About Me

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Perth, Western Australia, Australia
I am based in Perth, Western Australia. You might enjoy my books - The Dagger of Dresnia, the first book of the Talismans Trilogy, is available at all good online book shops as is Book two, The Cloak of Challiver. Book three, The Seer of Syland, is in preparation. I trained in piano and singing at the NSW Conservatorium of Music. I also trained in dance (Scully-Borovansky, WAAPA) and drama (NIDA). Since 1987 I have been writing reviews of performances in all genres for a variety of publications, including Music Maker, ArtsWest, Dance Australia, The Australian and others. Now semi-retired, I still write occasionally for the ArtsHub website.

My books

The first two books of my trilogy, The Talismans, (The Dagger of Dresnia, and book two, The Cloak of Challiver) are available in e-book format from Smashwords, Amazon and other online sellers. Book three of the trilogy, The Seer of Syland, is in preparation.I also have a short story, 'La Belle Dame', in print - see Mythic Resonance below - as well as well as a few poems in various places. The best way to contact me is via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/satimaflavell

Buy The Talismans

The first two books of The Talismans trilogy were published by Satalyte Publications, which, sadly, has gone out of business. However, The Dagger of Dresnia and The Cloak of Challiver are available as ebooks on the usual book-selling websites, and book three, The Seer of Syland, is in preparation. The easiest way to contact me is via Facebook.

The Dagger of Dresnia

The Dagger of Dresnia

The Cloak of Challiver, Book two of The Talismans

The Cloak of Challiver, Book two of The Talismans
Available as an e-book on Amazon and other online booksellers.

Mythic Resonance

Mythic Resonance

Mythic Resonance is an excellent anthology that includes my short story 'La Belle Dame', together with great stories from Alan Baxter, Donna Maree Hanson, Sue Burstynski, Nike Sulway and nine more fantastic authors! Just $US3.99 from Amazon. Got a Kindle? Check out Mythic Resonance.

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Places I've lived: Manchester, UK

Places I've lived: Manchester, UK

Places I've lived: Gippsland, Australia

Places I've lived: Gippsland, Australia

Places I've lived: Geelong, Australia

Places I've lived: Geelong,  Australia

Places I've lived: Tamworth, NSW

Places I've lived: Tamworth, NSW

Places I've Lived - Sydney

Places I've Lived - Sydney
Sydney Conservatorium - my old school

Places I've lived: Auckland, NZ

Places I've lived: Auckland, NZ

Places I've Lived: Mount Gambier

Places I've Lived: Mount Gambier
Blue Lake

Places I've lived: Adelaide, SA

Places I've lived: Adelaide, SA

Places I've Lived: Perth by Day

Places I've Lived: Perth by Day
From Kings Park

Places I've lived: High View, WV

Places I've lived: High View, WV

Places I've lived: Lynton, Devon, UK

Places I've lived: Lynton, Devon, UK

Places I've lived: Braemar, Scotland

Places I've lived: Braemar, Scotland

Places I've lived: Barre, MA, USA

Places I've lived: Barre, MA, USA

Places I've Lived: Perth by Night

Places I've Lived: Perth by Night
From Kings Park

Inner Peace Blog

Inner Peace Blog
Awarded by Joanna Fay. Click on the image to visit her lovely website!

Versatile Blogger Award

Versatile Blogger Award
Awarded by Kim Falconer. Click on the pic to check out her Quantum Astrology blog!

Fabulous Blog Award

Fabulous Blog Award
Awarded by Kathryn Warner. Click on the pic to check out her Edward II blog!

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Sunday 4 November 2007

The Nice and the Nasty

Several nice things have happened over the last few days. First, my friend and cousin-by-marriage Elfriede rang me from Germany, which was a delightful surprise as we hadn't chatted in a while. It's autumn over there, of course, and from the sound of things they are having pretty similar weather to us. It's still very cold here in the southeast of South Australia. We've gone back to twelve degrees Celsius during the day, complete with pouring rain and howling winds, and at night it's dropping to two or three degrees Celsius. Brr. The dearth of warm weather is one of the things I really don't like about living here. In fact, one not-nice thing that happened this week was an electricity bill for nearly $400! This flat has a built-in electric space heater and I've been very glad of it these last few months, but I've been dreading the bill. I've been paying a bit into the account every pension day but I'd still only paid half of it by the time the day of reckoning arrived. I hate to think what I've done to my carbon footprint, too. It's obvious that I'm going to have to allow $50 each and every pension day to pay for electricity. (Blankets and hot water bottles are fine, but they don't warm my hands while I'm typing and sometimes my frozen fingers just won't hit the right keys!) This amount is at least twice the budget I used to allow for electricity in Perth. Sometimes I think I might as well have stayed over there and gone broke as moved over here to do it! So thank heavens for the nice things. I'm trying to focus on them instead of panicking about finances.

Another nicey was a tiny Lotto win – probably only about $20 to collect but it will go towards that wretched bill! And one really exciting thing is that a friend in Perth has offered me a free plane trip over for sometime next year – WOW! I'll keep you posted on that one. Maybe I'll make it to Swancon after all!

The fourth nice thing is that over at Writer Unboxed there is an interview of one of my favourite writers, Jacqueline Carey, by another of my favourite writers, Juliet Marillier. The first of three parts is up here. The remaining two parts will appear on successive Fridays. The preceding post on the blog, Dear Charlotte is also Juliet's – it’s about Charlotte Bronte’s letters.

I'm afraid there's still nothing happening on the writing front apart from a bit of editing, and for the same reason as last week – I've been out most days and when I haven't been out I've been catching up on e-mails and critiquing. I'm starting to think that maybe I need this break from the WIP to allow the story and my handling of it to simmer for a while. Well, that's my excuse, anyway!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here in the Hills in Adelaide and in a 1950 double-brick house, it gets pretty freezing too at times. We've only had ducted gas central heating a couple of years and it's wonderful but the bills are phenomenal for that too.

Spaceheaters are just as much power-guzzlers though! Your bill is half as much as our central heating bill for keeping the entire house warm day and night all through winter.

I invested in fluffy acrylic jumpers, track suits and even thermal underwear to keep going, plus - believe it or not - silk nightgowns or pjs are fabulous insulators in summer or winter too. They're all cheap on eBay! A big help for typing was 'fingerless' gloves. I still use most of these to keep the thermostat down on the central heating.

Sometimes, before central heating, the warmest place in the house was in bed with electric blanket. That's when it's nice to have a laptop...

Anonymous said...

PS - and never forget Ugg boots!

Anonymous said...

You need a little dog to keep you warm, Satima!

Satima Flavell said...

Thanks for some excellent suggestions, guys:-) Actually I do most of them already, but I do like the fingerless gloves one. The dog is a good idea too but not in this flat, I'm afraid: the landlady would never approve!

Another friend - a Kiwi, of course; you guys know about cold! -told me to get woolly men's long johns! I have and oh boy are they ever warm! So on really cold days I get dressed by the amazing expensive heater then put my dressing gown back on over the top of the long johns and three more layers.

Am I a wimp, or what?

Unknown said...

The best cure for the cold is a steady supply of hot flashes. How do you think I survive the Alaskan winters? Yes, it's hot flashes. This state is a dream come true for the menopausal woman.

When hot flashes fail, layers work wonders. A nice thermal longjohn top, then a t-shirt. A sweatshirt over that. If you need extra clothing, a nice flannel shirt over that.

Thermal bottoms, covered with heavy jeans and/or sweat pants. And don't forget the socks.

And yes, the fingerless gloves are wonderful.

Satima Flavell said...

Hot flashes - heh heh. I'm too old for those now but your comment reminds me of a time when I was living at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. There were several menopausal women meditating together and we were all well rugged up in blankets, which we would individually shrug off and replace from time to time. Now and then one of us would get up an open the window and after a few minutes another would get up and shut the window. Each time there would be a hasty re-arrangement of blankets, depending on the hot flashes situation.

Yup, I could give lessons on hot flash meditations. But Alaskans know more about cold: more, even, than the Kiwis:-)I'll take your advice on the flannelette shirts, Jody. I used to wear those in NE too and had forgotten how useful they are.

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