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A Scorpion in the Corner and Publicity for Poet’s Cottage

josephinetalepeddler 2 Comments

February has been a blur as publicity for Poet’s Cottage begins, ahead of its release in Australia.

My garden writing shed

I’m sitting in my courtyard garden now and the weather is so sunny for a change in Sydney.

I had plenty of chances to use my Mary Poppins umbrella this rainy summer. Of course, I’ve loved the rain.

This week I had the pleasure of being interviewed at home by Mr Steve Meacham for the Sun Herald newspaper. I say it was a pleasure because this gentleman wrote one of my favourite pieces recently,Writer’s Craft is now a Ghost in the Machine. You can find a link to this article here.

I find the whole interview process very daunting as I often get so tongue-tied and a shambling, rambling mess when talking about myself. I take heart from Arthur Boyd who was reputed to be woeful for the journalist to follow in interviews. I found that one of the most endearing traits of Arthur’s.

I was delighted to start off the publicity for Poet’s Cottage with a phone interview for the Tasmanian papers. I shall let you know when they are coming out.

I cannot wait for the Kerry Greenwood TV series, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, starring my favourite, Essie Davis. You may recall I have bragged often about Essie and I being at the same College of Creative Arts in Hobart. I think she’s perfect casting for Phryne and I love Kerry Greenwood. I’ve won The Malice Domestic Award twice (okay, that’s a little brag again, but forgive me, another thing that I could have said to Steve and forgot). And because Essie is a Tasmanian girl (go Tasmanian girls!) I had her in mind for my character of Pearl Tatlow when I was writing Pearl.

Except now she looks just like my Pearl from Poet’s Cottage (I love her with the dark bob) but she’s Phryne. This show looks wonderful and I can’t wait to see it.

A million times better than the ghastly Underbelly offering which I wrote about here. A small slice of Underbelly Razor.

Tonight I went to the movies with Art School Annie and saw The Artist which is as wonderful and lovely as the reviews said it was. How magnificent is the dog Uggie?

And the two leads, Berenice Bejo as Peppy and Jean Dujardin, are perfectly cast. Not to mention all those fabulous 20’s frocks and shoes…

And a favourite book I read in February: Alice Hoffman’s The Dovekeepers.

I‘m in awe of this book. I prostrate before it. So beautiful, powerful and inspiring. Alice Hoffman brings the bones to life so eloquently in her account of four women at Masada in 70AD. I take my hat off to Hoffman for her reminder of how powerful words and tales can be. This is a book that will give you strength. It’s raw and graphic and some of the passages will nearly destroy you with how inhumane people can be – but then the doves are always there as a symbol of goodness and hope. And Hoffman is writing at the top of her powers. She creates a spell just as powerful as Shirah does in the story. A wonderful novel about women, women’s mysteries and women’s stories.

This reads like a channelled book that contains the prayers and devotions of a real group of four women who would have been lost to time. But it really does contain messages and symbols for modern women as well.

Hats off again to Alice Hoffman for opening a portal where I could glimpse a world where fortunes were divined by scattering dove bones, Lilith was feared for snatching babies at night, girls were given in arranged marriages at thirteen and a Scorpion in the corner is a sure sign a witch is present.

As for my current book, Currawong Manor, I’ve finally reached the 100 000 mark of my first draft. There’s still a bit to go and for reaching that important mark I treated myself to this lovely black telephone.

I feel as if Hercule Poirot is exercising his little grey cells as he chats to me on the other end

And of course, I can’t leave this post without one little peep at Johnny.

Thank you for visiting me. xx

 

Haunted Sydney

josephinetalepeddler 7 Comments
Sydney’s restless to-and-fro energy comes out of a nagging sense that something is missing, even, or perhaps particularly, when the city is at its most soft-aired and shiny. This feeling has many causes, which has been my impulse to try to uncover.
The first of these is the destruction of the language and culture of the Eora before the loss could even be grasped. This was a human tragedy. It was also the cause of an existential dilemma. For to live here is to always feel that the place has a secret life that resists you. This sense of hauntedness is not necessarily  always conscious, but expresses itself in our tendency to judge, to boast, to act out, to bully, to look for visions; or, failing that, to revel in the city’s sweat and grit. Almost all of Sydney’s emotions, even the most violent, can be traced back to a longing, which sometimes seems to have an almost geographic force. When we love it, that love is aching. Even our famed showiness is driven by a sense of loss.  This overcompensation makes Sydney the most dynamic of cities, although it can agitate at such a high vibration, as to appear almost still, to masquerade as torpid.
True to this spirit, I love and hate the place at once. But on nights like the summer evening earlier this year when I walked home through a limpid dusk, all is forgiven –  its brutishness, its piggish bush drivers, its violent moods. As I set out from the city’s southern end, the sandstone walls beneath the Central railway line still held the day’s heat.  The neon sign above Wentworth Avenue had gone from Sharpie’s golf house, but I remember the little golfer who used to guide his golden chip-shot endlessly, toward the nineteenth hole. In Darlinghurst I passed a row of old terraces where feral banana trees had colonised the tiny courtyards behind them, and walked on, past the smell of Thai food, up dirty William Street  Outside my flat the flying foxes were landing in the Morton Bay fig, and already their squabbles had sent a thick fall of fruit onto the pavement, which smelled phlegmy, and sweet in the dew. The moon rose from the invisible harbour into a sky of such a deep royal blue, it was almost impossible to believe in. The street smelled of low tide. For all its beauty, the city could return in an instant to pulp. And that thought was strangely cheering.
From Sydney by Delia Falconer
I too have a love/hate relationship with Sydney. I’ve been reading Delia Falconer’s wonderful book Sydney which manages to describe the ghosts and the dreamers in the shadows in Sydney’s streets so beautifully.
Today is Australia Day and at dawn I was in our local park for my morning walk. The trees were filled with dew  and the bush smelt of the rain that had been falling all night and morning. At the top of the hill, I paused as always to reflect upon the different elements and look at the city which spread as far as I could see. I was as relieved as ever to spot the airport, where it was reassuring to know escape was near. And as I do every morning, I paid my respects to my own ancestors and the ancestors of the original people. But the smell of the rain-soaked bush was a perfect way to begin Australia Day.            

Cosy Winter Reading

josephinetalepeddler 4 Comments

 

How I love books and winter. A perfect combination. I adore going to bed early these days reading and re-reading some of my winter favourite cosy reads. Here’s a few below that I’ve read recently. 

Ransom and We Need To Talk About Kevin were both my Magic Hat bookclub choices. I highly recommend them. Ransom is poetic, powerful and a clever retelling of the Greek myth of the Iliad. Not that I’ve read the Illiad, I confess, but at least I’ve now read Ransom. 

We Need To Talk About Kevin is gripping, intense and has a killer of a twist. It provoked a wonderful bookclub discussion for our glam hatters. 

I’ve also been re-reading some old Agatha Christies, starting with the Miss Marples as the shows are beginning to take over a bit in my head so I needed to go back to the source. J’adore Miss Marple! My favourite heroine of all time. I’ve re-read A Murder At The Vicarage and The Body In The Library. Both wonderful reads and terrific to see an early Miss Marple forming.   

And of course, the witty and sly Love In A Cold Climate is perfect bedtime fodder. 

Cathy Kelly’s Once In A Lifetime is another book as cosy as a hot-water bottle and cocoa.  

Another book I’ve loved reading to Daisy is this one from Enid Blyton. Gorgeous illustrations and timeless stories we can enjoy together.  

I hope you enjoy seeing my bedtime books for winter. What books have you been enjoying or can recommend to me? 

Happy snug reading over the weekend. xx       

 johnny depp reading image source