Actual Fan Email, Actual Response
Hi Karen, As a child (I am now an elderly 21) I loved geckos. At After School Care we would collect gecko eggs to take them home and put them in cotton wool lined egg cups, waiting for them to hatch. At home I kept my school bag outside, hanging from a rack on the wall beside the front door. One night I went out there to get something from it. The wall (as was usual) was covered in geckos, that was cool – geckos and I were tight, we had a mutual respect for each other…right? Well Karen, apparently NOT. Because these little $*%@# decided to drop their tails – leaving me faced...
read moreQueen of the Kitchen Update
Internets, you may remember the story I wrote and sent out last year in lieu of Christmas cards, Queen of the Kitchen. I really like that story, but it was looking a little sad on the page. What it needed, I thought, was colour. Life. ARTWORK. So I commissioned an illustration from K. Smirnov, and it is fantastic; exactly as I had imagined Caroline to look: I particularly love the strength of her forearms and the quirk in her lips – this looks like a girl who cooks a LOT, and has developed muscle to do it, and is not particularly inclined to put up with interference in her life, which...
read moreHappiness Is A Full Stomach
I have been working on a couple of deadlines (a Strange Horizons article, a paper for a seminar, revising Summerton) and thus did what I always do: massive, herculean amounts of procrastination. On Saturday, I helped take apart a second-hand bookstore. I am very sad to see it go, but I am very happy to be paid for my efforts in second-hand books. Many many many of them. On Saturday night, I roasted a chicken with couscous. On Sunday, I chopped up a bunch of the roast chicken and made pot pies. Then I made a lemon-raspberry tart, including the pastry, from scratch. (Rubbing the butter into the...
read moreMore Updates!
Internets, I have added another chunk of Guardian of the Dead background information. This bit is about the Ngaio Marsh Theatre, which is an important setting in the book, and one of my most favourite places in the whole world.
read moreTop Six Declarations of Familial Love.
I’m totally awesomed by the response to the love declarations post! Alla y’all have excellent taste. But much as I love romance, I think I love families EVEN MORE. SIX: Mopani: What happens now? Grace: We’ll have to wait and see… Mopani: Are you and Kupe an item now? Grace: “An item”? Kupe: Ae, Mopani. Mopani: What about Dad? Grace: I still love your dad a lot, punnet. Maybe we can all stay friends. Mopani: I doubt it. You should hear the way Dad and Irene talk about each other. Kupe: But that doesn’t mean you can’t stay friends with everyone,...
read moreMy Top Six Declarations Of (Heterosexual) Love
Mmmmm, love scenes. One day I will write a true romance, rather than a novel with some romance in it, and there will be LOVE SCENES GALORE. Here are some of my favourite declarations of love, not all of which are entirely successful. SIX: BENEDICK: I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange? BEATRICE: As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you: but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin. – Much Ado About Nothing FIVE: I was nicely tucked up...
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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