Times Sq/Theatre District NYC

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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I’ve been in Times Square before. Several times. The first time would have been back in the 1980s. What surprised me this time was how much more digital screen advertising there is compared to just a few years ago on my last visit — they have SWAMPED the place. 

Screens loom down on you in garish colours from every building. The result? Over-saturation. Quite frankly, I would be happy never to go there again, at least not to see the actual environs…

To see a show, though — that’s another matter!
We went to see “An American in Paris” 
(a matter of what tickets we could grab at short notice. There were a great many better things to see if we’d been able to plan ahead.)

Wait, wait, there’s also…
Family.

Chinatown … is Chinatown

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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I have left NY, but am still catching up on photos.

One of the distinctive things about Manhattan is the way it is divided up. Every big city has its CBD — but Manhattan has a financial district district from the commercial district, an then its neighbourhoods: African-American, Hispanic, a Little Italy, a Chinatown, a theatre district,  then areas that seem to specialise in atmosphere — funky, or upmarket, or jazz, or arty.

It doesn’t seem to matter where it is, Chinatown looks pretty much the same. Except for the thickness of the clothing, and the external fire escapes, this could be in Kuala Lumpur…

 

Some random photos from Downtown Manhattan

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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Below: random street corner…
 Below: the corner of the Amish Market which extends down the street…
 Below: street on Easter Sunday — hence the pink ears.
 Below, the spines of the communication centre at the WTC site.

 Below: so-called FREEDOM TOWER, or 1WTC, built where once the Twin Towers stood
 Below: St Paul’s chapel that escaped the destruction of the Twin Towers by a whisker.
 Below: photo taken from the portico of the St Paul’s Chapel
 BELOW: American Stock Exchange building 
and the graveyard of Trinity Church. 
Also — Spring!!

The green street sign on the lampost in the middle of this photo says simply “People With Aids”.

This has got to be the best moment of my writing career…

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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I WON THE SARA DOUGLASS SERIES AWARD
for THE WATERGIVERS aka STORMLORD trilogy

I don’t even know where to begin.
  • For a start, Sara was one of my author heroines.
  • Secondly, this is the inaugural award.
  • Thirdly, the award covers series written over a number of years, as long as they were completed between 2011 to 2014 — so it covers an awful lot of years and an awful lot of books… (Pity the judges!!) You can read more about the award here.  
I am so honoured.
So chuffed. So breathtakingly amazed. Especially considering that the shortlist included Juliet Marillier, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Michael Pryor, Marlina Marchetta and Rowena Cory Daniells.
No, that’s not me…but my name is on that trophy!!
Unfortunately, I couldn’t be there, owing to the arrival of a brand-new member of the family in New York, but I was prevailed upon to write an acceptance speech just in case, which you will find at the end of this post. It was delivered for me by a fellow writer, Donna Hanson (above), at the Aussi Natcon 2016 in Brisbane. And I believe there were celebrations…see photo left.

There were a lot more things I could have said in the speech — how much I owe to the then Voyager Australia editor, Stephanie Smith, for example. How much I owe my beta readers for making me a better writer and making those three books better works. How much I appreciate the work put into the awards by the Australian Spec Fic community and the judges.

But here’s what I did say:

When I first read Sara Douglass’s Battleaxe back in the 1990s, I was blown away, not just by the story, but also by the idea that an Australian author could publish a fantasy novel worldwide and find acclaim on a world stage.
At the time I was looking for a publisher for my first book — and Sara’s success was an inspiration. And of course, Battleaxe was just the first of long line of Sara’s groundbreaking novels.

I was delighted to hear that a series award was being created in her name, to acknowledge her pre-eminent position in Australian speculative fiction history. The fact that judges had a massive job of reading the number of series up for the award is a tribute to the present health of Speculative Fiction writing in Australia, a wave of creativity of which Sara was the forefront.

To have been short-listed by the judges for the inaugural award was a breath-taking compliment. The other works on that list are so impressive that I certainly don’t believe, as I write these words, that any work of mine could win. I just love the validation of being on the shortlist though, and I thank everyone involved.

Most of all, I wish you were here, Sara, still with us and still writing.

Romantic Times has nice things to say about Book 3

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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Every author waits with trepidation for the very first review of a book about to be published.  And I am happy to say, that the first for THE FALL OF THE DAGGER is very positive!

THE ROMANTIC TIMES HAS THIS TO SAY: 


Larke seamlessly blends various storylines together to create a satisfying end to The Forsaken Lands trilogy. Her world building shines, as always…
This is a series for any reader who loves lush worlds, complex plots and characters to root for...


YAY!

A walk through Tribeca to Pier 25

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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 Manhattan is impressive, no matter which way you look. It is also battered by time and usage… So even if there are ultra modern buildings, they can be surrounded by crumbling roads and pavements. It’s an odd juxtaposition sometimes.
 Yesterday was a lovely spring day — blue skies no matter which way you looked. But even so, the haze of human activities never leaves. You can see it there in the dirty pinkness of the distance…
These shots look across the Hudson River to New Jersey, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty to the left. That flash of white is the sun catching the window of the building
I miss the greenery around where I live back home…

Manhattan snaps…

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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I must say that there is nothing so stunning and awe-making than the Manhattan skyline from a distance, especially at night. One of the most memorable views I ever had was from a plane, just after sunset, with the island lit up against the glow in the sky…

However, if you ask me about Manhattan, I could also say that viewed from other angles, it is an incredibly ugly and noisy blot on the landscape. Ugly architecture, dirty pavements, potholed roads and dilapidated walls, bits and pieces of the city always being dug up/repaired/refurbished/rebuilt… Or I could say that it has one of the most beautiful urban parks in the world. Or that there are little corners of delicate beauty or flamboyant artistry. It throbs and hums and thrums, never still, never quiet. I would hate to live there. And yet I love to visit.

Here’s a building that — I assume — was one day subject to new laws that necessitated fire escapes to be built and there was nowhere to build them except across the facade. So someone then decreed that they would make sure those ladders and landings were as beautiful as they could make them…

Look at the lovely wrought-iron scroll work below.

A playground, cemented and hemmed in by iron fences — and overlooked by Charlie Brown.

A Mamak  coffee shop. Back in Malaysia, we just loved to have breakfast at one such. (Mamak means Malaysian Indian Muslim and their food and beverages have a distinctive cultural mix of tastes). 

It was a real surprise to see one such here, using that word!

One of the many murals that decorate the city, this one by Nickolai Khan, painted on a roll-up security door.

This is a Muslim Centre — with a minaret! (Can’t help thinking that it looks more like a lighthouse)

And below, for those who’d like a free-standing home of their own in Manhattan instead of a highrise apartment: how about buying a place like this one? A totally delightful and ridiculous rip-off a Loire castle, built in the 1890s as a firehouse…

ALL PHOTOS TAKEN BY DR. SELINA NORAMLY

Where I was yesterday… 40,000′ up.

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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These photos were taken from 40,000′ over Labrador, Canada.
The first sight of that snow-covered, desolate land (seen through the plane window) was ice-fringed, the floes floating through a brittle skin of transparent ice …(above)

Then (below) the land itself — snow-clad outlier islands caught in a plain of ice, apparently abandoned by mankind to a cold, lonely wilderness — still wearing, though, the scoring of an ancient icy past in the form of deep scratches.


Then the first sign of mankind: a straight line, much wider that any ordinary road, blugeoned somehow through the wilderness to make a snow-filled line of epic proportions (remember, this was taken from 40,000′ up). Whatever ploughed this furrow mostly ignored the contours of the land as if  oblivious to them. 

An oil/gas pipeline? A road for giants? A firebreak? 
(I’m an Australian. A firebreak is what we think of first, actually…)

Framing this gigantic ditch: scratch marks from the ancient fingernails of ice sheets and glaciers.

Finally, below, a slightly warmer sight: a flowing river not far north of the St Lawrence River.

And so on, to New York.

Where I was this morning….

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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Just a kilometre or two from where we live, along the Serpentine River. Husband went fishing. I went for a walk.
 Met an Australian marsupial  

The quenda (Isoodon obesulus fusciventer) is a subspecies of southern brown bandicoot that is only found in southwest Western Australia. Remarkably, quendas can still be found in remnant bushland across suburban Perth. See more here.

Little Pied Cormorant (left) drying its wings. There’s also a Darter in this pix if you look closely.