‘the zen space’ Spring 2015 Showcase
Click on the mandala below to be taken to the Spring 2015 Showcase at the zen space, the e-zine where much imagery and a little wisdom is put into as few words as possible. Editor – yours truly.
Marie Marshall
Author. Poet. Editor.
Category: news
March 4, 2015
‘Abandon the Shadows’
Abandon the Shadows is a slim but poetry-packed anthology by ‘Poets Collective’, a cooperative of versifiers. I was invited by Toni Christman, one of the coordinators of the book, to contribute, and I replied with a specially-written sonnet called ‘Haply Slappy’. The anthology, as you might gather from its title, and from the title of my poem, is about optimism – there’s not a lot of that around these days, so that’s one good reason to buy the book! You can get it at Amazon, or you can get in touch with Poets Collective direct. Here’s what coordinator Mary Boren has to say about it:
Amazon search results numbering in the millions attest to the fact that new poetry abounds in the world today, if not on the shelves of bricks-and-mortar bookstores, certainly in the countless internet venues where poets congregate and the varied creative outlets that facilitate self publishing.
Cheerful poetry with substance, however, is not as readily found. In this collection twenty-six contemporary poets lend their voices to a rousing sunny side chorus – not in sugar-coated greeting card fashion, but in authentic acknowledgement, contemplation, and ultimate acceptance of the challenging circumstances we all witness and experience in life. In styles ranging from traditional formal to minimalism, the tone of underlying resolution rings clearly. We hope you are pleased with the sound.
You’ll find my ‘Haply Slappy’ on page 67. It isn’t going to be published anywhere else, by the way, so if you want to read it, buy the book, and you get all these other poets for free! 😉
February 15, 2015
In the dead of night, somewhere in the Highlands…
As I said in my last post, I have been amongst the winning entries in the ‘Fearie Tales’ Competition six times now, in eight years. They don’t rank the eight winners, but it’s a safe bet if you have been scheduled to round off a Saturday evening’s storytelling you can be pretty proud of yourself. I had that spot on Saturday 14th February, and pro actor Helen Logan read out, or rather performed, my story ‘Voices’.
The story concerns an Australian scientist – a woman with one foot in rationalism and the other foot in the ‘Dream Time’ of an old Aboriginal mentor – who camps at the summit of a remote Scottish mountain, intent on investigating ‘random voice phenomena’. What happens next defies explanation. Is it supernatural? Is it psychological? Whichever, the consequences are dire. It is all set out in the spoken commentary to her video diary.
Helen Logan, for whom I had specifically written the story having seen her deliver my previous story, threw herself into the role of the Queenslander, pitching the disintegration of the narrator’s mind at quite a high level of histrionics. It worked; at times it was comic, and at other times it was terrifying.
(c) Bookseeker Agency
Despite this being my sixth win, it was only my second visit, thanks to the kindness of my ‘fan base’. I lurked at the back of a full room. ‘Fearie Tales’ is popular with festival-goers, and it was good to hear my work being applauded.
I now have quite a portfolio of short stories. A handful of them have been blogged, six of them have now been read aloud publicly, but many of them are simply set by in case they are needed. If collected together, they would make a decent-sized book. I shall have to think what to do with them. Maybe I should consult my agent (a good idea anyway) and discuss options.
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By the way, the folk at Indies Unlimited asked me to expand a comment I made on an article about self-publishing into an article in its own right. They asked me to set up an ‘author page’ at Amazon, which is one of the features they like anyone to have, if they are due to be featured on their site. So I have done just that. Just check out amazon.com/author/marie_marshall. The four books of mine which are available at Amazon (not counting the books I have had a hand in editing, or in which work of mine is featured) are listed there.
February 10, 2015
2015 ‘Fearie Tales’ to feature my ‘Voices’
Story reader Helen Logan. Photo (c) Bookseeker Agency
This weekend sees the start of the annual Winter Words Festival at Pitlochry Festival Theatre, the literary festival that kicks of Scotland’s literary year. Each evening two professional actors will be reading out two macabre stories, winners of the annual ‘Fearie Tales’ competition. I’m proud to announce that for yet another year I am amongst the winners! My short story ‘Voices’ will be featured this coming Saturday evening, 14th February! So if you are near Pitlochry in the Scottish Highlands this Saturday evening, drop in… the terror begins at 9.45pm!
February 9, 2015
Parade throws and other lovely stuff
When they speak of ‘Mardi Gras’ in New Orleans they don’t just mean Shrove Tuesday, they mean a whole season when parades and all kinds of other high jinks can take place. It may surprise you to know that the parade season has already started there. Part and parcel of the parade procedure is the ‘throw’. Throws are gew-gaws and souvenirs that the marchers give away – literally throw into the crowd. This means that on Saturday all the throws containing my quick-fire poems about Doctor Who landing the TARDIS in New Orleans have… gone! Not one remains! Well, what does remain is the blog record of the assembly line – check it out here!
Ben Crystal
In other news, renowned Shakespearean actor Ben Crystal, who is the son of linguist David Crystal and the brains behind the project to present Wm Shakespeare’s plays in their original pronunciation, declared my ‘A sonnet to explain why Veronica Franco misses the first hint of spring‘ to be “Lovely stuff!” Let me explain something: Ben really understands iambic pentameter, and I’m honoured that he should have even read my little piece of not-so-serious sonnetry.
Anything else been happening this weekend? Well, I have been working on some extra material for the possible TV adaptation of ‘Axe’, and have picked up one of my shelved novel projects, The Deptford Bear, to see if I can get it moving again. So far it stands at a little over 11,000 words and I think it can work.
February 5, 2015
‘From My Cold, Undead Hand’ sold out at Waterstones
I just heard that all copies of From My Cold, Undead Hand have gone from the shelves of the local branch of Waterstones. Don’t worry though, vampire-fiction fans – you can still order a copy at the counter. Just ask an assistant and they’ll get it for you.
January 31, 2015
My obsession with Veronica
My obsession with Veronica Franco continues – I mean the 16c Venetian courtesan, not the 21c porn star, just in case anyone was in any doubt. Lately I have been adding to my canon of poetry dedicated to or written about her. These poems have been handed to the e-zine Poetry Life & Times for their use, along with the previously-published poems from that collection. In these poems, Veronica and I inhabit a shadowy world between life and death, in Venice and elsewhere, where the Renaissance has cell phones and tablets, Tintoretto flies in and out from Marco Polo Airport, and she and I meet for lunch dates irrespective of her being alive or dead. The first one has just appeared, and – guess what! – its setting is Marco Polo! Read it here.
Ha! I just realised I said Death in Venice up there! Mann oh Mann!
January 21, 2015
Script-writer wanted!
After some discussion, my agent and I have decided to propose that my story ‘Axe’ (see previous post) be turned into a TV drama. So, my agent is currently scouting round the TV production companies in the UK looking for those with good drama credentials. We’re also on the look-out for a script-writer who can get the Glasgow and Caribbean-British register right, ‘see’ what was ‘playing in my head’ as I wrote it, and be creative with the para-dialogue – by which I mean the dialogue implied by the descriptions and expressions of emotion in the story, rather than the actual conversation I have written.
Is that you? If you think you could do, then get in touch with my agent. Go to bookseekeragency.com/contact and take it from there.
M.
January 2, 2015
A New Year present
An overlooked end to 2014 came to my attention due to an early-2015 tweet – someone was about to start reading Lupa, my debut novel, following an unsolicited recommendation. A little detective work led me to a review by author Michal Wojcik.
In his list of favourite reads of 2014, Michal puts my novel alongside Nicola Griffith’s Nebula-nominated Hild, multi-award-winning Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book, and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. That’s what I call company! Recommending Lupa, Michal says:
The writing is subdued, sparse, often mesmerizing. It’s a brisk read at only 130 pages, but I found myself thinking about it a long time after I read it. Let’s just say that there’s nary a wasted word here… Lupa is easily overlooked. But it shouldn’t be.
This was such a nice New Year present, and it is very gratifying to hear that a reader -particularly a fellow author – has enjoyed a book of mine. In a comment in the thread below Michal’s article, someone has written “I’m running out to buy Lupa this very instant.” This kind of word-of-mouth is like gold-dust to an author. Well, I’m just away to read Michal’s short story ‘Mrs. Yaga’ here. I don’t know what to expect but I imagine that huts on chicken-legs will be involved…
I have had a re-think about what writing task to tackle in the spring. I think want to leave aside the element of fantasy – and that means any hint of steampunk, magic realism, or what have you – and engage in something which, though it might not exactly embrace the classical unities of time, place, and action, at least is based very much on ‘real world’ happenings. I am thinking of a setting that is historical, exotic (to me), and a story that is already familiar. However, my ongoing projects change like the direction of the wind. Oh, it can be fun being me!
M.
December 30, 2014
2014 in review
I’m taking a moment to review how things have gone in 2014. Sometimes, at the end of a year, I feel that I haven’t achieved anything; but when I stop and think about it, actually quite a lot has happened.
In January, for example, my first novel aimed at the teenage market, The Everywhen Angels, became available from Amazon, and in March by order at any branch of 
Waterstones. Then in February my short story Da Trow I’ da Waa was read aloud to the audience at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. This was the fifth time in seven years that one of my stories has been featured at the Winter Words literary festival, and I consider that to be quite an achievement.
Throughout the year both old and new poems of mine have been published in anthologies and magazines. Notable among the publications have been The Milk of Female Kindness (ed. Kasia James) in March, May Prism 2014 (ed. Ron Wiseman) in May, although I didn’t find out about that until August, and Rubies in the Darkness (ed. P G P Thompson) in December.
In September, of course, my third novel was published – From My Cold, Undead Hand – and what more need I say about it! And a short time ago I put the final full-stop at the end of the sequel, KWIREBOY vs VAMPIRE. Since then I have placed it in the hands of a couple of beta readers, and have had first reactions from one of them. Amongst her comments were the words “… great job! … maelstrom of action and adventure…” and I am still basking in that rosy glow; however, a writer herself, she drew my attention to several things in the general readability of the novel about which I am going to have to think very seriously.
This year someone likened the quality of my poetry to that of Sylvia Plath. I have been continuing to write poetry, mainly in short snatches, for my poetry blogs Kvenna Ráð and a walk in space. As well as that, I have been keeping up the quarterly Showcases at the zen space. With regard to that, I am always on the lookout for ‘new blood’, for people who can express something in very few words – not just traditional haiku, but any form of short, in-the-moment poetry. Drop me an email if you either want to submit or to recommend someone.
So, all-in-all, it has been a busy and a fruitful year. How was it for you?
Marie Marshall 