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It was early spring 2015 when we made our way into the forest to film a book trailer to promote Irina: The Trilogy, a new edition that contains all three adventures. We headed into our deep forest location, passing tall trees glittering with dabs of sunlight, with a crew, an actor, and a 'wolf.' We would see what Irina could look like on screen -- a dream realised.
Brigita was playing the role of Irina. In our makeshift outdoors change-room she put on a simple white dress and a crown of fern fronds, and became the wolf queen. And I felt that thrill of delight when something comes together, and looks right. This was magic. I'd dreamed of a book trailer hinting at enchantments and battles, the rewilding impulse of the present and the archetypal wisdom of fairytales from the past. But who could make a trailer suggesting this world? I approached film-maker friends, Annika Glac and Marcus Struzina of Glass Kingdom Films, who made the feature films Belladonna, and Bunny (glasskingdom.com.au) When they said they could do it on our budget, I was so excited! They understood the aesthetic -- not too pretty, not too Disney, but rough and beautiful and natural. This is how we once lived and how part of us yearns to live still. We gathered the elements. A real wolf was out of the question. Could we splice in some footage from somewhere? Hire someone’s husky? A white wolf would be good… And then we learned of a friend's stunning white dog who had been rescued, called Apollo. On the day of the shoot, we had to keep Apollo on a lead as he loves to run through the forest, and does not always come back! On the day, he seemed to accept his role by Brigita’s side, and he brought his wonderful, canine presence to the final film. We chose costumes from Rose Chong’s in Fitzroy, and made a wild crown. We found a magnificent tree to serve as a backdrop, and on our way we passed a patch of blue flowers so beautiful that Annika insisted we add an extra shot to our planned series. We had our main shot in front of the tree; another where Irina wears a royal cloak, the romantic field of blue flowers, and an image of the cell where Irina is trapped at the beginning of Irina and The Lost Book: Marcus had the inspired thought of shooting it after dusk, next to a small stone wall, lit from above. And what about the score? The amazingly talented Marcus and Annika composed something of their own, using bagpipes, which I absolutely loved for its evocation of an archaic, rustic atmosphere. My heartfelt thanks goes to Brigita, who plays Irina The Wolf Queen, to Adam -- and his dog, Apollo, for standing in as one of the wolves of Ragnor; to Annika and Marcus for inspiration, understanding and hours of work and their nephew Gulliver; to my friends Tony and Julia, son Amos and husband John, who carried heavy equipment in and out of the forest, and made ‘wind’ by using reflectors as great fans when the wind machine broke down! I hope you enjoy it. Watch the trailer: irinathetrilogy |
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“Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the Universe together into one garment for us.” Ray Chandler, Farenheit 451
The story behind the story...
Late summer, 2014, I wandered into an antique shop and came out with a handful of postcards, some of them over one hundred years old. I was intrigued by the muted palettes, their dry texture and faintly bookish smell, and the scratchy copperplate handwriting on the reverse of the cards, often with no message, just a name, as though the postcard said it all. The images were pretty and sweet and kitsch, and strangely appealing. Ephemeral relics of a different people, a different sensibility, a different world. I spread them out on my desk, wondering why I'd bought them.
A week later, I heard there was a call-out for submissions for a new anthology of love stories by the Melbourne publishing house, Inkerman and Blunt. And a character presented herself: a woman called Mallory who buys vintage postcards for her boyfriend for Valentine's day, but really, they are for her, because she's longing for something, she doesn't know quite what it is -- she's in her thirties with a child and she's never been 'in love' before, in that mad and powerful way that sometimes grips us so intensely it seems to wipe out every other thought and feeling. And then a man she knows slightly takes her hand to demonstrate an old folk dance, and it happens, only she is committed elsewhere....
As a Valentine's Day present, you can read the story below.
You can buy a copy of Australian Love Stories at a reduced Valentine's Day price: here
As a Valentine's Day present, you can read the story below.
You can buy a copy of Australian Love Stories at a reduced Valentine's Day price: here
2/12/2016 0 Comments
New Review for 'The World to Come'
''The World to Come, edited by Patrick West and Om Prakash Dwivedi, is a collection of 21 short stories written by authors from across the globe. It features a diverse set of themes that range from love to the apocalypse. The stories are incredibly creative and thought-provoking, and offer a glimpse into people’s differing perspectives on what the future holds for the human race.''
Read the rest of this review: here
Watch the trailer: here
Buy the book: here
Read the rest of this review: here
Watch the trailer: here
Buy the book: here
The First Fold
When the decahedral box defeats me, I look through the box-making instruction book for something easier. I’d planned to make this decahedral box for my geometry tutor, to reflect our multiple dimensions. I’d fill it with chocolates, to thank him for mysterious words like vertex. Using models made from dowel, he pulls triangles from squares and reflects squares into triangles. I could kiss his feet from awe. You don’t obey these strange compulsions. Resisting impulse is what makes us or unmakes us, depending on your philosophy.
Pinwheels are lovely for storing teabags. Use Japanese rice papers; gold cranes on aqua lakes, a repeat of violet fans on a translucent parchment ground, red dragons, that sort of thing.
Try for a smooth curved line when making cylindrical boxes for bottles and neckties, and remember to push the end of the pleats into the first fold. (Ah, the first fold. The first container is the womb, where we make our first folds. The second container is the life. We make our lives outside the womb. We enfold ourselves like babushka dolls. We enfold. And we unfold. And then we fold up, into the final box known as the coffin.)
The paper blossom is suitable for presenting candy. The folds make an eight pointed star and look like a celestial diagram. Fold forward along broken lines. Suck slender straws of striped sweetness straight from the blossom.
A book-style box has many uses. Choose vintage orange, put lettering in a sixties font, or move on to making steampunk boxes from leather and brass. Design your own book covers! The artist still matters!
None of my boxes will ever be finished because my folded curves are inexact, and unrepeatable. I lack patience, I am sanguine, I am as rubbish at making paper boxes as I am at learning geometry.
Containment, boundary, structure, shape: these make something out of tangible and intangible things. I also want to say, who cares about the packaging? It’s what’s inside that counts.
The First Fold
When the decahedral box defeats me, I look through the box-making instruction book for something easier. I’d planned to make this decahedral box for my geometry tutor, to reflect our multiple dimensions. I’d fill it with chocolates, to thank him for mysterious words like vertex. Using models made from dowel, he pulls triangles from squares and reflects squares into triangles. I could kiss his feet from awe. You don’t obey these strange compulsions. Resisting impulse is what makes us or unmakes us, depending on your philosophy.
Pinwheels are lovely for storing teabags. Use Japanese rice papers; gold cranes on aqua lakes, a repeat of violet fans on a translucent parchment ground, red dragons, that sort of thing.
Try for a smooth curved line when making cylindrical boxes for bottles and neckties, and remember to push the end of the pleats into the first fold. (Ah, the first fold. The first container is the womb, where we make our first folds. The second container is the life. We make our lives outside the womb. We enfold ourselves like babushka dolls. We enfold. And we unfold. And then we fold up, into the final box known as the coffin.)
The paper blossom is suitable for presenting candy. The folds make an eight pointed star and look like a celestial diagram. Fold forward along broken lines. Suck slender straws of striped sweetness straight from the blossom.
A book-style box has many uses. Choose vintage orange, put lettering in a sixties font, or move on to making steampunk boxes from leather and brass. Design your own book covers! The artist still matters!
None of my boxes will ever be finished because my folded curves are inexact, and unrepeatable. I lack patience, I am sanguine, I am as rubbish at making paper boxes as I am at learning geometry.
Containment, boundary, structure, shape: these make something out of tangible and intangible things. I also want to say, who cares about the packaging? It’s what’s inside that counts.
12/17/2015 1 Comment
Competition Winner Announced!
Congratulations to Charlotte!
Charlotte got all the quiz questions right, and made her Dad send them in just in time for the deadline... well done Charlotte, and I hope you enjoy the art work by xoum's talented cover designer, Roy Chen! I think it's a beautiful image of Irina and Durrell embarking on an adventure, riding through the snow on their way to the Crystal Sea....
"Irina's elation grew. She embraced her father, said goodbye, then climbed onto Durrell's back and pushed her gloved hands into his fur. Astride the mighty wolf, she gave King Harmon such a radiant smile that he had to smile in return. Irina put her head down and the pair sped off, leaving tracks in the white snow, Amicus flying high above."
p 67 Irina and The White Wolf.
Charlotte got all the quiz questions right, and made her Dad send them in just in time for the deadline... well done Charlotte, and I hope you enjoy the art work by xoum's talented cover designer, Roy Chen! I think it's a beautiful image of Irina and Durrell embarking on an adventure, riding through the snow on their way to the Crystal Sea....
"Irina's elation grew. She embraced her father, said goodbye, then climbed onto Durrell's back and pushed her gloved hands into his fur. Astride the mighty wolf, she gave King Harmon such a radiant smile that he had to smile in return. Irina put her head down and the pair sped off, leaving tracks in the white snow, Amicus flying high above."
p 67 Irina and The White Wolf.
12/8/2015 2 Comments
When the wise woman shows up...
--- Raizel ---
I remember vividly writing about Irina's first encounter with Raizel, the old wise-woman of the South. As in many fairytales, the crone is there at the beginning, when Irina is a baby... but I really felt Raizel's power when Irina meets her in the forest. Running through my mind was the word 'interest' -- Raizel has a deep and profound interest in Irina. The wolf-girl is being looked on by wise and ancient eyes, and she is both warmed by it, and in awe of it. To hold the interest of someone older, who poseses a profound intelligence, can be quite an experience:
"There, behind the hare, was an old crone. Her skin was as withered as a
fallen apple...and she wore a floor length wrap made of furs, and held a basket of stones over one arm. Her eyes were partly obscured by the folds of her eyelids, and they gleamed darkly, like wet stones in a river.
The crone was studying Irina with such concentration that it seemed to pour from her in waves, wrapping Irina warmly and firmly. Irina had never seen the woman before, and yet she felt she had always known her.
Instinctively, barely conscious of what she was doing, Irina knelt."
p118, Irina The Wolf Queen.
Have you ever had this kind of experience, this feeling of interest from an older person, a teacher, a mentor, or grandparent perhaps, someone who helped you grow into who you are?
"There, behind the hare, was an old crone. Her skin was as withered as a
fallen apple...and she wore a floor length wrap made of furs, and held a basket of stones over one arm. Her eyes were partly obscured by the folds of her eyelids, and they gleamed darkly, like wet stones in a river.
The crone was studying Irina with such concentration that it seemed to pour from her in waves, wrapping Irina warmly and firmly. Irina had never seen the woman before, and yet she felt she had always known her.
Instinctively, barely conscious of what she was doing, Irina knelt."
p118, Irina The Wolf Queen.
Have you ever had this kind of experience, this feeling of interest from an older person, a teacher, a mentor, or grandparent perhaps, someone who helped you grow into who you are?
12/1/2015 0 Comments
Ever had an insane plan?
The Ringwood Madonna
"...she was in the grip of a plan, possibly an insane one. She'd spent nights fantasising about painting an icon of Mary some place it where it coudn't be ignored. And now here she was, walking along the railway tracks as night deepened.... An act of rebellion, a drop of beauty, a site of defiance...
'Hey, what are you doing?' came a voice from the dark.
She yelped and lurched sideways, knocking over her paints. A Maglite moved across her face..."
'Hey, what are you doing?' came a voice from the dark.
She yelped and lurched sideways, knocking over her paints. A Maglite moved across her face..."
| If you'd like to read the rest of The Ringwood Madonna, from the story collection Bearings, it's currently on sale for only $9:95! Click on stockists below: Booktopia Readings Affirm Press "Swann has ... the ability to see and sense things about human beings from original angles, make unexpected and illuminating comparisons and connections and to communicate the ways in which a humble domestic object or a passing gesture can become infused with significance." Kerryn Goldsworthy, The Sydney Morning Herald Like to read more reviews? click below http://www.leahswann.com/reviews.html |  |
11/28/2015 2 Comments
What would you do with a second life?
Signing a copy of Irina: The Trilogy for Caitlyn..
Yesterday, a student read a story in which he'd found a magic stone that granted him a 'second life.' This concept -- astonishing from a grade four pupil -- seemed to me a fascinating premise for a piece of speculative fiction. Assuming you keep your current life, and all the precious experiences within it, what would you do with a second life? Would you pretty much have the same life, with just a few things revised? (Saying yes to a job offer, exploring unused talents, doing things you wish you had time for, actually making those fabulous comebacks we think up later...)
Would you run your 'second life' at the same time -- so that you could be a greens activist, or a pilot, or a spy -- and have adventures, and then return to your 'real' life?
And if there were no constraints, and you could live in another country, in another time, in another body, what would you choose?
Would you run your 'second life' at the same time -- so that you could be a greens activist, or a pilot, or a spy -- and have adventures, and then return to your 'real' life?
And if there were no constraints, and you could live in another country, in another time, in another body, what would you choose?
Thanks again to the Grade Four class at Croydon Primary, it was wonderful to visit, talk with you about reading and writing, and hear your stories.
The bees in David Malouf's Remembering Babylon.
All of us who love to read have those spine-tingling moments where something extraordinary is expressed. One of my favourites is from Remembering Babylon, by David Malouf, when a character called Janet is swarmed by bees:
"Suddenly there was the sound of a wind getting up in the grove, though she did not feel the touch of it, and before she could complete the breath she had taken, or expel it in a cry, the swarm was on her, thickening so fast about her that it was as if night had fallen, just like that, in a single cloud. She just had time to see her hands covered with plushy, alive fur gloves before her whole body crusted over and she was blazingly gathered into the single sound they made, the single mind.
Her own mind closed in on her. She lost all sense of where her feet might be, or her dreamy wrists, or whether she was still standing, as she had been a moment before, in the shadowy grove, or had been lifted from the face of the earth...
... You are our bride, her new and separate mind told her as it drummed and swayed above the earth. Ah, so that is it! They have smelled her sticky blood flow! They think it is honey. It is."
In a story I'm currently working on, a character gets stung to death by bees, and I remembered and re-read this exquisite piece of Malouf's prose.
What's one of your favourite moments from a book?
"Suddenly there was the sound of a wind getting up in the grove, though she did not feel the touch of it, and before she could complete the breath she had taken, or expel it in a cry, the swarm was on her, thickening so fast about her that it was as if night had fallen, just like that, in a single cloud. She just had time to see her hands covered with plushy, alive fur gloves before her whole body crusted over and she was blazingly gathered into the single sound they made, the single mind.
Her own mind closed in on her. She lost all sense of where her feet might be, or her dreamy wrists, or whether she was still standing, as she had been a moment before, in the shadowy grove, or had been lifted from the face of the earth...
... You are our bride, her new and separate mind told her as it drummed and swayed above the earth. Ah, so that is it! They have smelled her sticky blood flow! They think it is honey. It is."
In a story I'm currently working on, a character gets stung to death by bees, and I remembered and re-read this exquisite piece of Malouf's prose.
What's one of your favourite moments from a book?
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