Season’s Greetings 2019

An old friend, on the patio.

Year end approaches and the festive season is upon us.

I am back at work after a long break that has been spent launching The New Asylum, making appearances for readings and preparing quite a lot of material for publication in book form (e-book, at least) next year.

We’ve had an old friend reappear recently, as the weather has gotten hotter (filled with smoke descending from North of us in New South Wales, sadly). I was delighted to see this big fellow turn up again.

This blue tongue lizard is about 13 – 14 inches long and was making his way between sunning locations when I spotted him, available for a photo-shoot.

2019 has been a tremendous and tumultuous year, with many wonderful personal moments and milestones, but with some dregs of sadness and bitterness along the way. It is a great distress to see this country on fire and the ineptitude of our leaders in response. I can’t help but feel that there are some elements of our way of life that will never return. Also, there have been too many folk that were important to me pass away in the last twelve months. Vale, to them all.

My Christmas poem this year is a melancholy affair, I’m afraid, reflecting some of these concerns and sentiments. If you’d like to read it, you’ll find it here.

Of course, the positives are what I prefer to dwell on, and they include the publication of four books. Three collections of poetry in my particular style of memoir writing and true life recounting, but also Herja, Devastation.

Four in a year.

I have to single out Cage Dunn for her work in making Herja come to life and turn into a book.

Just to recap, briefly, Cage is a prose writer ( a proper storyteller) who resides in Adelaide, South Australia. She and I encountered each other, as you do, online and found common ground enough to chat and share details of our work, and otherwise discuss the craft and business of writing.

Along the way, the idea of possible collaboration arose and I sent off a little series of ‘going nowhere’ poems that were generally based on the way that I think that a writer thinks about the way that an assassin might think. A fiction about fiction (sorry, getting carried away with myself).

In any case, it petered out as an interesting idea that was not complete and didn’t have enough body to make anything out of itself.

Well. Quick as a flash, Cage had absorbed the idea, straightened it up and given it life as the tale of a Valkyrie agent of vengeance, with a past, and a henchman assassin who tells their story.

Readers seem to like it. Who would have thought?

To my way of thinking, Herja is an example of pure and unexpected literary magic, and it will be forever lodged in my mind as a demonstration of the power contained within the pixie dust that floats around us as we write.

I have met many people this year. Many new friends, and have had such wonderful support from you, who tune in to my poetry and pronouncements and share your thoughts with me in wonderful feedback. You may know, and I hope you do, that I write for you and welcome every opportunity to share what I do with you – like a child. So very like a child, me.

Thank you for your sharing and making this a wonderful year, despite those things that remain out of our control.

A reminder before I finish up that Small Town Kid is the subject of a promotion on Amazon (the first attempt at such promotion, and an experiment).

From 26th December the Kid will be on sale as an e-book for US$0.99, but it will apply to all marketplaces, so I don’t quite know how it will work out. It is supposed to step back to its normal price over the course of a week.

I’m not great at these sorts of price change promotions and I’m not sure if I’ll try this again, but if you’d like a copy for yourself or someone else you think might enjoy my kind of work – perhaps for someone who has difficulty reading off the page, now might be the time to grab a copy.

Interestingly, I see that the Kid is up to Seven Reviews and ratings. The more the merrier, and I’d be delighted if anyone who has the book and has a moment could pop up a review. It all helps encourage the poet within to do a little more.

I wish everyone a wonderful festive season and year end.

May 2020 exceed all our highest expectaions and be filled with joyfulness.

Hooroo for now,

Frank
25/12/2019