About Me
- Satima Flavell
- 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 Cloak of Challiver, Book two of The Talismans
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.
Follow me on Twitter
Share a link on Twitter
For Readers, Writers & Editors
- A dilemma about characters
- Adelaide Writers Week, 2009
- Adjectives, commas and confusion
- An artist's conflict
- An editor's role
- Authorial voice, passive writing and the passive voice
- Common misuses: common expressions
- Common misuses: confusing words
- Common misuses: pronouns - subject and object
- Conversations with a character
- Critiquing Groups
- Does length matter?
- Dont sweat the small stuff: formatting
- Free help for writers
- How much magic is too much?
- Know your characters via astrology
- Like to be an editor?
- Modern Writing Techniques
- My best reads of 2007
- My best reads of 2008
- My favourite dead authors
- My favourite modern authors
- My influential authors
- Planning and Flimmering
- Planning vs Flimmering again
- Psychological Spec-Fic
- Readers' pet hates
- Reading, 2009
- Reality check: so you want to be a writer?
- Sensory detail is important!
- Speculative Fiction - what is it?
- Spelling reform?
- Substantive or linking verbs
- The creative cycle
- The promiscuous artist
- The revenge of omni rampant
- The value of "how-to" lists for writers
- Write a decent synopsis
- Write a review worth reading
- Writers block 1
- Writers block 2
- Writers block 3
- Writers need editors!
- Writers, Depression and Addiction
- Writing in dialect, accent or register
- Writing it Right: notes for apprentice authors
Interviews with authors
My Blog List
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How to Get (Sort Of, Maybe) Murdered By Me – For Charitable Purposes! - The folks at Locus magazine are running an auction of interesting stuff in order to help fund the (non-profit) organization for another year, and among the...8 hours ago
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Elyse Watches The Bachelor–S28 E9: Thanks Leslie - Tonight’s episode of The Bachelor is Fantasy Suites. This is where the host (Jesse Palmer) gives the couples creepy AF handwritten notes inviting them to s...8 hours ago
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Book Review Tiny Timmy #1- - Jill Smith’s Reviews > Tiny Timmy: Soccer Superstar! Tiny Timmy: Soccer Superstar! (Tiny Timmy #1)by Tim Cahill Jill Smith‘s review copyright Mar 16, 2024 ...9 hours ago
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Big Truths in Fiction - Last month while in Florida during multiple stops on book tour, I wore my “I survived reading banned books and all I got was smarter” t-shirt. How could ...15 hours ago
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Explore the history of Asia in ten stops [interactive map] - Explore the history of Asia in ten stops [interactive map] Embark on a captivating journey through pieces of the rich tapestry of Asian history with this...16 hours ago
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Chris Nickson - Chris Nickson is the author of eleven Tom Harper mysteries, eight highly acclaimed novels in the Richard Nottingham series, and six Simon Westow mysteries....21 hours ago
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1 Weird Trick To Avoid Using The Passive Voice In Your Writing - What Is The Passive Voice? The passive voice is a grammatical construction in which the subject of a sentence is acted upon by the verb, rather than perf...1 day ago
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Just Finished Reading… Of Judgement Fallen by Steven Veerapen. Edinburgh: Polygon, 2023 - This is the sequel to Of Blood Descended, in what I am guessing is the second of a duology, so… probably no more Anthony Blanke mysteries. Which woul...1 day ago
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"An '80s Tenement Love Story' from Bourbon Penn 31 an Aurealis Award Finalist - It's humbling to see my latest story "An '80s Tenement Love Story" recently announced as a finalist for an Aurealis Award. This is the second time I've ...2 days ago
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In which I can now worry significantly less about something terrible happening to 126 things... - I spent yesterday in Dallas, at the Heritage Auction headquarters -- I had decided to auction off some artwork and memorabilia to benefit two charities ...3 days ago
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Stories in Flowers by Caroline K. Mackenzie - Spring is on its way. It has been a long winter (or, at least, it feels that way) and the bursting of buds and arrival of flowers bring welcome signs of ...4 days ago
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How to Schedule Time for Writing - The post How to Schedule Time for Writing appeared first on ProBlogger. Maintaining Momentum in Blogging Series I find it is very easy to get distracted ...4 days ago
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The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 11: Reaper Man - As I said in the last entry in this series, it was more than a year before I was able to read a new Discworld novel after buying the hardback of Moving Pic...5 days ago
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A home: feels like a whirlwind - We’ve been home exactly one week. I was telling Matthew that I haven’t found my groove yet. I’m currently grooveless. Last post was from London. I don’t th...1 week ago
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A home: feels like a whirlwind - We’ve been home exactly one week. I was telling Matthew that I haven’t found my groove yet. I’m currently grooveless. Last post was from London. I don’t th...1 week ago
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Filling in the gaps: acquiring legislation from the Controller’s Library - In late November 2023, we uploaded to legislation.gov.uk the first batch of 7,000 items of historical legislation digitised from the Controller’s Library...1 week ago
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‘The Noble Salvidge’ in conversation with Will Yeoman at York Writers’ Festival - On April 13th I will be attending the York Writers’ Festival and appearing in conversation with WritingWA’s Will Yeoman. It looks like a really interesting...2 weeks ago
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Trip to Brazil 2024 - Landing in the Megalopolis of Sao Paulo On February 7th I flew to Sao Paulo, Brazil to start a 17 day teachi...2 weeks ago
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#2 - WEP Get Together - March 2024 - Hello fellow WEPpers and friends! Welcome to the second WEP Get Together! *Starting in April, we go bi-monthly. * The WEP team decided to keep in to...2 weeks ago
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Book Excerpt - 'From Superman to Spawn: How Hollywood Got Rich While Creators Got Poor' - The following is a work in progress. It is a chapter from my forthcoming book, From Superman to Spawn: How Hollywood Got Rich While Creators Got Poor.The b...3 weeks ago
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New chat on the Lovecraft Ezine - I had a great chat with Mike Davis of the Lovercraft Ezine. We talked about about social media for creators, about small-town horror, about my books, and...3 weeks ago
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3 “Easy” Steps for Cutting Words from Your Manuscript - *By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy * *Deleting words from your novel is easier than you think.* *Before I dive in, I'm guest posting at Writers in the Storm ...4 weeks ago
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Royal Travel: Two Months at Edward II's Court - Unlike later centuries when the monarch spent most of the year in and around London, and went on progresses in the summer when the city got too hot and sti...1 month ago
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Photo Parade 2023 - A bit of fun at the beginning of the new year. I’m following several German travel blogs, and that way came across the annual Photo Parade (Fotoparade) on ...2 months ago
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Happy Public Domain Day 2024, the end of copyright for 1928 works - My annual reminder that January 1st is Public Domain Day, and this year copyright has ended for books, movies, and music first published in the U.S. in 192...2 months ago
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The White Horse Band - Live Blues/Rock - 31 March 2023 Hi All, Time for some LIVE Video Music from me… (as opposed to my original stuff)…. I got into a blues/rock band for a one off gig at ...3 months ago
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Konrath Thanksgiving - Black Friday - Cyber Monday Kindle Bundle Sale - *Get all of my ebook box sets on Amazon Kindle for 99 cents each, November 23 - 28.* *THAT'S 33¢ PER BOOK!* Almost my entire backlist of fifty-four ebooks...4 months ago
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Questions from year 9 students - Recently – actually, not very recently but I somehow forgot to write this sooner – I did what has become an annual online Q&A with the Year 9 girls at Bedf...4 months ago
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On Ohio, and the novels, and the new class - Just small news here. The new class is finished in first draft, and I’m now (and for the first time ever) doing the complete course bug-hunt and clean-up B...5 months ago
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Big disruption hit book publishing before AI showed up - Publishers Weekly recently hosted a stimulating and smart online session about AI and publishing, thanks to the organizing and moderating skills of Peter...5 months ago
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Flogometer 1180 for Christian—will you be moved to turn the page? - Submissions sought. Get fresh eyes on your opening page. Submission directions below. The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me ...7 months ago
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Storny Weather - I've just been out fixing up the damage from last night's storm. This is pretty much the first time I've been able to spend much time outside and do any...7 months ago
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#347 - I've been querying agents for the last 6-months and have over 50 rejections. I'm not sure if my novel isn't very interesting/sellable or if my query let...7 months ago
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Parody - The other day, for the first time in a very long time, I heard the Barbie Song. So, being me, I decided to parody it, in hour of Alianore Audley and *The...7 months ago
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Parody - The other day, for the first time in a very long time, I heard the Barbie Song. So, being me, I decided to write a parody. Hope you like it! *Hiya, Ali...7 months ago
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To Live and Love - To live and love for the both of us Ten years ago today I made that vow I've struggled in the decade since Not always knowing exactly how Ten years you've...8 months ago
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“It’s Random” – a random scribble - “Why am I even here? It’s random. No Divine Thing. No actual “purpose” except what we make of it. I haven’t made anything of it except to be restless, to a...8 months ago
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#MemorialDay, remembering a female patriot ancestor - *© 2022 Christy K Robinson* We are taught stories about heroic men who gave their lives to bring independence and liberty to their families, friends--and...9 months ago
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Mother’s Day Celebration (for a week!) - Originally posted on IFWG Publishing: We publish a fair bit of horror in many sub-genres, and celebrating Mother’s Day shouldn’t be exempt from our itinera...9 months ago
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A tale of two titles - I have done something notably foolish. Which is perhaps nothing new, though the circumstances on this occasion are unusual. To whit, I am publishing two bo...11 months ago
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Poem: If Wishes were horses - A team of horses racing toward me Brown like the uniforms of soldiers fortressing me around Speckled like a found family, salt of the earth Whit...1 year ago
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another review for the Christmas Maze - *The Christmas Maze by Danny Fahey – a Review by David Collis* Why do we seek to be good, to make the world a better place? Why do we seek to be ethi...1 year ago
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Children’s Rights QLD Ambassador - Children’s Rights QLD appointed Karen Tyrrell (me) Ambassador for Logan City, ahead of Children’s Week, 24-29 Oct 2022. I’m an award-winning child-empowe...1 year ago
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ANWERING THE CALL: LESSONS FROM THE THRESHOLD - NEXT STORY SANCTUARY "Anwering the Call: Lessons from the Threshold" Sept. 20, 7 pm eastern $30 Online Whether you're starting a project, a school year, ...1 year ago
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The Green House, Chapters 1-4 (Revised) - [Dear Reader: Having refined my intentions for this novel based on a lot of recent thinking about life and art, I have restructured and revised the first f...1 year ago
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Publishing Contracts 101: Beware Internal Contradications - It should probably go without saying that you don't want your publishing contract to include clauses that contradict one another. Beyond any potential l...1 year ago
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Tara Sharp is back and in audio book - SHARP IS BACK! Marianne Delacourt and Twelfth Planet Press are delighted to announce the fifth Tara Sharp story, a novella entitled RAZOR SHARP, will be ...1 year ago
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Website Update - My website www.stephendedman.com has been updated, with details of my latest books; please check it out!2 years ago
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Non-Binary Authors To Read: July 2021 - Non-Binary Authors To Read is a regular column from A.C. Wise highlighting non-binary authors of speculative fiction and recommending a starting place fo...2 years ago
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ATTENTION: YOU CAN’T LOG IN HERE - Hey YOU! This isn’t the forum. You’re trying to login to the Web site. THE FORUMS ARE HERE: CLICK THIS The post ATTENTION: YOU CAN’T LOG IN HERE a...2 years ago
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I'M INSIDE A SHORT STORY!! - Ok everyone, you have to read this very short short story. Firstly because it is good, (check out the Bligh story within it too), but also because I'm ...2 years ago
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Grandmother Dragon Forever - It feels like centuries since the last time I wrote something for the Dragon Cave. Only something of great importance would drag me out of my retirement...3 years ago
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What communicates power? - Well, I have to say, I wasn't expecting to get this far behind on my reports on the show, but the launch month was very busy, and then the next month turne...3 years ago
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The Legendary Game Pac-Man Has No Meaning. - [image: The Legendary Game Pac-Man Has No Meaning.] The Legendary Game Pac-Man Has No Meaning. Let's take a look at how this word came about. Actually, P...4 years ago
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Readers Notice and They Care - Readers care about story details and they care about characters. Both last night and this afternoon I had conversations with readers upset about the way au...4 years ago
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Review of Verdi's MacBeth (WA Opera) - *Our president, Frances Dharmalingham, has written a critique of a recent visit to the opera: Verdi’s ‘Macbeth’.* At Christmas 2018, my family’s gift to ...4 years ago
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Breakout 3: tips for engaging your audience - Tips for engaging your audience: how to improve presentation, public speaking confidence and presence on stage, no matter how small the stage is. Present...4 years ago
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The Trains Don't Stop Here - It's been a long, long time since my last blog post. One of the main reasons for this – apart from life being way too busy in general – is that, in my dwin...4 years ago
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Portrait of a first generation freed African American family - Sanford Huggins (c.1844–1889) and Mary Ellen Pryor (c.1851–1889), his wife, passed the early years of their lives in Woodford County, Kentucky, and later...4 years ago
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Revisiting the Comma Splice - One of the difficulties as an editor, particularly when working with fiction, is to know when to be a stickler for the rules. For some people this is not a...4 years ago
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New releases - SFFBookBonanza - StoryOrigin - SciFi and Fantasy Book Sale - New Releases – Jul 2019 The latest and greatest new releases in Science Fiction and Fantasy books! New releases July 2019 99 cent sale - July 22nd - 28t...4 years ago
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Assassin’s Apprentice Read Along - This month, in preparation for the October release of the Illustrated 25th Anniversary edition of Assassin’s Apprentice, with interior art by Magali Villan...4 years ago
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STOLEN PICTURE OPTIONS TELEVISION RIGHTS TO BEN AARONOVITCH’S RIVERS OF LONDON - *STOLEN PICTURE OPTIONS TELEVISION RIGHTS TO BEN AARONOVITCH’S * *RIVERS OF LONDON* *London, UK: 29April 2019*: Nick Frost and Simon Pegg’s UK-based ...4 years ago
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A Movie That No Writer Should See Alone - Really. REALLY. Trust me on this. particularly since this film, ‘Can you ever forgive me?’, is based on a ‘True story’ – and too many writers will see too...5 years ago
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Review: Trace: who killed Maria James? - [image: Trace: who killed Maria James?] Trace: who killed Maria James? by Rachael Brown My rating: 5 of 5 stars Absolutely jaw-dropping, compelling readin...5 years ago
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Dance Photo Shoots - Photo Session Planning & Preparation Have you ever wanted to do a photo shoot for dance but have been a little unsure about how and what really happens? ...5 years ago
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On Indefinite Hiatus - (Which I pretty much have been from this site for a while already, but for real now.) You can find most archive content through the On Writing page, and li...6 years ago
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2017 Ditmar Winners Announced - Over the Queen’s Birthday weekend, spec fic fans gathered for Continuum 13: Triskaidekaphilia. Continuum is always a great convention, and this year it was...6 years ago
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Writing about the Crusades and talking about a "meddlesome priest" - The Middle Ages are in the news again, so here is a roundup of recent news articles. We start with three good reads from historians talking about the crusa...6 years ago
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The One and the Many – every Sunday - My first serious girlfriend came from good Roman Catholic stock. Having tried (and failed) to be raised as a Christian child and finding nothing but lifele...6 years ago
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A Shameless Plug Ian Likes: Bibliorati.com - A little-known fact is that I once had a gig reviewing books for five years. It was for a now-defunct website known as The Specusphere. It was awesome fun:...7 years ago
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Book Review - Nobody by Threasa Meads - Available from BooktopiaThe subtitle for this work is *A Liminal Autobiography*. Liminal: 1. relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process. 2...7 years ago
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A whole 'nother year-and-a-bit - Well, we have let this blog slip, haven't we? I guess Facebook has taken over from blogs to a very large degree, but I think there is still a need for blo...7 years ago
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2017 Potential Bee Calendar – & ladybirds and butterflies - Bees on flowers – all sorts of flowers (& bees) – and lady birds and butterflies. There were hundreds (literally) of photos to choose from. This is a small...7 years ago
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What is dyslexia? - *" **The bottob line it thit it doet exitt, no bitter whit nibe teottle give it(i.e ttecific lierning ditibility, etc) iccording to Thilly Thiywitz ( 2003)...8 years ago
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Rai stones - *(Paraphrased from Wikipedia)*: Rai stones were, and in some cases are still, the currency of the island once called Yap. *They are stone coins which at th...10 years ago
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Cherries In The Snow - This recipe is delicious and can also be made as a diet dessert by using fat and/or sugar free ingredients. It’s delicious and guests will think it took ...11 years ago
Favourite Sites
- Alan Baxter
- Andrew McKiernan
- Bren McDibble
- Celestine Lyons
- Guy Gavriel Kay
- Hal Spacejock (Simon Haynes)
- Inventing Reality
- Jacqueline Carey
- Jennifer Fallon
- Jessica Rydill
- Jessica Vivien
- Joel Fagin
- Juliet Marillier
- KA Bedford
- Karen Miller
- KSP Writers Centre
- Lynn Flewelling
- Marianne de Pierres
- Phill Berrie
- Ryan Flavell
- Satima's Professional Editing Services
- SF Novelists' Blog
- SF Signal
- Shane Jiraiya Cummings
- Society of Editors, WA
- Stephen Thompson
- Yellow wallpaper
Blog Archive
Places I've lived: Manchester, UK
Places I've lived: Gippsland, Australia
Places I've lived: Geelong, Australia
Places I've lived: Tamworth, NSW
Places I've Lived - Sydney
Places I've lived: Auckland, NZ
Places I've Lived: Mount Gambier
Places I've lived: Adelaide, SA
Places I've Lived: Perth by Day
Places I've lived: High View, WV
Places I've lived: Lynton, Devon, UK
Places I've lived: Braemar, Scotland
Places I've lived: Barre, MA, USA
Places I've Lived: Perth by Night
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Sunday 25 March 2012
On being an Aurealis judge
Sunday, March 25, 2012 |
Posted by
Satima Flavell
The Aurealis Awards are Australia's premier award for speculative fiction. There are fourteen awards each year, for best novel and best short story in each sub-genre (fantasy, horror and science fiction) together with best graphic novel, best young adult novel, best young adult short story, best children's novel, best children's illustrated work, best anthology and best collection. There is also the Peter McNamara Convenors' Award for excellence, which is judged by the convenors' panel. Each award requires three judges, which means the organisers have to find 39 good folk and true every year to undertake the onerous task. Several friends have been judges in the past and some have done it for several years in a row. 'How hard can it be?' I thought. 'I should also do my bit for the genre and put my hand up.'
And so it was that I came to be a judge for Fantasy Short Story section of the 2011 awards. Trust me to throw my hat in the ring for a year with a record number of entries! One hundred and seventy-two of them, to be precise. Eek!
We started reading at the end of 2011, and I seemed to be reading short stories back to back for over three months. Very little other reading and even less reviewing issued forth from my desk during the reading period, which co-incided with the final push to the finish line for the Specusphere's Mythic Resonance anthology, to which I was also committed. Remind me not to volunteer for two such major undertakings at the same time ever again!
The judging process for the Aurealis Awards is straightforward. Each of the three judges gives a mark out of ten to each and every story. The process is inevitably subjective. No matter how hard one tries to alot points for various essentials such as plot, structure, originality, quality of writing etc, in the end it comes down to personal preference. Furthermore, even though there were so many entries, we were bound by the contest rules, which stipulate that only five stories can go forward to the final round. And it is the five stories that attain the highest average mark, of course, that have to be selected. I gave the extremely high mark of 9.75 to one story, which I considered outstanding and as good as any short story I had ever read in my whole life, but sadly, one of the other judges didn't care for it at all so it didn't make the final cut.
In fact, of the 172 entries, I thought at least thirty were good enough to short-list. So there were at least 25 excellent stories that will never gain the appreciation they deserve, unless they are lucky enough to be among the winners in another award.
I was deeply saddened by this. We work so hard on our stories, but in the end it is the preferences of judges, agents or publishers that decides a story's fate.
I don't mean to gripe, because it's hard to imagine the system working any other way, but I do think it's sad that some excellent work never gets the exposure it deserves because it just doesn't happen to land on the desk of the right person at the right time. In the publishing world, for instance, a writer might have produced a lovely historical fantasy set in, say, China, and sends it to four literary agents. The first agent dislikes historical fantasy of all kinds and will not represent it. Another does not want any more historical fantasy writers at present, thank you. A third is looking for a historical fantasy set in Africa, not China. And the fourth has just signed an author with a nice Chinese historical fantasy, so will not want another any time in the near future. This is the kind of story that is repeated over and over again, be it in seeking an agent or a publisher or entering awards or competitions.
Oh well, to borrow an old saying, I guess 'that's showbusiness'! If we love writing enough, we'll keep writing anyway!
You can read the full list of 2011 Aurealis finalists in all sections at http://www.aurealisawards.com/finalists2011.pdf
And so it was that I came to be a judge for Fantasy Short Story section of the 2011 awards. Trust me to throw my hat in the ring for a year with a record number of entries! One hundred and seventy-two of them, to be precise. Eek!
We started reading at the end of 2011, and I seemed to be reading short stories back to back for over three months. Very little other reading and even less reviewing issued forth from my desk during the reading period, which co-incided with the final push to the finish line for the Specusphere's Mythic Resonance anthology, to which I was also committed. Remind me not to volunteer for two such major undertakings at the same time ever again!
The judging process for the Aurealis Awards is straightforward. Each of the three judges gives a mark out of ten to each and every story. The process is inevitably subjective. No matter how hard one tries to alot points for various essentials such as plot, structure, originality, quality of writing etc, in the end it comes down to personal preference. Furthermore, even though there were so many entries, we were bound by the contest rules, which stipulate that only five stories can go forward to the final round. And it is the five stories that attain the highest average mark, of course, that have to be selected. I gave the extremely high mark of 9.75 to one story, which I considered outstanding and as good as any short story I had ever read in my whole life, but sadly, one of the other judges didn't care for it at all so it didn't make the final cut.
In fact, of the 172 entries, I thought at least thirty were good enough to short-list. So there were at least 25 excellent stories that will never gain the appreciation they deserve, unless they are lucky enough to be among the winners in another award.
I was deeply saddened by this. We work so hard on our stories, but in the end it is the preferences of judges, agents or publishers that decides a story's fate.
I don't mean to gripe, because it's hard to imagine the system working any other way, but I do think it's sad that some excellent work never gets the exposure it deserves because it just doesn't happen to land on the desk of the right person at the right time. In the publishing world, for instance, a writer might have produced a lovely historical fantasy set in, say, China, and sends it to four literary agents. The first agent dislikes historical fantasy of all kinds and will not represent it. Another does not want any more historical fantasy writers at present, thank you. A third is looking for a historical fantasy set in Africa, not China. And the fourth has just signed an author with a nice Chinese historical fantasy, so will not want another any time in the near future. This is the kind of story that is repeated over and over again, be it in seeking an agent or a publisher or entering awards or competitions.
Oh well, to borrow an old saying, I guess 'that's showbusiness'! If we love writing enough, we'll keep writing anyway!
You can read the full list of 2011 Aurealis finalists in all sections at http://www.aurealisawards.com/finalists2011.pdf
Labels:
Aurealis awards
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2
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Wednesday 21 March 2012
Guest posts at The Great Raven
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 |
Posted by
Satima Flavell
Over at The Great Raven blog, fellow scribe Sue Burstynski is running a series of guest posts from people who were involved in writing and/or producing the Mythic Resonance anthology. It was my turn earlier this week - you can read my post at http://suebursztynski.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/saga-of-short-story-by-satima-flavell.html - and while you're there, stay and check out some of the other guest posts! Collectively, they give quite a bit of insight into how such an anthology is put together.
Labels:
Sue Bursztynski
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0
comments
Saturday 3 March 2012
Hey, I'm a real live published author!
Saturday, March 03, 2012 |
Posted by
Satima Flavell
And the reason for my upgrade is that the Specusphere's long-awaited anthology, Mythic Resonance, is hot off the press and ready for purchase. You can buy hard copy at the great price of only $19.95. An e-book version is also available for just $3.99! (See link in the margin.)
Mythic Resonance contains a lovely line-up of stories and authors, including my own effort, 'La Belle Dame'. It's a sad story (a spin-off, of course, from the Keats poem) but there are also funny ones and thought-provoking ones. We selected fourteen stories from over 50 submissions. I hope our readers will agree that we have a nice blend of adaptations from myths, legends and fairy tales. Here's the final line-up:
The Salted Heart — N A Sulway
The Everywhere and the Always — Alan Baxter
Annabel and the Witch — Paul Freeman
Through these eyes I see — Donna Maree Hanson
A Tale of Publication — Les Zigomanis
La Belle Dame — Satima Flavell
Glorious Destiny — Steven Gepp
Meeting my Renaissance Man — Vicky Daddo
Wetlands — Jen White
Man’s Best Friend — Tom Williams
In Paradise, Trapped — Kelly Dillon
Holly and Iron — Nigel Read
Brothers — Sue Bursztynski
So I'm in good company, aren't I? Several of those authors have novels in print and most of them have been published in other anthologies. And I didn't get on on the strength of being a Specusphere editor, either - the stories were read 'blind' and mine was picked by one of the readers as her favourite one of all!
The anthology was edited by Stephen Thompson, with contributing editors Amanda Greenslade, Sue Hammond, Linda Stewart and me, together with associate editors Astrid Cooper and Jennie Kremmer. Amanda is also responsible for the beautiful cover, all that tricky design and layout stuff and the atmospheric book trailer, which you can watch here on YouTube. If Amanda's lovely work whets your appetite, check out the story excerpts. I do hope you love them enough to buy a copy!
Mythic Resonance contains a lovely line-up of stories and authors, including my own effort, 'La Belle Dame'. It's a sad story (a spin-off, of course, from the Keats poem) but there are also funny ones and thought-provoking ones. We selected fourteen stories from over 50 submissions. I hope our readers will agree that we have a nice blend of adaptations from myths, legends and fairy tales. Here's the final line-up:
The Salted Heart — N A Sulway
The Everywhere and the Always — Alan Baxter
Annabel and the Witch — Paul Freeman
Through these eyes I see — Donna Maree Hanson
A Tale of Publication — Les Zigomanis
La Belle Dame — Satima Flavell
Glorious Destiny — Steven Gepp
Meeting my Renaissance Man — Vicky Daddo
Wetlands — Jen White
Man’s Best Friend — Tom Williams
In Paradise, Trapped — Kelly Dillon
Holly and Iron — Nigel Read
Brothers — Sue Bursztynski
So I'm in good company, aren't I? Several of those authors have novels in print and most of them have been published in other anthologies. And I didn't get on on the strength of being a Specusphere editor, either - the stories were read 'blind' and mine was picked by one of the readers as her favourite one of all!
The anthology was edited by Stephen Thompson, with contributing editors Amanda Greenslade, Sue Hammond, Linda Stewart and me, together with associate editors Astrid Cooper and Jennie Kremmer. Amanda is also responsible for the beautiful cover, all that tricky design and layout stuff and the atmospheric book trailer, which you can watch here on YouTube. If Amanda's lovely work whets your appetite, check out the story excerpts. I do hope you love them enough to buy a copy!
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