Award Winning…

No, no, not me personally – but I did contribute to an Anthology that has just won an award. An award for Best Collected Work, no less!

Tales for Canterbury was entered into the Sir Julius Vogel awards earlier this year. When it was nominated, we were all very chuffed about it, but never ever expected that it would actually have a shot at winning the award. But it did. It’s not that I don’t have faith… it’s just that it was up against some very big competition, and yet it still managed to pull through.

Anna Caro and Cassie Hart pulled together this Charity Anthology almost in record time last year after the February 22^nd Canterbury Earthquake. This meant sending out word to authors all over the place, reading through and accepting or rejecting work, then having the joy of editing it, and finally pulling it into a beautiful polished piece. Now as the crowning jewel, it has won the Sir Julius Vogel award for Best Collected Work.

So… A huge congratulations goes out to all of my fellow authors in this collection, as well as to our amazing editors – Anna and Cassie. I feel very privileged to have worked with them to be published alongside this brilliant collection of authors.

Go check them out: RJ Astruc, Philippa Ballantine, Jesse Bullington, Anna Caro, Cat Connor, Brenda Cooper, Debbie Cowens, Matt Cowens, Merrilee Faber, AJ Fitzwater, Janis Freegard, Neil Gaiman, Cassie Hart, A.M. Harte¸ Karen Healey, Lynne Jamneck, Patty Jansen, Gwyneth Jones, Tim Jones, Kim Koning, Jay Lake, Helen Lowe, Kate Mahony, Tina Makereti, Juliet Marillier, Angel Leigh McCoy, Linda Niccol, Ripley Patton, Simon Petrie, Grant Stone, Jeff Vandermeer, Mary Victoria, and Sean Williams

There are still a few copies of Tales for Canterbury left if anyone wants to buy one. But you only have until the end of June to get your hands on it. After that, Tales for Canterbury will be wrapped up and finished.

That’s all for now… much excitement, happiness, and satisfaction on a job well done J

 

Written in Ink

Some of us are writers. Many of us are readers. But most of us, at some point in our lives – we, as humans, are inspired by the written word. Sometimes this inspirational written word will be in a magazine… a newspaper clippping… something you have read on the internet… a song lyric… often a book… and if you were like me as a child, you would have been inspired by every book you could get your hands on. Imaginations would run wild, treehuts/castles were created, wars fought, and at at the end of the day, the princess was alive to tell the tale.

from Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

Some people even get words that inspired them tattooed on them.

I came across this neat post today by a woman who is inspired by words: A Permanent Relationship With Words: Literary Tattoos and I just had to share it with you all.

It amazes me that as a writer, I could potentially write something one day, that people would want to tattoo on themselves. We all could. It’s a bit of a mind-boggling concept. It makes me wonder how many people have tattooed themselves with Harry Potter quotes or images, or Shakespeare, or Jane Austen, or e.e. cummings. How many teenagers of today will do it with Twilight quotes, or The Hunger Games. I can see it now. Millions of Mockingjay images tattooed around the world, after all… it is now a literary symbol of freedom from suppression for anybody who has read those books.   

from Peterpan, by J.M. Barrie

I like the idea of writing something in permanent ink on myself. There is a Shakespeare quote that I have always loved: What’s past is prologue. Definitely a quote that I can see myself getting one day. I like the fact that I could have it in white ink even more. You wouldn’t see it in Winter on me, but it would show up nicely in Summer. I suppose it would be more like a part-time tattoo.  And if I didn’t want it anymore, I would just have to make sure I didn’t get a tan.

Anyway – have a look at this amazing little tattoo site – The Word Made Flesh. It’s an entire site of literary inspired tattoos. You never know… Some of your words may end up on that site one day. Now how awesome would that be?