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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Tuesday 21 January 2014

The value of critiquing groups



Part three of my path to publication!

Here in Perth, Western Australia, we writers are much blessed. We have the four writers centres, and furthermore, an amazing number of published authors in many different genres live here: more, I am sure, per head of population than anywhere else in the world!

We also have the Perth Writers Festival, and in 2002 I went to hear several interesting and useful talks and panel discussions. Two participants who particularly impressed me were Juliet Marillier and Michèle Drouart. Juliet spoke of her heartfelt interest in folklore and fairy tales, which so much influenced her work. Michèle spoke of her experience of living in the Middle East, and what an influence that had been on her life and her writing. I resolved to watch out for their books and to take teaching from them if ever the opportunity presented itself.

And both opportunities came up within a few months of each other. Late in 2003, just as I was struggling with the plot of my trilogy, Juliet Marillier ran a course for novelists at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre. It was called Tough Love, and the main things we learnt were the bases of critiquing: how to critique constructively and how not to take criticism personally. We critted each other’s work and several of us begged Juliet to run another course. But she had books to write, so she was too busy for more teaching at that stage.

But early in 2004 I saw a newspaper advert for a course run by Michèle Drouart. I signed up eagerly, and soon had plenty of opportunities to put my fledgling critiquing skills into operation. Michèle is a brilliant critiquer. She has a knack of seeing exactly what is wrong with a manuscript and making constructive suggestions for improvement.

When that course ended, I joined the Online Writers Workshop. This has got to be one of the best writing sites on the internet. Quite a number of professional writers have cut their teeth there. I learnt a lot about writing techniques at OWW, and honed my critiquing skills as well. It’s a funny thing, but you learn more about writing from critiquing than you do from receiving critiques, and more, even, than you do in formal classes. OWW is one of the best proving grounds for would-be authors and I recommend it highly.

At the same time, I joined Michèle Drouart’s advanced class, which was largely based on the same principle: learning through critiquing. A bit later, I joined another crit group with people who had done Juliet Marillier’s Tough Love course Of the four of us, one is an established author, another has her first novel in print and the other has found an agent – and now I, too, have sold my first book!

Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre, Greenmount, WA
Crit groups, however, come and go, and that seems to be the natural scheme of things. With the exception of huge outfits like OWW, they run their course and are gone, usually within a year or two, maybe five years at the most. So it’s good to belong to at least a couple of groups, one established one and one start-up. All this time, I had been a member of the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre, where, as well as Juliet Marillier’s Tough Love course, I did lots of workshops with other local writers, including Rosanne Dingli, Glenda Larke and Dave Luckett. It was Dave who founded the KSP SF group, to which I still belong. I don't get to meetings often, though, because I now live a considerable distance away. I have had kind and supportive critiquing partners in that group, too

All this group-joining happened over a couple of years, and in 2005 I first started to send the MS out to publishers and agents. It was not ready for publication, though, even though I’d done all that study and critiquing, so it was given short shrift. Without my realising it, I had one important thing still to learn. What was it? I’ll tell you next time.

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