tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11650440371268652702011-12-20T10:10:13.354-08:00Eileen Kernaghan's blogEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.comBlogger631100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-39535680968163138212011-11-16T17:49:00.000-08:002011-11-16T17:53:33.736-08:00Who really wrote Shakespeare's plays? The argument continues.
Lady Mary Sidney Herbert
The release of the film Anonymous has revived the enduring question of who really authored Shakespeare’s plays. Was it Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Rutland, the Earl of Southampton, the Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, Francis Bacon -- or as the movie would have it, Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (a theory most reviewers call Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-24187474807621647182011-11-08T09:40:00.000-08:002011-11-08T09:50:49.697-08:00November 11th, 1994After the rain, the Last Post, the Silence,
after the laying of wreaths, the Legion fills.
Between sobriety and bathos comes
a quiet stage of drunkenness when men
remember private wounds -- lost youth,
illusion, hope -- when chinks grow wide
in the high walls they hide behind, the walls
that women never learn to build.
A man turns to an old comrade, then,
and says, "I was glad to have you at my Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-69410821966186892172011-10-10T13:52:00.000-07:002011-10-14T10:25:36.726-07:00Wild Talent podcast.
Listen to This: Marie Ellis reads an excerpt from Wild Talent: a Novel of the Supernatural.Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-16693849858268524172011-10-05T11:35:00.000-07:002011-10-06T13:34:15.736-07:00Casey Wolf reads from Winter on the Plain of Ghosts
Drop into the multi-talented Casey Wolf's Wolfden blogsite and listen to Casey reading an excerpt from my historical fantasy Winter on the Plain of Ghosts: a Novel of Mohenjo-daro . The Winter on the Plain of Ghosts excerpt is also available on you-tube .Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-45317938673515626972011-08-24T15:56:00.000-07:002011-08-24T16:01:13.674-07:00Through the Window of the Garden Shed.
"Through the Window of the Garden Shed" from Tales from the Holograph Woods: Speculative Poems, read at Poetic Justice, New Westminster BC, August 21, 2011.Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-84898018374199968512011-06-12T21:34:00.000-07:002011-06-12T21:35:17.533-07:00Small press vs big press .
On the latest posting for her "Writer in Residence" blog, Krista D. Ball asks me, "Why did you go small press?" You can read the whole interview here.
From Krista's blogsite, "Writer in Residence was started by Krista D. Ball, after having a bit of a fit over the lack of sensible, correct, and experience-based guidance out there for new writers. Writer in Residence will featureEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-33215509081360849692011-05-28T10:24:00.000-07:002011-05-28T10:24:53.458-07:00Atalanta<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
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Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-75519577484837261582011-05-23T18:46:00.000-07:002011-05-23T18:52:36.057-07:00Asterion
.
At my birth, they say, the midwife
fainted at the sight of me.
Sweet mother, Pasiphaë, when you crouched
in the hot dust waiting for the white bull
to part your welcoming thighs, did you dream
then, what monster might be spawned
from your improbable lust?
Asking nothing, I have accepted what was given—
not human enough to spare the lives men sent me,
nor beast enough to remember them Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-53369503413986473982011-05-13T11:38:00.000-07:002011-05-14T17:56:32.406-07:00Living in the Past, Part 3. HISTORICAL FANTASY FOR THE CLASSROOM a sampling
PrehistoryJean Auel, Clan of the Cave Bear YA to adultEileen Kernaghan, The Sarsen Witch (Bronze Age Britain) YA to adultJoanne Findon, When Night Eats the Moon (Iron Age Britain) 9-12
Mesopotamia/ Sumeria Geraldine McCaughrean, Gilgamesh the Hero. ages 9-12Ludmila Zeman, Gilgamesh trilogy (Gilgamesh the King; Revenge of Ishtar; The Last Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-70742647800066089422011-04-30T16:27:00.000-07:002011-04-30T16:27:49.182-07:00Demeter and Persephone Celebrate Spring in the British Museum<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
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Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-63103134437767131342011-04-26T18:48:00.000-07:002011-04-26T18:48:05.878-07:00"Read Dating" at the Vancouver Public LibraryEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-27992635138677250802011-04-24T17:42:00.000-07:002011-05-06T15:55:12.269-07:00Alice, in a gilt frame, with rabbits
Wistful Alice in your green Victorian wood,perhaps the artist knows
what you have yet to learn,that a dark, disordered country waits outside the glass --a world of whimsical justice wielded by mad queens,
and white knights who mean wellbut cannot be relied upon.Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-1988072100229249692011-03-30T19:05:00.000-07:002011-03-30T19:08:43.522-07:00A Biblical Bestiary #1.
... blind guides, which strain at a gnat,
Sebastian Munster, Cosmographia
and swallow a camel.
-- St. Matthew 23:24
In Arabia Felix this is the season
when the camels swarm:
huge hummocky windborne
packages of hair and dangling legs and spit
blundering like busses through the ochre air.
The wise traveller, knowing better than to speak
or yawn, will make his way across the sand
Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-5727539124174363772011-03-28T12:33:00.000-07:002011-03-28T12:46:57.854-07:00Celebrating National Poetry Month
green silkshaken out to air on hedgerows . . . another April
Woodcut: The Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume I (1930)
April is National Poetry Month in Canada, and on April 6th I'll be reading at the New Westminster Public Library in company with poets Candice James, Jacqueline Maire and Alejandro Mujica-Olea. The event is sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets in recognition of theEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-79953498211978070442011-01-25T11:05:00.000-08:002011-01-25T11:05:11.508-08:00Wild Talent reviewed by the Historical Novel Review .
An excellent review of Wild Talent: a Novel of the Supernatural has just been posted at The Historical Novel Review blog. Mirella Patzer writes "Although this novel is listed as a young adult novel, it transcends this limitation easily into adult or women's fiction. It is richly written with a high regard for historical detail, making this novel a true and accurate journey into the richness ofEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-29344187269910599962010-12-14T13:37:00.000-08:002010-12-14T18:11:55.864-08:00Wintry Tales .
December 31, 1887
Tonight, in these last hours of the old year, I have been thinking of New Year's Eves at home in the Borders, when I was a child and my father still alive. I remember how the Hogmanay fires burned the old year out, how the midnight bells rang, and how we waited for a dark-haired man to step over our threshold, bearing gifts of coal and salt, black buns and shortbread.
I Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-5661501827216627182010-11-12T16:21:00.000-08:002010-11-12T17:55:27.239-08:00Banff Centre production of The Snow Queen comes to Vancouver“Mix snow, ice, enchanted mirrors, and reindeer, add a string quartet and narrator, and the stage is set for a magical retelling of a classic Hans Christian Andersen tale." In 2007 Canadian composer Patrick Cardy’s adapted score of The Snow Queen for string quartet and narrator achieved the grand vision of the late composer in a spectacular new production created at The Banff Centre.
"The Snow Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-59897074113958573742010-10-27T15:36:00.000-07:002010-10-27T18:15:00.611-07:00BondagersFrom the Author’s Note to Wild Talent: A Novel of the Supernatural: On the farms of the Scottish Borders in the 19th century, field workers were mostly women and young girls. Hired or “bonded” at hiring fairs along with a male relative, they were known as bondagers, and they did every kind of heavy outdoor work except for ploughing.
I first encountered a reference to bondagers in a coffee tableEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-57397514956686571662010-09-23T15:18:00.000-07:002010-09-23T15:47:31.256-07:00By the Pond at Liu Pei T'ing *
Slow rain falls on hollow stone;
your lute lies silent on the bench.
Wind stirs the open pages
of your book.
The wine is gone.
My cup floats on the green curve of the canal.
Before it finishes its small journey
I must write this poem.
* The Pavilion of Floating Cups
From Tales From the Holograph Woods:
Speculative poems
Wattle & Daub Books 2009Purchase from Amazon.com Creative Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-33140200207894331602010-08-28T21:23:00.000-07:002010-08-28T21:23:41.894-07:00Wild Talent book review from The Virtual BookmarkThe Spring 2010 issue of the British Columbia Teacher Librarian's Association's "Virtual Bookmark" blogsite recommends Wild Talent: a Novel of the Supernatural for students in grades ten to twelve. "Wild Talent describes the interesting and often eerie psychical scene of the Victorian era.... Jeannie (Guthrie) is an interesting character who grows in knowledge and sophistication during the book. Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-7888064805943163592010-08-16T10:10:00.000-07:002010-08-16T10:11:59.260-07:00Poetic JusticeI'll be guest reader this coming Sunday, August 22nd, at the Poetic Justice open mic session at Renaissance Books in New Westminster. The Poetic Justice readings happen every Sunday afternoon from 4 to 6 p.m. (except holiday weekends) at 43-6th Street, just up from Columbia Street and minutes from the Columbia Skytrain station. Information: 604-525-4566.Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-81416043487878068252010-07-26T16:14:00.000-07:002010-07-26T16:14:41.001-07:00Hidden Stonehenge Landscape
Stonehenge Hidden Landscape, an archaeological project supported by the National Trust and English Heritage, has used radar technology to reveal what appears to be a wooden version of Stonehenge, dating back to the same period, and less than a kilometer from the Stonehenge site. The project leader, Vince Gaffney, a professor of archaeology at the University of Birmingham, says “This finding Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-49222243102873504202010-06-04T13:41:00.000-07:002010-06-04T22:30:33.810-07:00Poets in the slipstream
Bruce Sterling coined the term “slipstream” back in 1989, when he wrote in SF Eye, “…this is the kind of writing that simply makes you feel very strange…” Wikipedia goes on to say that “the common unifying factor of these pieces of literature is some degree of the surreal, the not-entirely-real, or the markedly unreal”. Defying categorization, slipstream writing may contain elements of Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-65061108313324639312010-05-27T15:45:00.000-07:002010-05-27T15:45:33.259-07:00On the pleasures of antiquityI should like to rise and go
Where the golden apples grow -
Where below another sky
Parrot islands anchored lie…
…Where among the deserts sands
Some deserted city stands…
("Travel")
R.L. Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses was the first book I ever owned, and it inspired a life-long fascination with exotic, far-off places. My tattered copy has survived to this day, along with A. Merritt's TheEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-85461616776508706942010-03-14T12:19:00.000-07:002010-03-14T12:48:49.577-07:00All the world loves a fair.... Fired with enthusiasm in the aftermath of the 2010 Olympics, some Vancouver movers and shakers have hinted at the possibility of hosting other and even bigger international events. Why not World Cup Soccer, or the Summer Olympics? Why not a Vancouver World’s Fair?
Local organizers would be challenged to come up with a World’s Fair that could match -- for ambition, imagination and sheer Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-91009528535511916432010-03-10T17:33:00.000-08:002010-03-14T12:40:19.610-07:00Poetry at Renaissance BooksEileen Kernaghan is guest poet at Renaissance Books' March Open Stage poetry night, reading from her recent collection Tales from the Holograph Woods: Speculative Poems. Also reading will be fellow BWS members Mary Choo , Julie Downsbrough and Franci Louann. Renaissance Books is located at #43- 6th St. at Carnarvon in New Westminster That's on Thursday, March 18, 7:30 p.m. Free admission; Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-14355447395749952552010-03-02T13:20:00.000-08:002010-03-02T16:11:24.336-08:00New anthology celebrates the Aurora Awards' thirty year historyMontreal's Nanopress is celebrating thirty years of award-winning Canadian speculative writing with a new anthology, The Aurora Awards-- Thirty Years of Canadian Science Fiction. Edited by Val Grimm, Marie-Astrid Walling and René Walling, with an introduction by Jean-Louis Trudel, the anthology will be released in May at Keycon, this year's Canadian National Science Fiction Convention. Along Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-74659392534012434382009-12-13T10:08:00.000-08:002009-12-13T10:14:36.995-08:00Tales From the Holograph Woods reviewed .
This recent review of my speculative poetry collection, Tales From the Holograph Woods, is by Julie H. Ferguson, author of Book Magic and James Douglas: Father of British Columbia. She writes:
Tales from the Holograph Woods is a slim volume of exquisite poetry by Eileen Kernaghan.
First, I should explain that I am no poet. However, I am a non-fiction writer who has known Kernaghan and Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-17095885789759549732009-11-23T15:57:00.000-08:002011-11-16T12:18:53.519-08:00Living in the Past: Part II
When I begin a historical fantasy set in a real time and place, I know that I have an unspoken contract with my reader. I’m free to create new adventures for real historical figures – events and situations that are not recorded in the history books; but I can’t – or at least I shouldn’t – relocate them in times and places where history tells us they couldn’t possibly have been. When I write in Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-59296065517709179022009-09-09T12:44:00.001-07:002009-09-14T14:50:48.351-07:00Tales from the Holograph WoodsFinding the perfect cover illustration for a new book is always a challenge. For my speculative poetry collection Tales From the Holograph Woods (due out this month from Wattle and Daub Books) I hoped for something colourful and elegant, and a bit mysterious -- an image, perhaps, that hinted of unseen danger lurking in a magic realist wood. And so I was thrilled to come across this Henri RousseauEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-10264131272611712332009-08-31T14:26:00.000-07:002009-08-31T16:49:53.701-07:00L. Frank Baum and H.P.B.One of the pleasures of literature is the discovery of unexpected sources from which a favourite author may have drawn inspiration. I came across one such connection in a recent book called Finding Oz, by Evan I. Schwartz. In his chapter “Witch-hunting” Schwartz traces the influence of Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, head of the British Theosophical Society (fondly known to her associates Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-9673786435962480142009-08-06T13:29:00.000-07:002009-08-07T16:59:34.328-07:00In Search of Doctor DeePrague, in the late sixteenth century. was a flourishing centre of alchemy. The Hapsburg Emperor Rudolf II was known to be indulgent towards practitioners of the art, and unlike other less lenient German princes, never had one executed.Alchemists from across Europe were attracted to the city. Some were scholars and serious researchers, seeking to interpret arcane Egyptian and Alexandrine texts. Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-89255609136094277862009-07-15T16:07:00.000-07:002009-07-15T16:13:11.428-07:00Phyllis Gotlieb 1926-2009A very sad postscript to my previous post about the Sunburst Award, named in honour of Canadian SF writer Phyllis Gotlieb. Phyllis passed away earlier today, at the age of 83. She was a talented writer, a generous mentor, a gracious lady. For many years Phyllis was Canadian science fiction. She will be terribly missed.Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-84248381353125749192009-07-10T14:27:00.000-07:002009-07-10T14:44:36.290-07:00Sunburst Award short-list announcedPhyllis Gotlieb, the Grande Dame of Canadian science fiction, was one of the first native-born Canadians to publish contemporary speculative fiction. Her first novel Sunburst was released in 1964; now in her eighties, Phyllis continues to write and publish. An annual juried award, The Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, is named for Phyllis’ groundbreaking debut Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-67599401590792793572009-07-04T18:33:00.000-07:002009-07-04T19:23:30.801-07:00Summer Breeze BooksCongratulations and happy summer reading to Sonya Hucks, who won three speculative books by British Columbia authors in the recent IWOFA (Infinite Worlds of Fantasy Authors) Summer Breeze Scavenger Hunt. Sonya's prize books are In The Palace of Repose by Holly Phillips (Wildside Press) , Finding Creatures and Other Stories by C. June Wolf (Wattle & Daub Books) , and my Victorian historical Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-59024394746838026292009-05-25T16:38:00.000-07:002009-05-25T18:17:59.973-07:00An evening at Le Chat Noir(excerpted from Wild Talent: a Novel of the Supernatural)“If you have not been to the cabaret Le Chat Noir,” said Alexandra, “you have not seen Paris.” And so we set out this past afternoon for Montmartre, meaning only to stay until the supper hour. But Alexandra’s eagerness for adventure has carried us into a place where I would never have ventured on my own, and where I saw and heard things Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-52121183865937640332009-05-04T15:27:00.000-07:002009-05-06T12:47:35.002-07:00Wild Talent reviewed in The New York Review of Science FictionIn the April 2009 issue of The New York Review of Science Fiction reviewer Ursula Pflug writes that "acclaimed Canadian author Eileen Kernaghan ... is known both for her painstaking historical research and her interest in diverse cultural and historical manifestations of spirituality. Wild Talent is no exception."Pflug goes on to note that Alexandra David, one of the two main protagonists in WildEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-59702532655171015312009-04-20T11:37:00.000-07:002010-05-27T21:02:50.034-07:00On living in the past
<!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-63941240488517105582009-04-07T13:07:00.000-07:002009-04-07T13:21:05.780-07:00The Ever-Expanding BookshelfWith each one of my historical fantasy novels, I add another section to my already crowded reference library. It’s an eclectic assortment, reflecting many historical periods and many systems of belief. There are the books on northern exploration and Finnish mythology from my research for The Snow Queen; British prehistory (The Grey Isles trilogy) and prehistoric Indus Valley archaeology (WinterEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-18517715925692425702009-03-07T18:43:00.000-08:002010-05-27T21:04:10.262-07:00Available in the US March 21stMarch 21st, 2009 sees the US release of my historical fantasy, Wild Talent: a Novel of the Supernatural.
"The drudgery of rural poverty, the decadence of absinthe-soaked artists, the glamour of the Paris world's fair, and the spiritual debates among London's occult circles are all handled with skill. When I finished Wild Talent I felt that I'd paid a visit to the late 19th century, that I'd Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-3879997810472984592008-11-20T14:10:00.000-08:002010-06-11T12:52:53.848-07:00M. Villemain's PaintingExcerpt, Chapter Eight: Wild Talent: a Novel of the Supernatural
On Sunday I went to visit Alexandra. She seemed to me a little pale and subdued. When I asked after her health, she told me, “I am well enough, but I have had a very curious adventure.”
One of the guests presently staying at the house of the Supreme Gnosis is a landscape artist from Paris, called M. Jacques Villemain. Alexandra Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-35334153778226924102008-11-07T19:00:00.000-08:002009-04-23T16:54:44.432-07:00Locus review Carolyn Cushman reviews Wild Talent in the November 2008 issue of Locus magazine:"A young woman becomes involved with some of the leading occultists in 1888 London in this evocative young-adult historical fantasy novel... this is a charming bildungsroman and an intriguing historical look at Victorian occultists and French Decadents, with cameos by such figures as Arthur Conan Doyle and Paul Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-3601261775356534822008-10-22T18:00:00.000-07:002010-05-27T21:22:47.990-07:00Wild Talent : now availableI'm pleased to announce that my fourth young adult historical fantasy, Wild Talent: a Novel of the Supernatural, is now available at in stores, including Vancouver Kidsbooks, White Dwarf Books, and most Chapters outlets. You can also order it online at amazon.ca , amazon.com and other online bookstore sites.
The year is 1888.
Life takes an abrupt turn for sixteen year old Scottish farmworker Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-11913084060963206552008-04-20T19:41:00.000-07:002008-12-09T17:37:38.034-08:00Chiaroscuro the shadow is always theredark subtext, dissonance: the mocking laughterin the fairy wood, the scowling presenceat the birthday feast, the faint suggestionof warts beneath the velvet coat this is the page in the book you dare not turn tothe face you see in the mirrorwhen the light falls at the wrong angle this is the sly poison under the apple'ssmooth red skin, the Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-59668597184416908762008-03-25T12:31:00.000-07:002011-11-22T09:54:47.284-08:00News from the Land of the Thunder Dragon
“When the king of Bhutan told his people to take power for themselves and embrace democracy, few of them wanted to listen at first.” (Vancouver Sun, March 25, 2008)
The small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan isn’t often in the North American news, but recently it captured worldwide attention when it held its first election – at the direction of the king. Reluctant to make any changes in a countryEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-92154857316607126862008-01-18T13:33:00.000-08:002009-04-22T17:20:41.459-07:00The Sarsen Witch reviewed
Harriet Klausner, MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW:
The Dark Folk, the Ancient people, the Witch People have all been subjugated to the horse-lords. Those not enslaved hide deep in the hills out of fear of captivity. Naeri of the House of the Lady Ashton of the Albur clan hid in the mountains and caves alone foraging for food from the enemy. Eventually she is caught and brought before Chief Ricca to be Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-85467585659760638542007-12-31T13:04:00.000-08:002009-04-22T17:23:29.719-07:00Books that deserve to be rediscovered: Part Five Hello Summer, Goodbye, Michael Coney’s haunting novel of bittersweet love, civil war and catastrophic climate change on an alien world, was first published in England in 1975, and reprinted in Canada in 1990 as Pallahaxi Tide. When Mike learned in 2005 that he was suffering from terminal lung cancer, he made Hello Summer, Goodbye and its previously unpublished sequel, I Remember Pallahaxi,Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-42543175840255604862007-12-23T15:52:00.001-08:002008-12-09T17:37:38.312-08:00The Wrong Granny: a Christmas storyThe week before Christmas my very elderly mother-in-law Esther reported that Bad Men from Alberta were attempting to kidnap her from her seniors' home, and that Russian spies had taken over their newsletter. However, she assured us, everything was under control -- an undercover policewoman had been assigned to the case. "Don't worry, Grandma," we said. "We're coming to pick you up on Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-59654169518429877232007-12-07T10:51:00.000-08:002009-04-22T14:17:27.900-07:00The Sarsen Witch reissuedThe new edition of my historical fantasy The Sarsen Witch, set in early bronze-age Britain, has just been released by the Juno Books imprint of Wildside Press. You can order it from amazon.com, amazon.ca, or other online bookstores, or directly from Juno Books. Brick & mortar shops can order from Ingram, or from Juno Books. You can read a review at Alternative Worlds. I first conceived of TheEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-80781170066332597532007-10-15T16:24:00.001-07:002008-12-09T17:37:38.853-08:00Books that deserve to be rediscovered: Part FourIn the author’s note to her Arthurian novel Sword at Sunset, Rosemary Sutcliff writes,”behind all the numinous mist of pagan, early Christian and mediaeval splendours that have gathered about it, there stands the solitary figure of one great man. No knight in shining armour, no Round Table, no many-towered Camelot; but a Romano-British war leader to whom, when the Barbarian darkness came floodingEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-10359520969881756332007-09-11T11:09:00.000-07:002008-12-09T17:37:38.980-08:00Books that deserve to be rediscovered: Part ThreeI would like to think that every generation of fantasy readers will have the good luck to discover Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth. My first encounter was as a preteen in the early fifties , rumnmaging through the bookshelves of a small town secondhand shop. In a jumbled pile of used paperbacks I came across what must have been been the original 1950 Hillman edition. On the cover was a redhaired Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-13498570504104304462007-08-21T16:19:00.000-07:002008-12-09T17:37:39.210-08:00Books that deserve to be rediscovered: Part TwoThe Golden Strangers, by Henry Treece (first published 1956) My 1967 edition of The Golden Strangers, published a year after Henry Treece’s death, was reissued by Hodder and Stoughton in their library of great historical novels chosen by Rosemary Sutcliff. Introducing the novel, Sutcliff writes, “…it remains one of the best as well as one of the strangest historical novels that I have ever Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-36099761323646415072007-08-17T14:27:00.000-07:002008-12-09T17:37:39.407-08:00Books that deserve to be rediscovered: Part OneTwo Under the Indian Sun by Jon & Rumer Godden (first published 1966) This year, 2007, is the one hundredth anniversary of novelist Rumer Godden’s birth. At the outbreak of the first world war, seven year old Rumer and her sister Jon left London to join the rest of their family in Narayangunj, East Bengal, (now Bangladesh) where their father worked for a steamship company. This memoir ofEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-22475102902673930642007-07-01T09:41:00.000-07:002008-12-09T17:37:39.795-08:00Forthcoming Fall 2007The new edition of my Aurora shortlisted bronze age fantasy The Sarsen Witch is scheduled for October 2007 publication by Juno Books."In Kernaghan’s hands, as in Joanna Russ and Elizabeth Lynn, women appear alongside men as women complete in themselves, protagonists and heroines in control of their own destinies.” -- Kinesis"The Sarsen Witch is a dense and gripping novel of the origins of Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-36312189112308544812007-06-13T12:32:00.000-07:002008-12-09T17:37:39.971-08:00Wild women, robber-maids and travelling ladiesUppity women throughout most of history have had bad press. Recently I picked up a book called Criminals, Idiots, Women and Minors: Victorian writing by women on women. Eliza Lynn Linton, in an 1891 essay called “The Wild Women as Social Insurgents", complains about…that loud and dictatorial person, insurgent and something more, who suffers no one’s opinion to influence her mind. no venerable lawEileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-37168121136183139292007-05-25T14:39:00.001-07:002011-09-04T16:17:16.742-07:00Mohenjo-daro: a poem.
The salt earth is bleached
and brittle as old bone, in winter
on the plain of ghosts.
Shrill and thin down the grey
millennia, the spirit voices
cry on the parched wind.
Language of a dead land--
the wind's riddles:
insistent and insinuating
whisper of pale grasses,
tongueless as corpses the slow
suck and hiss
of the river's mouths
and age-deep in the dust
of empty water-courses
the cryptic Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-77196393799442488312007-05-16T18:22:00.000-07:002008-12-09T17:37:40.476-08:00Mohenjo-daro: a puzzle from prehistoryThough writers of historical fiction have a long-standing romance with ancient Egypt and Sumer, surprisingly little has been written about the third great cradle of civilization in the Indus Valley.The fall of the Indus valley civilization around 1800 BC is one of the great archaeological puzzles. What caused the prehistoric cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa to go into decline? Were they Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-83181613535380222642007-04-23T12:47:00.000-07:002008-12-09T17:37:40.635-08:00GLASTONBURY: a poem and an excerptTHE CHALICE WELLMurmur of voices, and water movingsoftly among stones. A cloistered quietlies like sweet-scented shadowon the evening paths. This is the first,the unremembered garden: aleph, omphalos,the moment that contains all other moments,the still centre of the spinning universe.In last light, the haunted stairs ascendbetween the worlds. Where paths meet,at the confluence of hidden waters,Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-46912682661997522282007-04-14T19:13:00.000-07:002008-12-09T17:37:40.797-08:00Circles and Standing Stones: part 4We arrived at Stonehenge at 7 p.m. on a Sunday night, and presented our Special Access letter from English Heritage – a useful document that for a fee allows after hours, inside the rope privileges. “Ah, yes, Mrs. Kernaghan," said the man in charge. "We've been expecting you." Feeling like visiting dignitaries, Kernaghan and party of three headed down the concrete connecting tunnel under the A360Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-35925268921239315762007-04-07T19:06:00.000-07:002008-12-09T17:37:40.956-08:00Circles and Standing Stones: part 3Ravaged giants rooted in primordial chalksleep now in this mild September light.Where sheep crop the long grass among the stonesold gods, unvanquished, linger at the edge of sight.The people formed a circle facing the Mother-Stone; the men dressed in the skins of the red deer, crowned with the Horned God's antlers, the women in white robes, their long unplaited hair bound back with bands of Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-69593273296079237132007-03-27T12:50:00.000-07:002008-12-09T17:37:41.323-08:00Circles and Standing Stones: part 2He was in a kind of gallery walled and roofed with blocks of stone.... At intervals along the walls there were openings that led into small rooms filled with bones....Nhiall, the hero of Journey to Aprilioth, is trapped in West Kennet Long Barrow, Wiltshire's largest and most famous neolithic chambered tomb.. The mound is spectacular-- a vast wedge-shaped hummock stretching nearly three hundred Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-81581355623326033342007-03-21T18:24:00.000-07:002007-03-28T10:15:54.151-07:00Circles and Standing StonesMegaliths have been in the news lately, with the unearthing of a large Neolithic settlement where the builders of Stonehenge may have lived. For centuries the mysterious Wiltshire monuments have been a source of puzzlement and fascination for tourists, archaeologists and writers, and they figure prominently in my “Grey Isles” Bronze Age trilogy. Some years ago, on a holiday trip to Britain, I Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1165044037126865270.post-57506107126734906042007-03-19T12:37:00.001-07:002007-08-20T11:39:05.363-07:00Stonehenge RevisitedMy bronze age historical fantasy novel The Sarsen Witch, the third book in the "Grey Isles" series, will be back in print this coming fall. Shortlisted for an Aurora Award in 1990, it's a tale of earth-magic, megaliths and high adventure in the world of the Wessex war-chieftains.This new edition of The Sarsen Witch will be released by the Juno Books imprint of Wildside Press in September 2007.Eileen Kernaghanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03688791868644018160noreply@blogger.com3