Jun 27 2016

GCLS firsts

In just over a week’s time I will be setting off to the GCLS Conference, held in Washington DC this year.

Last year, I attended the conference in New Orleans. I was a ‘Con Virgin’ at that event—so I can now say I lost my virginity in NOLA.

Last year’s ‘Con Virgin’

GCLS 2015 saw many ‘firsts’ for me…first public reading, first signing of my books in public, first panel discussions, first time in New Orleans (and, of course, first hugs from Beth Burnett).

I expect I will feel just as nervous when it comes to doing the reading in the Author Spotlight session this year. I can only hope I remember to breath this time and don’t lose my voice part way through.

This year, sees another first—being asked to be a presenter at the Awards Ceremony. That sounds like fun as well as a tremendous honour. (Note to self: don’t trip on the way up to the podium)

My conference timetable:

Tuesday evening: check out the Affinity table in the Vendor Room

Wednesday morning: meet up with Affinity authors to set up the table with a wonderful array of books, t-shirts, bookmarks and other promo items.

Wednesday afternoon: Author Spotlight from 2:00 to 3:00, reading from The Circle Dance

Thursday evening: Helping to host the Affinity authors’ dinner

Friday afternoon: Author signing session

Saturday morning: Taking part in The Politics of Poetry Panel from 9:40 to 10:30

Saturday afternoon: Dry run for Awards Presenters from 3:30 to 3:45

Saturday evening: Attending the Awards Ceremony and probably avoiding dancing if at all possible.

I don’t know if it’s a first for my publisher, Affinity eBooks, but they have four finalists in this year’s award categories – listed here in no particular order:

Requiem for Vukovar by Angela Koenig in Dramatic/General Fiction

The Presence by Charlene Neil in Paranormal/Horror

Locked Inside by Annette Mori in Traditional Contemporary Romance

Locked Inside cover by Nancy Kaufman for the Tee Corinne Outstanding Cover Design Award

Keeping everything crossed for all our finalists – and congratulations whatever the outcome as there’s a lot of talent on show here.

Aiming for ‘Affinity and beyond’ – with Annette Mori and Ali Spooner (sorry, no pic of Renee MacKenzie again – she wasn’t hiding – just seated at the other end of the table)

In between times I can likely be found at the Affinity Vendor table. Please stop by, even if you don’t want to buy any books. We’re a friendly bunch and love talking to people. As I think I’ve mentioned before, Affinity is being represented this year by Ali Spooner, Annette Mori, Renee MacKenzie and myself.

I also plan to take in a few other conference sessions when I can as well as trying to fit in some sightseeing, so these few days are going to pass very quickly, I feel. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone I met last year, plus others I didn’t. I’m not looking forward to Sunday when it’s time to say goodbye again.

The last item on my itinerary is for Sunday afternoon and beyond when the post-conference withdrawal symptoms start to surface. The best way to banish these feelings is to start planning to attend the 2017 conference in Chicago.

Another first closer to home is seeing my books on the ‘Books to buy’ shelf of one of the local cafés. The paperbacks are also available in the Book Case, the independent book store in Hebden Bridge.

Lots of older lesfic books available at The Mooch Café in Hebden Bridge – and some newer Jen Silver books!

Also last week, not a first, but my second Book Clip appeared on The Lesbian Talk Show podcast site – a reading from the first book in The Starling Hill Trilogy, Starting Over. (All the LTS podcasts are available on Podbean, iTunes and Stitcher – and well worth a listen.)

The Jen Silver Collection

Where to buy:

The Circle Dance: Affinity eBooks /Amazon US / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books/ Smashwords / Apple iTunes

The Starling Hill Trilogy:

Starting Over: Affinity eBooks / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / Apple iTunes

Arc Over Time: Affinity eBooks / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / Apple iTunes

Carved in Stone: Affinity eBooks / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / Apple iTunes

Jun 19 2016

On Ilkley Moor…

This was a golfing week for me and my wife – playing four courses in six days. Three of the courses were in North Yorkshire: Rudding Park, Harrogate and Bracken Ghyll near Ilkley.

Bracken Ghyll has fantastic scenery all around with many of the views looking out towards Ilkley Moor.

brackenview

Just the name Ilkley brings to mind the well-known folk song, ‘On Ilkla Moor, bar tat’ – which translates from Yorkshire dialect into English as ‘On Ilkley Moor without a hat’. The song goes on to outline the dire consequences of being caught out on the moor without a hat.

I found a use for this song in my latest book, The Circle Dance. One of the characters gets stuck on the moorland above Hebden Bridge when a sudden mist comes down. Phoebe is a crime writer, but has recently branched out into sci-fi/fantasy. Her prospective publisher has suggested some outdoor research might help to inject more atmosphere into her story. Now, while Phoebe isn’t a particularly likeable character, I didn’t want her to die on the moor.

Excerpt from Chapter 8

The mist descended from nowhere. One minute it was a bright, sunny day, the next she couldn’t see past her outstretched hand. The words of the song came into her mind “On Ilkla Moor bar tat,” which ended badly for someone she recalled, dying and getting eaten by worms. And all because they were out on the moor without a hat. She had brought a hat.

Phoebe shrugged the backpack off her shoulders and felt around in the main pocket for the nice red woolly hat with a bobble on top. She’d bought it only the day before in one of the local shops, thinking it might come in handy. It wasn’t an item of headwear she would normally be seen about in. Hat on, she felt better. No point in dying for the lack of a hat. Now she just had to remember which way it was to the road…

…Phoebe leant back against the rock and wondered how long she could survive on the meagre ration of a single pack of Kendal Mint Cake. It tasted vile. Why hadn’t she brought a Mars bar? She struggled out of her boots and sighed with relief. She couldn’t have walked another step with her ankles protesting in agony. She tossed the offending items away. No point dying with her boots on. But she wasn’t going to die. She had a hat.

Bloody Philip Pearlman. “Bring it to life,” he had said. Ha. Find a stone circle, feel the power. What she needed was power all right. A powerful light.

Closing her eyes, she took several deep breaths. Stay calm. Stay in the zone. She’d read that somewhere. One of the self-help books she sometimes bought, thinking they would help. Help with what? Help being a better lover. Maybe that’s why Sasha was running after her ex. What did that computer nerd have that she didn’t?

Well, she wasn’t lost on top of a fucking moor for a start.

Maybe she could find some wood, start a fire. Oh yeah, she hadn’t made it through the first two Brownie sessions without wanting to nut Brown Owl. She was a little light on outdoor skills. She could write, however. Write a light, light a write. Shine a light, had she even remembered to bring a torch? A torch. A flaming piece of wood. With a torch she could set fire to the mist.

What was that bloody poem, one she had to learn in school? Oh yeah, that oft-quoted ode by Keats, “To Autumn.” She spoke the first two lines aloud, just wanting to hear her own voice, “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom-friend of the maturing sun…” All she could remember. That and giggling with her best friend over the word bosom. They thought mellow fruitfulness was pretty funny, too. How old were they? Thirteen.

Survival techniques, books she should have read. It wasn’t too late—she could Google it. She poked her phone and the screen lit up. Her connection with the world, the world of safety. No signal. Damn, damn, damn! She was going to die up here after all. Her epitaph could say—at least she wore a hat.

That girl from Game of Thrones, Arya. She comforted herself in dire situations by reciting the list of people she wanted to kill. Phoebe started with Philip Pearlman, Jamie Steele, the girl in Year 5 who pushed her over in the playground and stole her ice cream—hell, she’d forgotten her name. Her list of real people was too short. She’d have to resort to the fictional characters she killed off in her crime series.

Maybe it was the mint cake. She was starting to see shapes in the dark. Sheep? No, there it was again, just out of reach. Dancing giants, forming a ring of light.

One reviewer said “The strength of this (story) is that whilst there is romance, the whole story is infused with a strong dose of reality. You can believe that these characters could exist and that life rarely works out perfectly, but it can get pretty close for some.”

If you want to find out how things work out for Phoebe, just check out the book links here.

Where to buy my books:

4books

The Circle Dance: Affinity eBooks /Amazon US / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books/ Smashwords / Apple iTunes

The Starling Hill Trilogy:

Starting Over: Affinity eBooks / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / Apple iTunes

Arc Over Time: Affinity eBooks / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / Apple iTunes

Carved in Stone: Affinity eBooks / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / Apple iTunes

Jun 9 2016

Toxic Chickens

Mytholmroyd is an unassuming little village nestled in the Calder valley with four modes of transport running through it…river, rail, road and canal.

The village’s main claim to any kind of fame is that the poet, Ted Hughes, was born here. He moved away with his parents when he was seven but the memories of the place must have made a deep impression. One of his books, Elmet, (originally published as The Remains of Elmet in 1979) is still in print with the combination of his evocative poetry and the stunning photographs of the landscape and the people captured by Fay Godwin.

Elmet was the old name for this part of West Yorkshire, described in the book’s introduction as “the last independent Celtic kingdom in England”. And before the road, railway and canal were built, the valley had a reputation as a “badlands”; ideal terrain for lawbreakers’ hideouts.

On page 53 of the book, there is a photograph of Scout Rock. This is a tree covered cliff formation, which I can see across the valley from my kitchen window. So, where do the “toxic chickens come in”?

The 2015 Boxing Day flood caused a landslide, which damaged part of the road and everyone living in the houses nearby were evacuated and the primary school closed. It’s long been known that asbestos was dumped in this area and that a landslip like this was likely to happen at some point.

The cleared trees – just above the white strip

However, there’s a story going around that a local poultry business buried their dead chickens on the hillside sometime in the middle of the last century and the floods in December, uprooted not only some trees, but also the graves of these chickens. The problem is that the chickens had a high level of toxins in them.

Some days we see workers wearing biohazard suits working on the hillside. The cleared area is growing but progress seems to be slow. The road and the school are still closed.

I don’t know if the story of the chickens is true but I think it would make a great movie…forget your zombie apocalypse…we have The Toxic Chickens of Elmet.