Bits And Bobs

I would love to tell you all about WisCon, but someone already has! Robyn Fleming of Cerise magazine writes her pre-con and con write-up, including an account of the most excellent Capes and Consoles party run jointly by Cerise and Girl-Wonder.org.

Check out the costumes – I’m the redhead in the green dress and labcoat, hair festooned with ivy leaves. Since I spent the evening mixing concoctions at the bar, this costume choice was deliberate, and entirely awesome.

(Note: When I say that high heels are not suitable for most superheroic endeavours, I do speak from experience. Crouching and swivelling to grab bottles of merlot in three-inch heels is not particularly challenging, but I woke the next day with aching quadriceps, and I am gifted with Thighs of Steel.)

After this and a wee trip to NYC, of which more later, I returned! To be immediately swallowed by a pile of essays to grade and things to review. Life always seems a little flat post-WisCon, but being handed a number of thoughtful critiques of contemporary Hollywood cinema and excellent comics and books is a sovereign specific against what ails me.

Also invigorating: Mistress, the new webcomic hosted by Girl-Wonder.org. Author and artist Andrea M. Bell pitched it to the Board as “Jane Austen meets Die Hard“, and I was instantly adamant that this was exactly what the universe required.

Mistress is “the story of Mardigale Beauchulle and her romance with the crown prince of Raeuca, Kamreide Renlauther”, and is full of assassinations and drama and delightful hats. It updates Mondays.

Girl-Wonder.org’s forums are currently running a survey, where we ask for input from you, the forum user. You have a wonderful opportunity to win fabulous prizes and an even more wonderful (though slightly less potentially lucrative) opportunity to make the forums a better place. Have your say; win my gratitude.

And finally, of that NYC trip. Last year, I wrote a novel, and in May my lovely agent Barry Goldblatt sold it to my lovely editor, Alvina Ling of Little, Brown, both of whom I met in New York. Alvina’s take on this event is here; my joy-filled burbling is here.

Guardian of the Dead tells the story of young New Zealander Ellie Spencer, who discovers that certain of the creatures of Maori mythology are a) not mythological and b) fully intent on mass murder. Traumatic journeys, romance and kickbuttery ensue!

It has nothing to do with superheroes, but it does have teenagers and theatre and Tae Kwan Do and taniwha and all that other good stuff, and at the moment it looks like you will be able to read it sometime in 2010. That’s in the FUTURE.

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One Response to “Bits And Bobs”

  1. [...] is a new webcomic, and I find the pitch as reported by Karen Healey of Girls Read Comics and They’re Pissed difficult to resist: Also [...]