Christchurch author, Helen Lowe , (right),won lcbo store hours the international David Gemmell Morni

Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.
Christchurch author, Helen Lowe , (right),won lcbo store hours the international David Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer , 2012, with The Heir of Night —the first woman and the first antipodean writer to do so. That was a huge recognition of Helen’s work, but now to add to that she is on the shortlist for this year’s David Gemmell Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel (published in the preceding calendar year) with The Gathering Of The Lost . The Legend Award is the ‘open’ category – and this year Helen is not only the sole woman author on the shortlist, but if she wins will be both the first woman and the first Southern Hemisphere author to do so.
Helen: The David Gemmell Awards were established to honour heroic fantasy author lcbo store hours David Gemmell who passed away in 2006. There are three classes of awards, all named after his books: the Ravenheart is for cover art, the Morningstar is for the best newcomer, and the Legend Award is for the best novel, published in the preceding calendar year, in the epic, heroic, or high Fantasy genres. The awards lcbo store hours are intended to celebrate excellence in the genre, but also to encourage readers and lovers of epic fantasy to read and discuss the books and so promote fantasy literature and jacket art.
I should note that The Heir Of Night , which won last year’s lcbo store hours Morningstar Award, and The Gathering Of The Lost , which is shortlisted for this year’s Legend Award, are the first and second novels respectively in The Wall Of Night series, which will be a quartet once complete. I like to say that it is one story told in four parts, but in fact each ‘part’ or book is turning out to have its own distinct character, which is fun although it can also be challenging to write some times.
Ruth: lcbo store hours It can’t have been an easy task focusing on your writing, living in Christchurch over the last two years, since the big earthquake in February, 2011, followed by thousands of aftershocks. I notice that you have dedicated this book to those who died in the earthquake.
Helen: Very, Ruth, not just in what I call the “year of awful”, which was those eighteen months between 4 September 2010 and 23 December 2011, but also through all the exigencies of aftermath – which as you know yourself continues to be very draining. The Gathering Of The Lost was completed during that eighteen months of ongoing earthquakes, and part of what makes this shortlisting feel so special is because the book is a tangible representation of having lived through those times. The reason I dedicated it to the 185 people who lost their lives on February 22, 2011, was because it was a personal way in which I could not only commemorate their loss but say that their lives mattered.
Helen:  That’s a great question, Ruth. I’m never quite sure where characters come from. Sometimes they spring forth fully formed, Minerva style, and sometimes they evolve. Malian was one of the ‘evolving’ characters. I had the idea of an initially quite young heroine in a (literally) dark world for many years, and then a chance-heard lcbo store hours phrase, describing some unknown lcbo store hours person’s life as a “race along a cliff’ sparked the idea of my heroine’s life being one of magic and danger, roof top pursuits and flights by night. But The Heir Of Night story in particular only took off when I had this vision of a very daring young girl -- Malian -- scaling the interior wall of an ancient, ruined castle while a storm raged outside. That image came with far more backstory around what her life was, and why, and the writing began.
Yet the process of writing being what it is, that was still only the end of the beginning in terms of the development of the character. Since then Malian has continued to grow and evolve in relation to both events and the changes in the characters lcbo store hours around her. It’s very important to me that should happen, as I feel it’s a vital part of making characters real. I’ve heard Kate de Goldi talk about writers having “bones” that we gnaw on, in a metaphorical sense, and the whole notion of “consequences” is definitely one of my “bones.”
For example, the action in The Gathering Of The Lost picks up five years after The Heir Of Night closed, and not only is Malian older but she has been separated from some of her closest companions for most of that time. So a big part of the story is whether the friendships and the interests remain as closely aligned as they were in The Heir Of Night . Other t