While I was housekeeping some files tonight I revisited the beautiful images Anna Repp created for my collection of interlocked stories, Glitter Rose, published by Twelfth Planet Press. I though it would be nice to share with you some of the pictures she sketched that didn’t make it into the book (only because we couldn’t afford all the colour). I love them!

The first two show the main character, Tinashi, on the verandah of her beach shack, sipping pink champagne. In the third she is absent but her glass is there.

Below is the cover we eventually chose, and you can see the glittering colour in the sand.

If you’re not familiar with the collection, here are some review snippets that will give you an idea.

Domestic Extremist reflects on Glitter Rose.  ”Marianne de Pierres, Glitter Rose, 2010
I picked this up in Sydney’s Galaxy Bookshop and spent a very relaxed 50th birthday reading it. There are four linked short stories about a small, imaginary Australian island which has been colonised by strange spores from the ocean deeps, organisms that can bathe the beach in a pink light, create giant sandcastles that are impervious to water and subtly alter the bodies and minds of the infected island residents. There’s a small ensemble cast of characters (reminding me often of The Last Tobacco Shop in the World) in which a new arrival to the island is constantly out of her depth and learning the hard way, plus there are deaths and strange goings on of a mystical and earthy nature. De Pierres was clearly inspired by J.G. Ballard’s Vermillion Sands and these tales share a Ballardian atmosphere of languorous decay; undoubtedly the best story is ‘Mama Ailon’, a deftly composed tale about a strangely cathartic birth which brings the stories to a kind of conclusion – in her notes De Pierres says this story cycle is probably complete, but no – she absolutely must write more of these, and I must read more from her.”

“Strange, deep, haunting … the stories in Glitter Rose will challenge you, and you may find some of the remarkable and vivid imagery creeping into your subconscious. I definitely recommend this worthwhile collection. Just be aware that these may look simple, but they’re not casual reading. You’ll need to bring something to the table, too.” Geek Speak Magazine

Glitter Rose has its own website. You can explore more about it there.

1. How would you describe The Return of King Lillian in a couple of sentences?

“The Return of King Lillian” is a mythic journey, an allegorical fantasy, a tale of self-discovery. Most of the story is told by Lillian, in a sort of spoken word storyteller fashion, so I have also recorded the story and it’s available as an AudioBook, as well as an eBook. (on www.kinglillian.com, soon to be on Amazon and Audible.)

 2. This project totally consumed you.  What turns a successful, talented actor and singer songwriter into an obsessed novelist/writer?

Ah, now there’s an epic question!  Forgive me, Marianne, but I’m afraid there’s an epic answer forthcoming…

For about 25 years now, I’ve had very sporadic dreams about the world of King Lillian. The first dream was a flash of Lillian in scarlet cape and Musketeer hat riding horseback uphill on a mountain trail; it was enthralling!  The dream images were almost all literally flashes, single moments so sparkling with light and color, so enchanting — I couldn’t possibly forget them.

Eventually, I began to try to capture this world, just immerse myself in it — play with characters, dialogue, trying to find the form it most organically wanted to take — knowing all the while that it would have its own style, its own sound that I would recognize once I hit on it.   But every go round, I’d dive in again, and each time, I’d come up feeling failed and frustrated and inadequate, because it felt like the story had chosen such a completely unqualified person for the job.

On the other hand, every time I returned to the idea after being gone a while, I’d realize that I somehow now knew much more than I did the time before, that in those interims the thing had taken root in my subconscious and had been growing while I was looking the other way.  It felt sometimes like I was on some sort of archaeological dig in my psyche, carefully brush-brush-brushing away, with this situation or that character revealing itself more dimensionally each time.

Fast forward a few decades, and I felt it was time to once again turn to this creature growing inside me, and either bring the thing into the world already or be done with it forever.  So I decided to read every single everything I’d ever written about the tale, the world, the characters, every version, every note, every scene — there was a lot to read, believe me.

There I was, just so completely exhausted with boredom and disappointment, lethargically trudging through it all, and I couldn’t wait to be finished with it — when I picked up a file of about 16 pages that was written in diary form.  I’d aimlessly played at writing Lillian’s diary years before because of one of those flash-dreams I’d had.  Well, I was so sleepy, I read those pages aloud simply to keep myself awake.

And the second I started reading aloud — “Ding!” — I was instantly wide, wide awake.  It felt alive and easy and I was having so much fun!  And that’s how the form, at last, got itself found.  I started writing on November 1, 2011, at the start of national novel writing month.  And we just pressed the launch button on the website November 1, 2012.  Yahoo!

3. Who do you see as your audience for King Lillian?

Well, let’s see now:  People who love purple, animals, art, fairies, elves, forests, libraries, journey tales, love stories, metaphysical fantasy… People who color outside the lines.  And, of course, I’m so excited to be surprised by just who might resonate with it.

4. You voiced the audio version yourself. Tell us about that experience.

It was heaven, with a few shots of hell, too, of course — particularly with respect to so desperately not wanting to fail the story.  But mostly, it was a deliciously fun and freeing and profoundly satisfying journey.

5. Has this kind of project inspired you to write more?

Though I do have an idea or two brewing for a bit of additional material about the world of King Lillian, in general, I think of myself as a sort of multi-media artist-type, who uses this or that artistic expression to express this or that work of art that wants expressing.  As far as the act of writing goes, honestly, I don’t know how you real authors do it, Marianne!  And by real authors, I mean writers like youself who have book after book after book in them, and are molecularly compelled to write!  For one thing there’s that sitting forever and ever business, ‘til my legs go numb and my back hurts and I’m barely able to straighten up afterwards, as I sit hunched over like a big comma, no matter how many times I remind myself not to.

For another thing, there’s the light and the shadow of what is apparently my process that can drive me nuts.  I call it “The Walk Around The Moon” because it takes me from light to shadow to light:  “Oh, this is fantastic, I’m having so much fun!” to “Oh, this is agony, quick, somebody, call a professional! What the hell was I thinking?!” to “Oh my God, I love this, I love this, thank you! Yes!”  Maddening, but true.

That being said, I feel that the writing and the enacting of this story has healed something at the core of me, and I feel very grateful that it came knocking at the door of my subconscious, lo, those many years ago.

6. What would you like to say to potential readers and listeners of King Lillian?

Oh, I’d like to thank them with all my heart for being curious enough to spend some their hard-earned time and money on this offering of mine.  I deeply, dearly hope it brings them joy.

Suzie’s wiki

In Praise of Fantasy

For many long years readers of fantasy have happily ignored the way the larger world sneers at their genre. Even writers within the genre of speculative fiction have been critical of the subgenre, fantasy. In his iRoSF article ‘Peter Jackson and the Denial of the Hero,’ M. Garcia quotes China Mieville on epic fantasy:

‘Tolkien is the wen on the arse of fantasy literature. His oeuvre is massive and contagious—you can’t ignore it, so don’t even try. The best you can do is consciously try to lance the boil. And there’s a lot to dislike—his cod-Wagnerian pomposity, his boys-own-adventure glorying in war, his small-minded and reactionary love for hierarchical status-quo’s, his belief in absolute morality that blurs moral and political complexity. …. He wrote that the function of fantasy was ‘consolation’, thereby making it an article of policy that a fantasy writer should mollycoddle the reader (Miéville, PanMacmillan).’

But not everything Mieville has to say about Tolkien is derogatory. In his Socialist Review article, ‘Tolkien’s Middle Earth and Middle England’, he says:

‘Tolkien’s most important contribution by far, and what is at the heart of the real revolution he effected in literature, was his construction of a systematic secondary world. There had been plenty of invented worlds in fantasy before, but they were vague and ad hoc, defined moment to moment by the needs of the story. Tolkien reversed that. He started with the world, plotted it obsessively, delineating its history, geography and mythology before writing the stories. He introduced an extraordinary element of rigour to the genre.’

It was this depth of world building that made readers buy into Middle Earth and it was the promise of adventure based on wondrous myths that kept them reading. In a post for the Australian Literature Review on Fantasy: Why is the genre so popular? I argue that:

‘Whether these (fantasy) stories are set in our world or a secondary world where magical creatures and/or people exist, they all share a common theme: the exploration of the human condition. Even the much maligned medieval/quest fantasies offer their readers the chance to vicariously explore a wondrous world, battle evil and restore justice. Even a lowly Hobbit can change the course of the world by destroying the Ring.

That is the appeal of the tolkienesque fantasy. In our modern world where politicians prove corrupt, large corporations rip off consumers and terrorists kill ordinary people going about their daily lives, the traditional quest fantasy provides an antidote to cynicism. Fantasy, deriving from the word fantastic, exercises our sense of wonder.’

Could there be a back-swing seeking to recognise the power of fantasy? Recently Louise Schwartzkoff wrote a piece for the Sydney Morning Herald titled ‘A sucker for a fantastic story’. She brings up the conundrum many fantasy readers come across when they do a BA in Literature. Some of the books they read are fantasy or science fiction, but the authors brand themselves as literature. She says:

‘Margaret Atwood’s perturbing The Year of the Flood was sold in Australia with a black cover choked with thorny vines. Atwood says the book is not science fiction at all, preferring the more reputable label ‘speculative fiction’. Looking at the storyline – a genetically engineered virus all but wipes out humanity – it is hard to see this as anything but an attempt to protect the book from ‘literary snobbery.’

Similarly, in his article, ‘The fantastic appeal of fantasy’, on the subject of literary snobbism Mark Chadbourn quotes Jo Fletcher, editorial director of fantasy publisher Victor Gollancz.

“For years I have been asking why one of the greatest satirists who ever lived – in this country or any other – is consistently ignored by those who ought to be lionising him. I’m talking about Terry Pratchett, who may have the financial rewards commensurate with his talent – but where are the Booker prizes, or the Whitbreads ? Where are the literary accolades? Whenever he’s interviewed, it’s usually with a faint air of surprise that someone who writes fantasy can be so erudite and funny.”’

Chadbourn goes on to say:

‘Publishers love the genre because it reaches all people – highbrow readers attracted to the skilful writing of M. John Harrison, say, or those simply wanting a well-told adventure story by the best-selling Robert Jordan, men and women in equal measure, young and old.

Received knowledge among non-readers suggests fantasy is simply a case of swords and sorcery or elves and dwarfs. Yes, there is that by the shelf. But the genre really is as broad as the imagination. It contains events on this world and any other world, on this side of life and beyond it. ‘

Four times World Fantasy Award winner, Margo Lanagan brings up the same point in her post The Appeal of Fantasy – Sparklies and  Magic’. She says: ‘I don’t think fantasy stories are any less truthful or complex than naturalistic fiction, or even some forms of non-fiction. What you believe about the world will insist on bubbling up through your confections.’

You can explore discrimination and persecution within the fantasy genre because it frees readers from preconceived prejudices by removing loaded nouns such as Black and Jew, and substituting created nouns for created races.

In her Film Reference article on ‘Fantasy films – Theory and Ideology’ Katherine A Fowkes says.

‘By raising questions about reality and by revealing repressed dreams or wishes, fantasy makes explicit what society rejects or refuses to acknowledge. Indeed, to the extent that it includes the surreal and experimental, fantasy is often explicitly subversive. ‘

The fantasy genre is freeing. Sure it can deliver a rollicking read, which is what I set out to do with the King Rolen’s Kin trilogy. But I was also exploring discrimination and narrow mindedness. In his post ‘Counting Down My 11 Favourite Books of 2010’ Rob

Will Review discusses the trilogy these themes in the trilogy. He says:

‘ …  people came to think that men who love men were indistinguishable from the conspiracy of men hellbent on overthrowing the king. The hatred of gay people and people with Affinity became similarly conflated.

Daniells uses this ingenious conceit to demonstrate how easily people can shift from one hatred to another, collapsing all perceived enemies into a hazily defined external or internal threat.  In another thematically related subplot, Rolen decides to attack one of the Utland territories, even though he doesn’t know precisely which one attacked his kingdom.  One is as good as any other.  This seems to be a reference to George W. Bush’s successful bid to satisfy an American desire for revenge against Afghanistan by attacking Iraq, as well as to the general concept of a scapegoat.  Meanwhile, the concept of people with Affinity and/or homosexual desire needing to hide the truth in order to keep fighting for their king or protecting their country and/or loved ones acts as a fascinating parallel to America’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which unfortunately continues to be in effect.’

So there you have it. The fantasy genre can work on several levels. It can deliver a rollicking read. It can deliver that sense of awe and wonder and it can also be quite subversive and in the work of the wonderful Terry Pratchett.

So that is why I write fantasy, because of the versatility of this wonderful genre.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U5uZbt052w