The Book Flood
It’s New Year’s Eve, and something weird is happening.
I’m sitting cross-legged on the couch in a long violet dress, sipping soju. My hair is still damp from my solo swim earlier. Three young goth girls are singing to me in Icelandic from my Spotify playlist. The sun is setting, flooding our seventh-floor apartment with light, and my three-legged rescue cat is giving me languorous slow blinks.
And in his corner chair, specs on, head down, my husband is reading my debut novel for the first time.
In 2014 I spent a month in far-northern Iceland on a writing residency. If you’ve followed my blog before, you’ll know that I’m a winter wench at heart: thigh-high snow, the northern lights over my rooftop, breath clouding in front of my face. From that and other visits to Iceland, my book formed.
In 2019 I signed a publication contract with Simon and Schuster. I’m skipping the redrafting, the pitching and praying, the oceans of uncertainty. You don’t need to read that. I signed a contract, one of the most joyous events of my life, and within weeks, Covid hit.
Think I’ll just skip over that too, if you don’t mind.
So here we are in December 2022, and my husband is holding in his hands the ARC of my debut novel, the advance reader copy. Things have suddenly kicked into Very High Gear. This version has been sent to reviewers, bloggers and booksellers, and I’m trying to find space in my head and heart for the knowledge it’s out in the world.
And it’s in my husband’s hands. Deep breath, stop watching his face for each muscle movement, don’t ask at each chuckle ‘What part are you up to?’ A novelist himself, I want so much for him to nod, and say, ‘Good work, baby.’
Here is what I do know. My book, ‘Fed to Red Birds,’ will be officially published on March 8 (International Women’s Day, a coincidence I’m over the moon about) and the cover will be revealed in the next two weeks. Simon and Schuster have been utterly amazing, from my editors and publicists to audio publishers and Icelandic specialists. They’ve sent out exquisite ARC packages with little wooden ornaments and a postcard with a QR code that leads straight to our ‘Fed to Red Birds’ playlist of Icelandic artists. These were sent in time for the Icelandic tradition of the Christmas Book Flood, celebrating books and reading. I’m excited and delighted and so very grateful that after the distress and delay that was Covid, my book is finally coming.
But for now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take my soju and sit out on the balcony. I’m going to wait for fireworks and pretend not to watch my husband’s every facial movement.
Wish me luck.
Oh, and happy New Year’s Eve. I wish you nothing but blessings for the coming cycle.
Feasting season, with fire
My beautiful snake familiar, Elva
It’s Hallowe’en tonight in the Southern Hemisphere, and I’m feeling it.
Our seasons are reversed from the Northern Hemisphere, so our Sabbats are too. Winter is almost here. Melbourne is chilly, with the sky dark before I even put my key in the lock after work. I cooked a gorgeous wintry meal for my man and stepson, fed and scratched my rotund and irascible punk rock cat, and am sitting here with a glass of pinot noir, working on a submission for a short story anthology.
This month has been extraordinarily busy in ink-spilling scope. I’ve been poring over the suggested edits by my agent for my novel manuscript, researching Icelandic sagas and skalds and taxidermy techniques to put within its pages. I applied for a UNESCO Cities of Literature writing residency in downtown Reykjavik, for which I had to update my CV. It took a lot longer than I expected and resulted in me staring at newly added publications and festival appearances, podcasts and prizes, with my hand on my throat and an odd little murmur of pleasure. I entered a contest run by a feminist literary magazine, and another by a prestigious Australian publication. I recorded several short stories for All The Best Radio about ‘Feasts’, set in Brussels, Melbourne, New York and Darwin. And I loved the mail telling me a monologue of mine is going to be performed as a theatre piece next month in Sydney.
Recording for All The Best Radio, on the topic of ‘Feasts’
One of my favourite places to write; in my friends’ studio in Moyston, Victoria
For when you need to step out of the books and back into the body: Sunday afternoon archery sessions
So forgive my absence, but the pen is always in my hand. I also don’t think I’ve ever read as much as I have this past year, sometimes several books a week. They’ve moved, infuriated and impressed me, and on quite a few occasions made me thump the table in heated discussion with loved ones.
Those are always good nights, hey?
Winter is just around the corner. Here in Melbourne it seems to have already arrived, but just between us, I love it. I want open fires and mulled wine, snuggling and snow. I’m getting married on the Winter Solstice in the mountains yet still stubbornly insist I’m going to do it in bare feet, winter witch that I am. Let’s see how that goes, shall we?
This is just a little wave to say I’m still here, and still writing.
Happy Hallowe’en to you and yours.
Mustikka month
The last time I was in Finland, I stayed in a castle.
Well, it was a hotel decorated to look like a castle…I’m a writer, you have to expect me to embellish. I ate breakfast each morning in the cellar dining room, smearing black bread with sour cherries. I tied on my ballet flats and walked all over Helsinki, past the markets with their pyramids of shiny fruit, past the houseboats whose windows I wanted to peek into, far north towards an elusive flea market.
I got lost, more than once, but I didn’t care.
I stopped to buy a drink. When the shopkeeper asked about Australia, he was amazed to hear that it was winter there. I was perplexed, assuming everyone knew the seasons were reversed in the opposite hemisphere. He stood with one raised eyebrow, clearly suspicious. ‘If that was true, wouldn’t I have heard about it by now?’ he asked. Satisfied with that logic, he waved me out of his shop. I drank an iced coffee on the footpath and retied my ballet flats.
I kept walking.
When it was clear that I was again lost, I stopped an older man in a black leather jacket, walking a tiny sausage dog. He gestured at his throat and made chopping motions with his hands. I wondered if this were a strange Finnish custom. He pulled a small cracked notebook out of his pocket and wrote ‘Throat surgery. Keep talking.’ I walked alongside him, the sausage dog prancing around us, as I tried to pronounce the name of the flea market. He nodded, pointed at his chest, and then raised a hand over the other and made walking movements on one palm. ‘Me too,’ I thought he was saying. ‘Let’s walk together.’
We spoke for fifteen minutes, without him saying a single word. He gestured with ringed hands, mouthed some words, and scribbled with a blunt pencil whenever I needed clarification. When I tried out my Finnish pronunciation he laughed silently, chest heaving. I didn’t mind at all. His presence made me smile, right down to the tiny dog.
The flea market was in an old building down by the river: I would never have found it by myself. He shook my hand goodbye, gave me a thumbs up, and turned away. Half an hour later he tapped me on the shoulder and handed me an old black and white photograph from the 40s. It showed a woman with wide legged pants, sitting on the ground with her back against a door. She held a glass in one hand and a book in the other, just like me at dinner the previous evening. I loved her immediately.
The silent man was swallowed by the crowd before I could say kiitos, thank you. I bought an old t-shirt of a Russian punk band, a pair of red high heels, and a punnet of fruit. I held a blueberry up as I walked back to the main road, practising the Finnish. Mustikka. I wondered if the silent man would have laughed, had he heard me.
I ate dinner that evening in a rockabilly bar, surrounded by chicken wire. I wore gingham and ordered reindeer, washed down by cloudberry liqueur. When I looked up I saw a middle-aged Finn in nothing but denim hot pants, literally skiing down the footpath, his poles jammed between the cracks. And I grinned, took another sip of cloudberries, and kept reading my book.
Today I booked my ticket back to this wonderful, quirky, beautiful country. I’ve been awarded another writing residency, this time in the woods of rural Finland for October. As in Iceland, I’ll have a month with a house and a studio, and I will write every day.
I got dressed up for the travel agent in my red heels, pencil skirt, and sheer blouse with a bow. I even curled a little victory roll into my hair. It seemed like a day for it, somehow.
Then I had a glass of merlot in the late afternoon sunshine to celebrate the wondrous places my ink takes me to, when I have the faith to close my eyes, and leap.
inkymouth 