The beautiful Mountain Ash forests on the Black Spur outside Healesville are my favorite place in the world. Their spicy peppery earthy smell is the perfect fragrance, the smell of home. After the grief and collective loss of beautiful places and animals in the New Years bushfires, I decided to visit the Black Spur. These are some of the most flammable forests on earth and they haven’t burnt in a while. We have 2 more months of fire season to go. So I went there last weekend.
Just in case.
I’d love to see recent pictures of you in your favourite place in nature.
The Disc of Ry’leh from Allan Carey of Type40 Winner of the Best Artwork
The Inaugural Australian Role Playing Industry Awards were held last night at the beginning of ARCANACON 2020
I had the great honour to be one of the judges along with Reece Carter and Melody Watson. It was a tough Gig. Who knew so many Australians were doing such excellent work writing roleplaying games and related items? We chose a very fine group of works out of about 15 other very fine works.
Vee Hendro and Hayley Gordon from Storybrewers Roleplaying accepting the Game of the Year award for Good Society
Game of the Year – Good Society (Jane Austen) by Vee Hendro and Hayley Gordon from Storybrewers Roleplaying https://storybrewersroleplaying.com
Best Scenario – Reign of Terror (Call of Cthulhu does the French Revolution) by Mark Morrison, Penelope Love, James Coquillat, Darren Watson https://www.chaosium.com/reign-of-terror-pdf
Best PDF only product – The Facility by Mikhail Bonch-Osmolovskiy self-published on DriveThroughRPG and itch.io Best Rules System – Good Society Best Art work – the Disk of Ryleh by Allan Carey of Type40 https://type40.com.au/ Best Electronic Product – Syrinscape The Waterdeep DUNGEONS & DRAGONS RPG Adventure SoundPack syrinscape.com Best Cartography – The Facility
Ramona Mandy and John Coleman present Mark Morrison, Vice President of Chaosium, Michael O’Brien and James Coquillat with the Best Scenario award for Reign of Terror
Here’s my beloved central station resplendent in icing and with a tram circling it on a rotating disc – winner of Batter, Bake, Build – Melbourne University’s Architectural baking competition.
Click through here to learn more about the competition and see the other entries.
The little Chinese girl pulls her sleeves over her hands and waves the empty sleeves at me. I look horrified (Oh no! where are your hands?) She lifts up her arms and her hands pop out of her sleeves. I respond with appropriate cries of relief and amazement. We don’t need a common language to enjoy this popular children’s game.
PRESS RELEASE – WORLD ENGLISH LANGUAGE RIGHTS DEAL FOR FANTASY NOVEL BY AUSTRALIAN AUTHOR JANE ROUTLEY
Kate Coe at Solaris Books has acquired World English Language rights to Shadow in the Empire of Light, a fantasy novel by award-winning Australian author Jane Routley. The agent was John Jarrold.
Jane Routley has won the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel twice – for Aramaya and Fire Angels. Her story “To Avalon” was nominated for a both an Aurealis and Ditmar Award.
Shine is an orphan without magical gifts in a family of powerful mages, and is stuck managing the family estates with only an eccentric aunt and a telepathic cat for company. But when the family descend on the house for the annual Fertility Festival, Shine is plunged into intrigue; while helping one cousin to find a compromising letter, rescuing another from an unwelcome alliance and hiding a fugitive, she also discovers a smuggling ring and then stumbles upon a murderous plot to depose the current Family Matriarch, and is forced to run for her life. Kate Coe describes the book as “modern Jane Austen with magic”.
John Jarrold said: “I love the protagonist, Shine, a 23-year-old who I think will entrance readers of recent fantasy by authors like Alison Goodman and Victoria Aveyard. There’s an assured lightness of touch here (and some great humour over the openness of the magic wielders’ dealings involving sex) but also some welcome darkness. The larger story is only starting to unfold as this book ends, and we’re talking to Solaris about that too.”
Contact Kate Coe or John Jarrold for further information:
Kate Coe – e-mail: Kate.Coe@Rebellion.co.uk
John Jarrold – e-mail: j.jarrold@btinternet.com phone: 01797 227426
Railway stations are also market places. I’ve seen people selling bikes and I’m pretty certain a lot of drugs change hands.
But this is unexpected – the alleged sale of a sugar glider, seen in the hands of the middle woman, for 1 thousand dollars in the waiting room at North Melbourne station.
Deeply illegal and bad for the environment. ( not so great for the sugar glider either.)
Station staff noticed and reported it to the police, but I don’t know the outcome.
Here is the article from The Flinders News
CCTV footage of the sale of a sugar glider From The Flinders News
Three women are being sought over the alleged trade of a live Sugar Glider at a Melbourne train station.
Police have released CCTV images of three women after the alleged possession and trade of the native animal at North Melbourne station on February 12, about 1pm.
The first woman is described as Caucasian, in her 50s, with blonde bob-length hair and wearing a black cardigan, blue shirt and grey pants.
The second woman is perceived to be Asian, in her 30s, with black hair in a high ponytail. She was wearing a grey cardigan and black-and-white printed dress.
The third woman is described as Caucasian, in her 20s, wearing a grey hoodie covering her face and red spotted pyjama pants.
The Victorian Department of Environment says it has intercepted hundreds of native species being illegally trafficked in recent months.
“We continue to pursue offenders in a bid to stop these cruel, illegal practices. Help us put an end to wildlife being trafficked, traded, and traumatised.”
Here is the wonderful Sandy from Geelong, costumier extraordinaire, dressed up as Yanimina Tari, The War Raven, one of the main characters in The Three Sisters and The Melded Child. How cool is that! You know you must be doing something right when someone cosplays one of your characters at Supanova.
Thank you so much Sandy. You made my week.
I’d love to acquire the costume when you’re finished with it.
Yes its on again. Everyone looks great! The place is full of talented people offering books and art.
Jane and Penny are back in Publishers Alley with a collection of their fantasy books.
Come and see us. We’re right near the front door.
A four carriage train with a blues singer/band in every carriage? How great is that! And it was too. We arrived at 6.30 and were served a delicious meal of salads and slow cooked meats on the quaint little Queenscliff railways station. After a day of 36 degrees, it was fabulous to enjoy the cool sea breeze and watch the sun going down over a golden inlet covered with flocks of swans and pelicans. As darkness fell we boarded the train and set off towards Drysdale. At every stop we changed carriages so that by nights end we’d all seen four gigs. And very excellent gigs they were too. Dancing was not easy in a moving carriage but it was impossible not to tap your feet and claps your hands. We warmed up with International Blues Challengers, Rhythm X Revival, got really revved up by Japanese blues man, George Kamikawa, (Kampai!) chilled to the orginal songs of Wayne Jury and got dancing again to Tiana Martel’s powerful voice. The blues, the train and the hot velvet night – maybe we really were in the Mississippi Delta.
You can’t buy drinks on the train but you can get them (and an ice bucket to carry them around in) at the station. And an ice cream at Drysdale. Now that’s living!
Many thanks to Hugo Armstrong of the Blues Train for the complementary tickets.
The Australian native teddy-bear bee photographed by Erica Siegel. From https://www.aussiebee.com.au
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been fascinated by an older man who potters past the station in the late afternoons, wearing a floppy khaki hate and carrying a fine mesh butterfly net.
Recently I managed to speak to him and discovered that he was (1) French and (2) an expert on Australian Native bees. Apparently Royal Park has 90 (yes 90!!, I queried this figure at the time) different species of native bee and now the flowers were coming out he was hoping to find some of them active.
Just in case.
