Fellow author-blogger Sue Burztynski — https://suebursztynski.blogspot.com.au — has honoured me by nominating me as one of her Mystery Blogger awardees. The award was founded by Okoto Enigma — https://www.okotoenigmasblog.com/my-greatest-creation-yet/ — It’s intended to be an award for amazing bloggers with ingenious posts, and it’s a great way to get our readers to check out more blogs! Are you one of my ‘followers’? (Scroll to the very bottom of the page) Or are you listed in the ‘Blogs I follow’ at left? If so, you are welcome to join in.



Here’s how to do it:
1. Put the award logo on your blog.
2. List these rules.
3. Thank whoever nominated you and link to their blog.
4. Mention the creator of the award (Okoto Enigma) and provide a link as well. (See the first para of this post)
5. Tell your readers three things about yourself.
6. Nominate roughly 10 – 20 people for this award.
7. Notify your nominees by commenting on their blogs.
8. Ask your nominees five questions.
9. Share a link to your best/favourite post that you’ve written.

 OK, three things about me:
1 I was born in Manchester, England, and lived there for the first five years of my life. (My mother used to say that all her children were born during thunderstorms, but I had to have an air-raid as well!)

2. I have lived at well over sixty different addresses in five different countries: England, Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Scotland.

3. I have tried several different lines of work over the course of my life: mostly I’ve been a dance teacher, but I’ve also tried retail, clerical work, farming, dancing in cabaret and clubs/hotels and in a small contemporary dance company (we actually performed before the Queen and Prince Phillip in 1963!) In my old age I have taken up writing and editing, and have had many reviews and articles published as well as two novels and the odd short story.

Want to join in the fun? I do think Helen Venn http://imaginemeatclarion.blogspot.com/ and Jo Wake http://henderson-jo.blogspot.com.au/ are good sports and might give it a whirl, but all followers (see the very bottom of this page) are invited to join in if they wish, as are all the bloggers I follow.

Here are my questions for my nominees
1. Your favourite book of all time?
2. Where would you rather live, and why – Alice Springs or New York?
3. If you could marry a famous person from history, who would you choose?
4. First two lines of your favourite poem?
5. List five authors who specialise in historical fantasy.

And here are my answers to Sue’s questions to me:

 • Three desert island books?
 #Well, let’s not count Robinson Crusoe, but there have been plenty of others: Cocos Gold (Ralph Hammond), The Swiss Family Robinson (Johann David Wyss), Lord of the Flies (William Golding) spring to mind. And while it’s a play, not a novel, I can’t resist adding The Admirable Crichton (J. M. Barrie).  Since I uploaded this, Sue Burztynski — https://suebursztynski.blogspot.com.au — has  reminded me that a 'desert island book' is one you would like to have with you if you were abandoned on a desert island. I would like a book on 'how to survive on a desert island'. Any suggestions?

• You have been offered your choice of place, money no object, (a fictional place is fine) to write your new book. Where is it?
#The French Riviera, of course. All the best writers go there, don’t they?

• Which three fictional characters would you invite to your New Year's Eve celebration? Why?
#Jerome K. Jerome and his two mates in a boat. Their bumble-footed actions would keep the entire party entertained all night.

• Favourite book-to-film adaptation/s?
#Not a film, but Game of Thrones, the HBO adaptation of George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, is brilliant.

 • Reincarnation exists! What will you be reborn as? Or, who would you like to have been in a previous life? (Doesn't have to be someone famous. For example, you might want to have been a cat in ancient Egypt, they had a great life and people could get into huge trouble for killing them.)
#Marie Curie. She was a woman who saw what needed doing and did it without a qualm, despite the obstacles and difficulties.

My favourite post on my own blog? It has to be the one that gets the most hits, but it’s a bit annoying that people aren’t googling me and my deathless prose. They are looking for a translation of a German saying: http://satimaflavell.blogspot.com.au/2007/04/hopfen-und-malz-gott-erhalts.html

All yours! Have fun!