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
Buy The Talismans
The Dagger of Dresnia
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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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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On Authors Behaving Unprofessionally! - Recently there have been online discussions about a young woman in the US who got on a committee that was choosing books for study at her university specif...1 hour ago
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Well, That's a Fail - I'm talking about NaNoWriMo because let's face it if I've only managed about 6,000 words by now the hope of reaching 50,000 is long gone. I have reasons ...2 hours ago
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NaNoWriMo Update – Day 20 - I haven’t been updating daily but I’ve been going well. I’m editing and with the 1 hour for 1000 words equation I’m now up to 43,550 words. I’m on a final ...4 hours ago
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Original Art Stories: Miller v Varley: Stolen Art Allegations - The most recent court case involving comic book creators landed on Monday, 18 November 2019, and it's a doozy! I have to admit that when I saw the name 'Fr...
6 hours ago -
Charlie’s Angels (2019) - I saw Charlie’s Angels by myself in a theatre the Friday of opening weekend. It was absolutely delightful, and immediately upon exiting I told Amanda that ...8 hours ago
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Reader Request Week 2019 #4: The Things You Outgrow - For this entry, Amysrevenge wants to know about: Things you fall out of love with as you age. Example: Heinlein was super relevant to 22 year old me in 199...12 hours ago
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How to Write a Real Page-Turner, Part 5 - *By Laurisa White Reyes, @lwreyesPart of the How They Do It Series * *JH: Laurisa White Reyes wraps up her How to Write a Page-Turner series today a sur...
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And . . . Scene! - Dan Brown has mastered the art of writing books that are hard to put down. This is remarkable because, in the course of most of his novels, he ...16 hours ago
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From Stradivari to Spotify: How new technology has always inspired new music - Successful composers, authors, and scientists have distinctive writing styles which define all their works. They are rarely in isolation from their conte...17 hours ago
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Howard Andrew Jones - Howard Jones’s debut historical fantasy novel, The Desert of Souls (2011), was widely acclaimed by influential publications like Library Journal, Kirkus, a...
21 hours ago -
Bowling, Our Monday, Orkin Men - Sorry, but despite all the good wishes, I didn't bowl that well, not as appallingly badly as last time and at least I did get a few strikes and spares. I ...
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Book of the Month Club: Founding Feminisms in Medieval Studies - Our next book in the Book of the Month Club will be Founding Feminisms in Medieval Studies: Essays in Honor of E. Jane Burns, edited by Laine E. Doggett an...1 day ago
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On the Smugglers’ Radar - “On The Smugglers’ Radar” is a feature for books that have caught our eye: books we have heard of via other bloggers, directly from publishers, and/or fr...1 day ago
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Suffragettes and the Black Friday protests: 18 November 1910 - The 18th of November 1910 is one of the iconic dates in the history of the women’s suffrage movement – a day of dramatic events that changed the movement...1 day ago
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IN OUR GARDEN - In our garden yesterday... A large stick insect. From tip of antenae to tail it was about 15 cms or 6" in length. And in other news, *THE FUGITIVE QUEEN ...
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In The Spotlight: John Steinbeck’s Top 6 Writing Tips - All About John Steinbeck John Steinbeck’s an author best known for the Pulitzer-prize winning The Grapes of Wrath and his novella, Of Mice And Men. (Went...1 day ago
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Blind Spots and White Rooms - What are the things you don't see? Sometimes a story will feature sections of bare dialogue. These are like overhearing a conversation, and you have to gue...
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Of Great Men by L.J. Trafford - Rome being grand. Photo by Scott Rowland Ancient Rome is awash with Great Men, particularly in the era of the Republic when Rome was conquering all in he...
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Documentary about Edward II on Arte - Last year, I was interviewed in Cologne for a documentary about Edward II, which was shown on the Arte TV channel (a French-German collaboration) yesterday...
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Highlights from the UK and Ireland Trip Part 3 - I’m sorry it’s taken a bit to get this third post together, but life! We spent about four days in London, mostly so we could go to the Harry Potter Experie...4 days ago
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Highlights from the UK and Ireland Trip Part 3 - I’m sorry it’s taken a bit to get this third post together, but life! We spent about four days in London, mostly so we could go to the Harry Potter Experie...4 days ago
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Scandal Engulfs Independent Publisher ChiZine Publications - *Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware®* If you're not part of the horror or speculative fiction community, you may not be aware of the scandal th...
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# OCTOBER WINNER'S POST - READ ABOUT WRITER"S BLOCK & HOW BERNADETTE TACKLES IT - *Nila here again! * *I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating, like all good things - what a crop of superlative writing the October HORRIBLE...
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How I Lived Off ProBlogger for 2 Years and Made $50,000+ in 3 Months - The post How I Lived Off ProBlogger for 2 Years and Made $50,000+ in 3 Months appeared first on ProBlogger. The last three years have been full of memora...5 days ago
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Flogometer 1112 for Diane — Prologue is a go, but I wish the chapter had kept up the pace - Submissions sought. Get fresh eyes on your opening page. Submission directions below. The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me ...6 days ago
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First snow in 30 years, and huge strides on the Dead Man’s Party revision - We knew yesterday there would be snow today. I made Matt promise to get me up when it started — and around 4AM, the snow began. (He was editing someone’s ...1 week ago
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STOP the Bully Audiobook Giveaway - STOP the Bully Audiobook Giveaway STOP the Bully audiobook is now available to empower children and families world-wide. … through humour. I’m thrilled ...1 week ago
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Stalking Daylight - My SF screenplay Stalking Daylight scored an honourable mention in the Truant Pictures screenplay competition. Looks like they picked a lot of horror, so a...2 weeks ago
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Stressed about Stress Awareness Week - Apparently it’s National Stress Awareness Week and as usual I didn’t know this in time. I say “as usual” because I almost never know what Read the full ar...2 weeks ago
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HECATE'S DAUGHTER: LISTENING FOR THE CRIES OF THE WORLD - *This is from an old 2018 blog post, never more relevant than today.* Hecate, goddess of thresholds, mystery, magic, and the moon, via Jean Bakula, www.je...
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#ScaryStories on Twitter - This writing business is a weird gig at the best of times. Sometimes, it’s downright bizarre. And usually lots of fun (not counting the endless waiting a...2 weeks ago
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Nano Again - It is almost November again which means I'm going to participate in the National Novel Writing Month and won't update my blog. Unfortunately, there won'...
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Subtext in scene/dialogue - I'm looking for examples of subtext within a scene, especially in dialogue. Any ideas? Here's one- Let's say that Tommy is keeping a secret from his co-wor...4 weeks ago
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NaNoWriMo 2019 - November 1, or the start of NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner. Basically, NaNoWriMo is about writing a 50K work novel i...4 weeks ago
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To Rosemounde - [image: Geoffrey Chaucer] Geoffrey Chaucer A Balade. Ma dame, ye ben of al beaute shryne As fer as cercled is the mapamonde; For as the cristall glorious y...
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7 ways book publishing will change over the next few years - A prior post described the new structure of the book publishing ecosystem. In the past three decades, we have migrated away from a world where a publishe...1 month ago
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#331 - I have so many questions, but I’ll whittle them down to two. First, do you think I’m correct in describing this as literary fiction? Second, some agents ...2 months 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...
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Who needs meatballs when you can have beetballs - Originally posted on The Salted Turnip: 1 cup quinoa I beetroot finely diced Handful of finely diced pumpkin Bunch of mint leaves finely diced 1/2 sweet po...2 months ago
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Review: Gift of Revelation by Robert Fleming - Gift of Revelation (Urban Books) Kindle Edition by Robert Fleming (Author) Here's the blurb: In this third installment of the Gift series, Reverend Clint...2 months 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...2 months ago
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Review of Bell's Much Ado about Nothing - Bell Shakespeare's *Much Ado About Nothing* 2019-07-07 reviewed by Frances, our president. A group from the Shakespeare Club went last week to see the B...3 months ago
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3 *More* New Books, FYI! - Y’know, there are just days when you publish ten books. Happens to the best of us. TEARS BEFORE HALF-TIME: Twelve-year-old Jamie gets swept into the world...3 months ago
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Brian Wainwright "How I Wish I Had Written That" Award for 2019 - The coveted and prestigious *Brian Wainwright "How I Wish I Had Written That" Award for 2019* goes to the late, great and much lamented *Edith Pargeter*...3 months 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...3 months 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 - 28th ...
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We'll Stand in That Place and Other Stories Book Launch - *We'll Stand in That Place and Other Stories *Ed. Michelle Cahill, which includes my latest story "The Do" will be launched at the gorgeous Readings Book S...
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Summertime at LOW - Summertime greenery in Maryland Hi friends, We are now in the middle of summer here in Maryland, and we have had a series of visitors, our longest retr...
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An Obscure Lady of the Garter - Recently, for the purposes of writing fiction, I had cause to check who was admitted to the Garter in 1387. (This is the sort of weird stuff I do all th...5 months 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...6 months ago
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It's the End of the (Fringe) World As We Know It... - I didn't get to the Fringe World Awards because I was volunteering at another venue at the time, which is also the reason I saw almost none of the shows th...8 months ago
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Happy Public Domain Day 2019! - Today is Public Domain Day 2019, which means (finally!) the end of copyright for works first published in the U.S. in 1923. You are now free to use, reprin...10 months 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...1 year ago
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Promo for a promo - Check this out - it's my crowdfund campaign to fund an extra scene in my Cyrano film. The film is based on my novel *Pyrotechnicon: Being a True Account of...2 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 ...7 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
Sydney Conservatorium - my old school
Places I've lived: Auckland, NZ
Places I've Lived: Mount Gambier
Blue Lake
Places I've lived: Adelaide, SA
Places I've Lived: Perth by Day
From Kings Park
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
From Kings Park
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Monday, 2 March 2015
Around in circles I go
Monday, March 02, 2015 | 
Posted by
Satima Flavell
I’ve vowed not to undertake any new editing jobs
for the next few months. I am too easily seduced into doing more and more
things and winding up a nervous wreck.The past month has been incredibly busy, particularly on the reviewing front. We've had the Perth Fringe Festival, the Perth Festival proper and the Writers Festival – all within a few weeks, with overlaps! I was a bit greedy and took on a lot of reviewing – but who could resist, especially with the Writers Festival, which was chock-a-block with talks and panels from an impossible number of fine authors.
My colleague Ilsa Sharp and I managed
a fair spread of the Writers Festival between us, but seeing as there were
generally four things on offer in each timeslot, there was no way we could
cover everything! You can read the results of our endeavours on Artshub. Just
follow the links.
Day
one: in which we encountered love, biography, and Man Booker Prize-winner
DBC Pierre.
Day
two: in which we focused on writing for young adults, gender and fiction,
the quest for inspiration and the value of creativity.
Day
three part one: in which the spotlight fell on diverse matters including tales of history and survival, language and human rights
Day
three part two, where we found matters pertaining to politics,
personalities - and roses.
In the Festival proper, I saw only Mozart
Dances and Cut the Sky, both very fine shows indeed. But I got a bit carried
away by the Fringe. The amazing ladies of Divalicious, Penny Shaw and Fiona Cooper-Smyth, were in fine fettle. They are versatile opera singers par excellence, with a fabuous flair for comedy and glamour. Actress and all-round showie Penny
Smith showed her wit and wisdom in an enormously entertaining take on Pride and
Prejudice, and a fine parade of comics had us in stitches, night after night. You
can read the reviews on Artshub – just Google!
What's more, I have signed up for French and Italian classes this term as well as continuing my various keep-fit and dance commitments, so this will be a busy year, if I don't collapse in the meantime. You can see why I haven't been blogging - or writing book three of The Talismans. Back to the workspace, Satima!
What's more, I have signed up for French and Italian classes this term as well as continuing my various keep-fit and dance commitments, so this will be a busy year, if I don't collapse in the meantime. You can see why I haven't been blogging - or writing book three of The Talismans. Back to the workspace, Satima!
Pic courtesy of https://myfinalchanceforlife.wordpress.com/
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