrender Series. Dark Surrender should be out by June 2013. But to get back to my latest novel, it hinges around a piece of land that the mer-people desperately need to keep safe, so to ‘protect’ it from the greedy humans, they have drawn up a contract with the land owners, that basically states that the land can never be sold etc. but the current land owner, knows nothing about the contract because his parents were killed before he could be told.

[Giveaway] Remember the Stars by Natalie-Nicole Bates

07 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Giveaway

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Amazon, books, Giveaway, guest blogging, guest posts, Natalie-Nicole Bates, paranormal romance


Remember%20the%20Stars%20cover

Today we take a break from Vampire Month to consider some Paranormal Romance. Natalie-Nicole Bates is here to tell us all about Remember the Stars and has a giveaway for us to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Click the link above to enter the competition to win a $10 Amazon Gift voucher which could be used to buy a copy of Remember the Stars (or, if you already own that, my book 🙂 ). Full details of Remember the Stars are included below along with how you can contact Natalie-Nicole Bates to learn more about her work.

Blurb:

Waking up in the gutter, for Leah Rhodes, life as she knows it has just changed forever. In the dark surroundings of her distant past, a familiar man stands out in the confusion. But Remy Moreland has been dead for years.

It soon becomes apparent to Leah that both she and Remy are trapped in a hell of their own making. Can one night together not only lead to the way out, but to love as well?

Buy Remember the Stars from Amazon

Buy Remember the Stars direct from the Publisher

Excerpt from Remember the Stars:

Barefoot, she crossed the dark street and began making her way in the direction of the police station. If she remembered correctly, it was three blocks away. A chill rose on her skin as she tried to remain focused. She concentrated on taking one agonizing footstep in front of the other.

When she crossed over the first street, she stopped to rest beneath a street light. Leaning up against the side of a brick house, she took notice of how eerily quiet her surroundings were. The only sound was her own breathing. There simply was nothing, and no one. Was she truly alone? She wondered.

She shook off the intrusive thought. Of course she wasn’t alone. Remy Moreland was real. Well, the late Remy Moreland was sort of real. Maybe surreal was a better word.

He had spun some tale of purgatory, of languishing between life and death. Then a thought struck her like a blow from above.

What if he was telling the truth?

Social Media Links for Natalie-Nicole Bates:

Twitter: @ BatesNatalie    https://twitter.com/BatesNatalie

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/natalienicole.bates

Blog: www.natalienicolebates.com

You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/natalienicolebates

← Older posts

Twitter Updates

  • @CBRedWriter Its well deserved. 3 weeks ago
  • @faithdlee Yes, amazing disco. Much 80s. 1 month ago
  • Just entered the Resistance competition on @PurplePort #photo #competition #PurplePort purpleport.com/competition/vi… 1 month ago
  • Just entered the Cosplay competition on @PurplePort #photo #competition #PurplePort purpleport.com/competition/vi… 2 months ago
  • Just entered the Arriving or leaving competition on @PurplePort #photo #competition #PurplePort purpleport.com/competition/vi… 4 months ago
Follow @areteus

Like me on Facebook

Like me on Facebook

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join the Lurkers

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,006 other followers

Recent Posts

  • Eastercon Artshow
  • Interview: Gillian Polack
  • Blending the Con
  • The Elementals: Russell A Smith interview.
  • New Year Dog

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Lurking Musings
    • Join 2,006 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Lurking Musings
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...