Best of 2011
My parents are on a trip this week, which is FABULOUS. I mean. I love them. I love spending time with them. But my Dad has spent his married life making the family meals, and he’s got the menu down to a fine art: Roast meat, steamed fish, or cold cuts, accompanied by boiled potatoes, steamed silverbeet and cauliflower, and occasionally carrots and peas. There might be a gravy. There might be a cheese sauce. There will be a green salad for the rabbit food eaters. And this is a fine menu! But it becomes progressively less fine when one is served it every day. Now that Dad is out of the...
read moreI can’t read my own handwriting.
“Karen,” you say, “what are all those little yellow squares with handwriting on them?” “Handwriting I have blurred a number of times in photoshop, Internets,” I reply. “I do not want the contents of those squares to be discernible! Because I am plotting a book.” “Oh, Karen,” you sigh. “There are these things called computers, perhaps you have heard of them?” “Well, Internets,” I say, “I think the method of presentation for this imaginary conversation is adequate evidence that I have,...
read moreAnxiety, Keri, and Me
So my friend John runs this thing where he invites people to talk about the Big Idea that lies behind their novel. Wherein! I talk about my anxiety disorder, and The Shattering, and where Keri came from without me realising it. But of course Keri wasn’t really like me. She was a biracial teenager from a low-income family who wasn’t afraid of physical violence and loved sports. I was a white woman in my late twenties who shied away from physical confrontation and thought that sports were doubtless very nice for those who enjoyed them. I had far more in common with the other two narrators;...
read moreThe Unbearable Lightness Of Noms
I am waiting for my first ever bread to bake (please be delicious, bread, I have plans for you that involve a lot of honey) and I am quite cheerful about that. Also I am cheerful from killing the first person in Mysterious New Novel today. Well, second, but the protagonist got better. ALSO I am cheerful because I was watching Adam Hills in Gordon St Tonight, which featured the awesome Hannah Gadsby, on whom I have an inappropriate crush, and the voice of Josh Thomas, on whom likewise. This prompted some thought. Karen’s Inappropriate Crushes On Australian Comedy/Analysis TV People: Josh...
read moreThe Shattering Cookie: Keri and her mum.
Hello, internets! For your next The Shattering cookie you said you wanted Keri hanging out with her family, and you shall have it! Mild spoiler warnings, of course. I got home just as Mum was leaving for work. “Morning, Keri. How was dinner?” “Good,” I said. “The snapper was good.” “Oh, lovely. Is Janna’s friend nice?” “Yeah. Bit flash, maybe. He’s staying at the Chancellor.” Mum nodded, a gesture that might have meant she wasn’t paying attention, but could equally have meant she was taking it all in for use at some later date. “Your dad called while you were out....
read moreNEW The Shattering Cover!
NOTE: THIS ENTIRE POST IS LIES. Which I mention because apparently a bookstore contacted my publicist to see if the cover had really changed. Hi Interwebs! I have a confession to make. You see, after a lot of discussion, Allen and Unwin decided to go with a new cover design for the Australian version of The Shattering. They went with a new designer, RC Fleming, and a really different take on the book. I’ve been sitting on this for a while, DYING to let you all see. And today, I finally get to unveil the new cover design to you! This design really speaks to the lighter side of the...
read moreAbout Karen
Karen Healey is a young adult novelist. She is the author of the urban fantasies GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD and THE SHATTERING, both set in New Zealand, and the forthcoming sci-fi adventure WHEN WE WAKE. GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD won the 2010 Aurealis Award for Best YA Novel and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award. Karen can tell you a lot about baking, covers of "Hallelujah" and superhero comics.
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