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
- 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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Thursday, 11 October 2012
Re-inventing myself - yet again
Thursday, October 11, 2012 |
Posted by
Satima Flavell
Every few years, it seems, circumstances conspire to create drastic changes in my life. This latest re-invention of Satima has brought me a huge change of lifestyle, from being an itinerant house-sitter to living in a tiny bedsit on the fourth floor of a large apartment block.
My new home is in Bentley, a suburb close to Perth. The bedsit, of course, only has one room where I must live and sleep, and that room measures just three metres by five metres. It has a sunny little balcony with a pleasant outlook, a perfectly acceptable kitchen and a neat bathroom with an excellent, large shower. It's in a secure building, maintenance is available on call and it's only 20 mins into Perth on the bus - as long as you don't travel in peak hours! What's more, it is very quiet, and having spent so much time in retreat houses, silence is something I treasure.
But oh dear, I have far too many books, CDs and DVDs for a bedsit! I also have a large number of casette tapes - old recordings that I haven't been able to replace digitally. I'm going to have to do as one of my sons suggested - just not allow myself to buy any more books or discs unless what I want is genuinely not available as a download. And having read a book, I must decide at once whether or not it's a 'keeper'. Of course, I have about a dozen favourite authors whose oeuvres I treasure, and I'll never willingly part with those in hard copy.
My family history research is another problem - I really need to keep the hard copies because this is work for future generations, and who knows these days what technology will be outmoded in ten years, let alone fifty or hundred! I have the family tree in a database, of course, but the original certificates, letters, copies of archival documents etc are all safely stored in archival quality materials. They take up a lot of space and I need to buy still another set of shelves...
Nearly two weeks in, and the place is still a mess I'd hoped to put pictures up to show you the chaos, but the pix are on the iPhone and iPhone and the computer, it seems, are no longer on speaking terms. (This too, will pass, I hope!)
I'm embarking on a whole new lifestyle, and it will take time to adjust, but I can see that once I get used to it, I am going to love living here. Already I'm enjoying sitting on the balcony for a while each day to eat a leisurely lunch, with the sun on my back and the spring winds gently stirring the trees that line the quiet street below. I'm looking forward to sharing the experience with visitors, so I hope friends who live in or visit Perth will 'come up and see me sometime'!
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