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
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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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Favourite Sites
- Alan Baxter
- Andrew McKiernan
- Bren McDibble
- Celestine Lyons
- Guy Gavriel Kay
- Hal Spacejock (Simon Haynes)
- Inventing Reality
- Jacqueline Carey
- Jennifer Fallon
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- Joel Fagin
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- KA Bedford
- Karen Miller
- KSP Writers Centre
- Lynn Flewelling
- Marianne de Pierres
- Phill Berrie
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- 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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Monday 2 October 2017
Read, Write, Dance
Monday, October 02, 2017 |
Posted by
Satima Flavell
Read, Write, Dance. Those three words could almost be my epitaph. Certainly (bearing and rearing children aside) they are the three activities that have eaten up the greater part of my time since I was a tiny tot. I know most of you are readers and many of you are also writers and/or dancers, and you will know what I mean. We read because we read because we read. Ditto writing. Ditto dancing.
I envisaged an old age that would be taken up by these three beloved interests, and over the last few years I've purchased lots of books. I bought them intending to read them, of course, but somehow reading has dropped to the bottom of the list. I have been writing, of course (although not nearly as much as I should have done) and I do attend fitness classes three times a week (at least in theory - it's more often once or twice a week).
Until a couple of years ago, I read religiously for an hour before going to sleep at night. It's essential for a writer to keep up with the latest books, especially in one's own genre, so whenever a colleague publishes a new book, I dutifully visit the online bookshops to seek out a copy.
But buying isn't reading. All that's happened is that I have a To Be Read pile which, if I stacked all the tomes one atop the other, would be about twice as tall as I am. I open the new book, read the blurb and possibly the prologue or first two or three pages, and that's as far as I get.
Partly, friends, this is due to disillusionment. I was over the moon when I sold my first novel, The Dagger of Dresnia, to Satalyte Publishing. But Satalyte is no more, and The Dagger of Dresnia (published 2014) has sold fewer than 500 copies. It is back up on Amazon now, due to the kind offices of my friend Andrew Partington of Submarine Publishing, but sales are still few and far between. (If you'd like a copy, contact me via Facebook.)
I think, friends, the self-publishing craze has resulted in a market swamped by enthusiastic writers, each of whom has written a magnificent novel that could change the world, or at least entertain a few people for an hour or two. But self-publishers and small press don't have the same access to publicity as the Big Five, and most of us can only expect to sell a few hundred copies at most.
Edward II |
Enough whingeing. My current fiction reading is The Rune of Life by Dave Dunn, a long-time colleague from our Online Writers Workshop days, and non-fiction - Edward II, The Unconventional King by Kathryn Warner, a dedicated historian with a passion for this often overlooked man and his times.
Carry on reading!
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2 comments:
It really is a shame about Satalyte - Gillian Polack's Wizardry Of Jewish Women had barely been launched when that happened. Fortunately she discovered Bookview Cafe and her novel is now back in print, though in ebook.
I know how you feel. My children's non-fiction book, Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly, never got back its advance, though whenever kids did discover it, they grabbed it. There were stuff-ups on the distributor's web site - it was filed under non fiction instead of children's books and in the book shops it was either put with the adult books or lost somewhere on the bottom of the children's shelves. And then the distributors moved to Sydney and refused to take the Ford Street titles with them and I've got several hundred copies I bought to rescue them from pulping. Ford Street still has some for sale. I've sold three and given away several. About eight copies sold, my publisher tells me, when I went on an early morning radio show to talk about it recently.
But small press is the lifeline for Aussie spec fic. I suspect neither of us would have sold our books to a big press. They only want Fat Fantasy Trilogies. And even being published by the Big Five doesn't give any guarantees. They look after you till the book is out, then dump you to fend for yourself. My novel never sold well; they had a few blogs review it and Girlfriend Magazine. Then they dumped me. It didn't help that for some reason they had thrown out my publisher. Another book of mine, published by a Big Five company, sold out and STILL didn't get me any royalties because most of the copies sold through Scholastic Book Club, which pays peanuts.
That's publishing for you, alas!
Translation and info: Who'd Have Thought?
Yes, getting books published via the traditional route is very hard indeed. I've read an estimate that said for every thousand books sent to the Big Five, maybe five or six might get published. I was chuffed when Satalyte took The Dagger of Dresnia, and when they folded I was horrified! I bought up all their stock of The Dagger of Dresnia so I have books to sell or give away (usually the latter!) but now I have to hope I can somehow get the whole trilogy up online eventually. The Cloak of Challiver should go up soon and of course I still have to write book three, The Seer of Syland.