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Writing

Te Kōrero Ahi Kā

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Jane Percival
Would you eat this sausage?

SpecFicNZ has included one of my short stories, The Mysterious Mr Montague, in their latest anthology, Te Kōrero Ahi Kā: To Speak of the Home Fires Burning.

Te Korero Ahi Ka - Cover 600
Te Kōrero Ahi Kā: To Speak of the Home Fires Burning.

Te Kōrero Ahi Kā is an anthology of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, showcasing work from award-winning and emerging members of SpecFicNZ (New Zealand authors, poets, artists of speculative fiction).

About The Mysterious Mr Montague

It’s funny how the senses can enhance memories. The addition of a taste, a smell, or a touch, makes the memory more stable, somehow, transforming it into an easy-to-access snapshot of a place and a time that you visited; able to be examined whenever you wish.

A butcher’s shop has a particular smell. And the smell of such a shop in the 1970s is nothing like the odour of the meat section of a supermarket. It smelled of blood and sawdust. Rattling plastic strips kept out most of the flies, and in Summer, a lazy ceiling fan would push the air around, just a little.

If I smell fresh blood today, I’m transported back to my uncles’ shop. It, too, was situated in Kilbirnie, Wellington; but there, the similarity ends.

How to purchase the book

Te Kōrero Ahi Kā is currently available from Amazon (for Kindle or Paperback) and The Book Depository. It may also soon be available in a bookshop near you.

 

 

 

Writing

Spooky Time of Year

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spookybookshop

The Bookshop

This year, Halloween coincided with NZ Bookshop Day.

To celebrate this fortuitous collision, Speculative Fiction NZ challenged its members to write a short story that combined the two. Imagine my delight when I heard that my submission, The Bookshop, had been placed second!

Three Spooky SpecFicNz Stories for NZ Bookshop Day

The Bookshop is about a woman, Charlotte, who returns to the home of her earliest memories, to try and make sense of her past. Once there, she must overcome her fears and fulfill her destiny.

When I started writing this story, I had a very clear picture of the bookshop itself. I knew that it was old and no longer occupied – it was spooky, after all. I pictured it as a smallish, stand-alone, two-storey, weatherboard building – run down and neglected. It had been empty for decades, and yet, there were still stacks of old books inside, along with the memories.

I tried to think about why the bookshop had been vacant for so many years… What (if anything) had happened, and when? It was a fun challenge!

The process of writing can be very much like a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces are all the ideas battling for favour inside my head, waiting to be selected and placed within the frame that is the story itself.

Writing

The Mysterious Mr Montague

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Bloodlines, edited by Amanda Pillar
Bloodlines edited by Amanda Pillar

My short story, The Mysterious Mr Montague has been published in the Ticonderoga Press publication Bloodlines.

Bloodlines hasn’t yet been launched officially, but a pre-launch party was held at the recent Conflux 11 speculative fiction convention in Canberra, Australia. It would have been wonderful to have been able to attend in person!

The great news is that Bloodlines is now available for purchase either from Amazon or directly from Ticonderoga Press (the latter in either soft or hard cover). click here

Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway!) I’m very excited to have my story published in an actual book (rather than an e-copy) and grateful to Ticonderoga Press for accepting The Mysterious Mr Montague for their anthology of stories about blood.

The tale itself is set in Kilbirnie (Wellington, NZ) in the 1970s. At various times back then I lived in the nearby suburbs of Hataitai and Lyall Bay. I walked the streets of Kilbirnie and Evans Bay, frequently. My identical twin uncles owned a butcher shop in Kilbirnie.

It was fun to write and I particularly liked adding reference to ‘The Larch’. Back in the 70s in Wellington, you would see ‘The Larch’ scrawled as graffiti on many walls and previously blank spaces. It was in reference to the Monty Python’s sketch of the same name. The Larch

My story, of course, is complete fiction, but I did enjoy drawing from my memories of the area and the time.

Last month, editor Amanda Pillar, invited the various authors to write a guest post on her blog site about their tales.  Here’s a link to mine… Bloodlines Guest Post Jane Percival.

Writing

Halloween Writing Competition

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spnz_logo_blackbg1

Spooky Bookshops Challenge

Check out SpecFicNZ’s ‘Spooky Bookshops‘ challenge.

This year, Halloween falls on NZ Bookshop Day. To celebrate this fortuitous collision, they are challenging members of SpecFicNZ to write short stories that combine the two.

Send them your stories of spooky bookshops, booky spooks, or spooked books and be in to win $100!

Details

Length:      1000 – 2000 words
Deadline:   30 September 2015

Theme/genre:
Stories should feature both bookshops and Halloween/general spookiness.

Additional information about the challenge is available here.

About SpecFicNZ / How to join

Information about SpecFicNZ and how you can become a member is posted on their website.

South Head, Writing

Pantsers versus Planners

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Driving home at dusk.
Driving home at dusk.  The waters of the Kaipara eerily luminous in the distance.  Rows of maize stretching out to the right.  Patches of dark Mānuka fringing the road.  The glow of the headlights on dusty gravel… I almost feel I could write something decent.

Water Baby

My daughter Immi approaches writing quite differently from me.  Apparently I’m a ‘Pantser‘ and this is quite true.  When I start a story I really don’t have much of an idea of where it’s going to end up.

I said I’d post a link when my short story, Water Baby, was published, so here it is…

Fiction on the Web, UK

Inspiration comes in flashes.  And is very elusive.  I might feel a surge of something when glimpsing a certain scene, but I haven’t worked out how to hold on to it.