JORELL by Andrew Wade, re-published as an e-book

The fairies need Tim's help. Their home in the old-growth forest is in danger of being logged for timber. Can Tim convince his father, the manager of a sawmill, to stop old-growth logging in the forest, and save the fairies? But Tim also needs the fairies' help. He desperately wants his father and classmates to believe his story about Jorell being a real-life fairy. Can Jorell help Tim be believed?

Andrew's environmental story for children, also loved by adult readers, has just become an e-book. It is something he wanted to do with JORELL, shortly before he died, but we ran out of time. I'm glad to finally make it happen.

I tell people that the story is fiction but at least two of the fairies (Jorell herself, and a being called Lady Fairy) are real.

I have vivid memories of Andrew, when we lived under a local mountain called The Pinnacle, going outside to sit under a particular tree to meditate, tune in, and connect with the nature spirits (fairies). Then he would come back inside, sit at his computer and the words would pour.

The cover artist, Tom Giffin, suggested a different cover design from the paperback. My favourite book designers, Delaina and Kristin of Content X Design, worked with that suggestion to realise it professionally. 

I published it on Smashwords which makes it available in all the various ebook formats.

It's just in time for Christmas, and a steal at $2.99 USD!

Re-publishing JORELL

The fairies need Tim's help. Their home in the old-growth forest is in danger of being logged for timber. Can Tim convince his father, the manager of a sawmill, to stop old-growth logging in the forest, and save the fairies? But Tim also needs the fairies' help. He desperately wants his father and classmates to believe his story about Jorell being a real-life fairy. Can Jorell help Tim be believed?

Andrew's environmental story for children, also loved by adult readers, has just become an e-book. It is something he wanted to do with JORELL, shortly before he died, but we ran out of time. I'm glad to finally make it happen.

The cover artist, Tom Giffin, suggested a different cover design from the paperback. My favourite book designers, Delaina and Kristin of Content X Design, worked with that suggestion to realise it professionally. 

I published it on Smashwords which makes it available in all the various ebook formats.

It's just in time for Christmas, and a steal at $2.99 USD!

Life Magic: a Website in a Blog

It's been a little while since I did any blogging here. That's because I've been busy creating a website. After some abortive starts with longsuffering web designers, I realised what I wanted was something I could alter and update myself. So I began my research.

Yes, I could learn how to do it with Dreamweaver at the local TAFE, but I was told it was complex, and that I'd end up having to buy the software for about $1000. Hmmm, not on the Age Pension, thanks! Besides, I have the impression it needs a mathematical type of brain to do coding, and I don't happen to have one of them.

The guy at the local Tech Centre said I could do it with the greatest of ease in Google Pages. Er, no. When I had a play with that, it wasn't so easy for the likes of me. I guess people to whom it all comes naturally can't fathom how challenging it can be for some of us.

I heard a bit too late about Ozeclick, software which enables web owners to update their own sites once they've been created, and in which – like Google Pages – you can copy and paste any existing web pages you might have. By then I had created what I wanted. I went the blogging route.

My friend, the Atlanta poet Collin Kelley (see sidebar link), recently moved his website information on to a blog and put in a redirect from his domain name. He told me it was one of the best things he ever did. And my latest web designer (my Prodigal Son) was thinking about making something very static which he wouldn't need to keep going in and changing, but with links to blogs I could alter at will. So I started playing around with possible blog pages, and it quickly took shape – consisting entirely of a blog. Or rather, a nest of six blogs around one profile.

Andrew and I had just created a blog about fairies, to start telling the stories of psychic children we interviewed some years ago, and we had registered a new Blogger profile for it, listing us both as joint authors. Andrew's book, Jorell, one of the reasons he wanted a website, is a fairy story, so we always envisioned that blog tied into our website. And so I began, and it grew, and fell into place. Luckily I have taught myself a bit about constructing a blog by now, and Blogger does make it so easy!

The Prodigal is going to put in a redirect from our domain name to the new home page. Meanwhile the link in the sidebar to Life Magic will get you there. I am SO proud of it, so do go and have a look! You won't be able to comment, though, except on the one really bloggy section, The Truth About Fairies (see sidebar link). But you can come back here if you like, to tell me how splendiferous it is. (Please refrain from recording other opinions, lol.)

I did it as a present for Andrew on his birthday. He recently turned 79, and he has always wanted a blog that would showcase all our wares – our books, and all the services we can offer people. I thought he should have what he wanted!

I am glad to say the Prodigal loves it too.

New Year Transformation

"Love is an action," said the Prodigal Son recently, in his capacity as guru.

Andrew and I have already put into action a new year resolution – we've moved our desks from separate small dark offices at opposite ends of the house and put them together facing each other in the living room. Suddenly we have light, air and companionship. (The Prodigal Son came in very handy to do the heavy lifting and re-connect our ADSL and phones.)

It's great because we can consult each other when we're working without having to dash up and down the passage, and at night if one of us wants to watch TV and the other wants to go online, we can still be together anyway – or we can both be at our computers and watch TV at the same time, as we are doing right now. The Beatles movie "Help!" is on telly. (Oh, how young they look!) Silly plot but lovely music, so we are listening with half an ear whilst I blog and Andrew googles fairy shops all over the country which may wish to buy his book Jorell.

No more will visitors who can't make us hear their knocking have to stand outside our front door phoning us on their mobiles! (Translation for those who need it: calling us on their cell phones.) And I find I'm much more inclined to jump up and wash a few dishes or something, now that going into the kitchen isn't an expedition.

My former office was also my temple. I've dismantled that as well. Over the years I've amassed and been given so many wondrous objects, you should have seen my altar! It covered a large wooden dining table. The end result was clutter. Time for some of those treasures to go to bless other people, and for me to get back to basics. So now I step out into the back yard to do my morning and evening rituals. How much more appropriate for a Pagan to be out in nature!

I do have a beautiful wand, an athame and a ritual sword – but right now, for these private rituals, I'm using my forefinger. I like the reminder that I need nothing but myself for the creation of magick.

The year that's been.

Like so many people nowadays, we do the xmas update letter to far-flung friends and family. Omitting the greetings and closings, here's the latest summary of events and highlights:

It's been an up-and-down sort of year. The biggest drama was Andrew's heart attack in July, however it was a mild one, not even painful, and he is well recovered by now. It taught him not to push himself too hard, and he is now taking time out each day for things like walking, swimming, resting and reading.

His environmental fairy story, "Jorell", was published early in the year and launched on Environment Day under the auspices of the local Environment Centre. It has sold well locally, and we're about to take delivery of a second edition. A big thrill for us was when the cover artist, Tom Giffin, a young Californian, visited us with his Aussie girlfriend and presented us with the original of the beautiful cover painting.


A film company opened up not too far from here; Andrew approached them about making a movie of "Jorell", and they were very encouraging. He now has the task of writing a screenplay and attracting sponsorship. Luckily my son Steve, who is now working as a film financier, has a lot of clues about screenplays. He turned up to visit just at the right time to help Andrew tackle this; also he addressed my writers' group on the subject on several occasions, and held them enthralled for hours at a time.

I started the writers' group late last year, wanting to give something back to the community that helped get me to Texas for my 2006 poetry tour. It's hosted by the local Neighbourhood Centre, and I co-facilitate it with Pam Moore – another performance poet, ex-librarian and so on, like me. It's called WordsFlow, is full of talented, fun people, now has its own blog, and we just launched one member's first poetry book. In the coming year we're planning to branch out into a local history project, the creation of a community newspaper, and a book for children in hospital. The Neighbourhood Centre is very keen on the suggestion from Thom the World Poet when he visited last year, that we transform this town to Poetsville. It's taken a while, but we shall do it!

My poetry's still going strong. I've had a few pieces published in on-line literary magazines, and there's a faithful Yahoo group of "Rosemary's Readers" who like to receive new ones in their email every so often. It was fun to participate in the "30 poems in 30 days" project at Writer's Resource Center in September, particularly as my Texas friend and soul-sister Connie Williams did it too and we got to interact there. Otherwise, my main writing activity has been blogging. I enjoy MySpace and Twitter, am getting to like Blogger – and I tried Facebook briefly and hated it! Andrew does a bit of blogging too, but he's by no means so addicted as I am. We're both still working on memoirs, and I hope the blogging proves a painless way of recording some details. We belong to a memoir group which meets monthly in Byron Bay. We don't always get there, but have had some great meetings and very useful feedback.

An online magazine called The Smoking Poet did some nice reviews of "Jorell" and also of my poetry book "Secret Leopard" . And we've finally got a website. It's not finished and is probably subject to some changes, but the bits about our books are there to stay.

At the end of March we had a quick visit to Melbourne for Andrew's son Adam's 40th birthday party. We also attended a luncheon, movie showing and general celebration of Young Media Australia, an organisation of which Andrew was the first Chairman 50-odd years ago. It was great fun, and we heard some stimulating speeches about the current goals and needs, and the things the organisation has achieved for children over the years. Sorry if you're one of the many we didn't catch up with this trip. We managed to see most family members, went our separate ways one day to catch up with a few other people each, had a quick look at the Art Gallery, and then we had to rush back home to Pottsville. Hope to make it down there again in 2008 for the launch of a "tribute" book to the late Melbourne poet Shelton Lea, probably February, and will definitely be there for Andrew's daughter Cecilia's wedding in April.

My dear friends Maureen and Alan had a birthday party for me and our other Scorpio pal Marg in their wonderful new house. It was very luxurious! And all the assembled company got drawn into a very heated – though essentially good-humoured – debate on politics, with our Federal election coming up. One person there thought John Howard was OK; we were eager to disabuse her! Need I say, Andrew and I are delighted that Dishonest John met such a resounding defeat at last. Steve arrived for his visit just in time to see us glued to the TV on election night. He was vastly amused. "This is such great theatre," he said. "Not that stuff on the TV – you two!"

We're still doing Reiki and psychic readings at the Sunday markets, but not so often in 2007 what with Andrew's convalescence and Steve's visit. We decided to be more laid-back about the whole thing. We also still see clients privately, and I've taught Reiki to a few people during the year. Early in the year we became involved with a remarkable animal healer, Doc Jamieson, who is also good at energy clearing for people. We spent some time helping him in his healing work and he in turn did some energy clearing for us. He wants to open a healing centre and have us live in and me be the resident psychic reader, but I'm not at all sure I want to leave Pottsville. We're happy here.

Loving MySpace

'MySpace is crap,' says my 38-year-old son, who is staying with me just now. 'Facebook is crap.' He had a quick look at both to see if they had any relevance to his business interests. I wasn't enamoured of Facebook either, after giving it a try for a few months, but I LOVE MySpace, where I have virtually (!) been living for the past 18 months or so and have three flourishing blogs with hundreds of viewers and dozens of subscribers. 

Out here in the wider world, I'm grateful for rssHugger, the proposed Directory of Australian women bloggers, and StumbleUpon. On MySpace I don't need to register on a special site to let people with like interests know I exist – the whole community is set up to function that way.

Why is it that this feels like being out in the world, and MySpace feels like a village? It's a pretty big village! Indeed, I sometimes think the whole world is on MySpace. Only this morning I added the Dalai Lama to my group of friends. And there are musicians like Tim Finn, Fiona Horne and Lisa Marie Presley, who actually write their own blogs and respond to their fans' comments and messages – although there are also plenty of others who only want to build up the numbers, and I don't bother with them. (Unless I REALLY like their stuff, e.g. Ute Lemper and Wendy Rule.) I didn't mind building up the numbers for our new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the head of the Greens Party, Senator Bob Brown! There are fake sites for famous people, and other sites which are essentially fan clubs, but I make sure to connect with the official ones.

But I'm not there in order to collect famous strangers as 'friends'. I was first enticed there because that way I could listen to new work by a muso I actually know, a personal friend in real life, the lovely Clive Price. I soon found other friends there, old and new. Above all I love the terrific poets I've come across, whom I would never have known otherwise. To mention only my top favourites: George Wallace, Geraldine Green, Ed Churchouse, and a woman I know only as 'dawn', a nature-lover who paints wonderful pictures and writes non-literary poetry which has the power to move people profoundly. (4/3/08: I just deleted the wonderful Lori Williams from this list, as she has left MySpace. *Sob!*)

I have met passionate political activists – usually older women like myself, interestingly enough – warm-hearted witches who treat me as a mentor, young people who honour me by talking to me freely and frankly, and a whole mob of haiku poets who post new verses every week on my Haiku on Friday page.

I've had my work published in the online literary magazines rorschach failure and Unquiet Desperation (the latter also publishes a print edition), I've helped distribute free booklets of "poetry found", and The Smoking Poet reviewed my latest book of poetry, Secret Leopard along with my husband Andrew's environmental fairy story, Jorell. All these contacts were made on MySpace.

It's also a great place to keep in touch with people I know in real life, including friends overseas, and even those only a couple of hours away. My 16-year-old god-daughter Mikaela lives in another State, and I've seen little of her since she was small. She joined MySpace just because I said I enjoyed it, and we now know each other much better through our communications there. My relationship with her has become one of the great treasures of my life! I've also grown closer to my 40-year-old stepson Adam since he joined; we've had discussions that go much deeper than our conversations at family gatherings. In the context of MySpace we relate without our preconceived opinions and past history. And there he's made the acquaintance of one of my real-life best friends and now they're pals too. On my visit to Texas last year I formed warm friendships with poets and witches I met, then came back home with no certainty that we'd ever see each other again. Thanks to MySpace, we've at least been able to remain in close contact and many of those friendships have deepened.

Why wouldn't I love MySpace?

A year in a blog

The first paragraph below refers to my poetry tour of Texas in April 2006 – a momentous experience for me, which I'm still processing. I had posts here about it, mixed up with posts about my here-and-now life, then discovered I can have separate blogs at the same profile, so the posts recording my Texas journey are now at Rosemary Nissen-Wade: Texas Poetry Tour

A year has gone by. It's National Poetry Month again in the U.S., and Austin is gearing up for this year's International Poetry Festival. A Brisbane poet called Bob Mud is sleeping in MY room at Neil and Dorsey's house and using MY laptop! (Well, really Neil and Dorsey's of course.) In fact we are keeping in touch via that machine, just to add to my nostalgia. Braver than me, he is also driving one of Neil's cars. He tells me he has already met Roger and Clive who are back there this year, and jammed to music with them at Vinny's.

Meanwhile this blog has languished many months, due to other literary activities.

The aforementioned Clive invited me to join MySpace so as to hear his music there. It was mainly a networking place for musos, he told me, but he didn't see why it shouldn't work for a poet too. I didn't think I would use MySpace more than minimally, but I soon took to it and now I have a personal profile there, another for material on magick and energy in response to people asking me to mentor them, and yet another which hosts an ever-growing group of haiku writers. By now MySpace is full of poets, artists, witches, healers, and just about anything else you can think of. Early on I was invited to join Crone Circle, through which I met a number of vibrant and inspiring older women. My very latest MySpace friend is my 15-year-old god-daughter who lives in Melbourne and just joined up yesterday.

I created Rosemary's Readers, a Yahoo! group for people who want to read my new poems. When I first came back from Austin, poems were pouring out of me. They still are most of the time, but there have been some interruptions to the flow.

Shortly before my Texas trip, Andrew and I joined a memoir writing group that meets monthly in Byron Bay. They're great people, and having to produce something each time has been good for us. Otherwise, I don't think our memoirs would get written at all! Andrew's doing family stuff for his kids and grandchildren; mine is more about the magickal aspects of my life, as so many people have said I should write that story.

Thom the World Poet,the instigator of my Texas trip, came to Australia in August 2006, and did poetry performances and workshops in Queensland, Melbourne and the "rainbow region" of New South Wales, where I and others of his old cronies live. I helped organise this part of his tour and had another whirlwind of performances with Thom and other poets.

This led to starting a weekly writers' workshop at my local Neighbourhood Centre. It's now full up, with 13 participants, and we have a waiting list for a second one. Its heaps of fun and nurtures me as well as everyone else.

In November I participated in NaNoWriMo, which is short for National Novel Writing Month. For anyone who doesn't yet know about this, it began with a group of friends in California deciding they would each write a novel in a month just for the heck of it and making a little website to support themselves. It grew almost as fast as MySpace, and I was one of over 75,000 people all around the world who did it in 2006. The aim is to write 50,000 words of a new novel during November. It was crazy and fun and exhausting and exhilarating. It wasn't judged on literary merit or anything – anyone who made 50,000 words by the deadline was a winner. I actually got 62,818 words in 41 chapters. I now have a first draft which is better than I thought it would be but would need a LOT of work to become publishable. I was going to edit it and market it from January to October, mainly for the practice – but so far not much has happened. Andrew is the only person who has been allowed to read it. He said, "Yes it's very well written – it's just that it's so boring." I burst out laughing, but afterwards couldn't bring myself to go on with the wretched thing.

Copies of my book, posted home from Texas by the cheapest and therefore slowest means, finally arrived in December. We had a local book launch which went very well. I abandoned plans for something more grandiose in Melbourne, as it was a limited edition in the first place and not so very many books came home from Texas.

My husband Andrew's novel, an environmental fairy story for 8-11-year-olds (but loved by all ages) has just been published and is being very well received. The cover artist, Tom Giffin, a young Californian, visited Australia a few weeks ago, came and had lunch with us, and presented us with the original painting. It's a beautiful picture with Mt Warning in the background, as the story is set locally.

I'm starting to submit poems to literary magazines and have had a few accepted already. I'm working towards a new collection, whilst wondering whether to do a second (local) edition of "Secret Leopard".

So that's pretty much our year in writing. I'll come back later to the completion of my Texas saga!