Quirky, intriguing fairy tales!

It’s nearly Christmas! Have you stocked up yet on your holiday reading? If you haven’t, here are some suggestions that will only cost you $1 each …

If you enjoy quirky, different stories, may I suggest Xmas @ Camelot II ? It contains 10 tales of varying length, covering a variety of worlds. The stories within the volume explore Transitions, Choices and Virtual Reality …

But if you prefer romance and intrigue, why don’t you give The Essence of Thyme a try? It’s a re-working of Sleeping Beauty with two women trying wake a sleeping Prince …

And finally, if you enjoy reading fairy tales at Christmas, then I suggest The Rusalka Ritual & Other Stories. These are fairy tales with a feminist twist to them and, like traditional fairy tales, they don’t always end as you would expect!

All 3 books are available as ebooks and The Rusalka Ritual is also available to buy as a paperback.

Whatever you read, have a wonderful, enjoyable Christmas!

© Freya Pickard 2018

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Giving something back … Pure Haiku

Hello once again! How are you all?

 I’m kind of back online, though please bear with me as I start to catch up on everything!

Here is another way that I am giving something back to the writing community.

I originally set up a blog at Pure Haiku so I had somewhere to publish my traditional haiku. In 2010 I was having my haiku rejected from so many places simply because they were traditional and apparently too difficult to write. Really? Well, with just under 6000 followers, I think I’ve made my point!

This blog is now a way of sharing my own and other peoples’ traditional haiku. This is me giving something back to the writing community. I know how difficult it is when you start to write. So I have made Pure Haiku a haven for those who enjoy writing and reading traditional haiku in the English language.

All the haiku published on this site are structured classically with 5-7-5 syllables per line. Please take this into account if you wish to Submit your own haiku and feature as a guest writer. I am aware that my haiku cannot be truly classical because I do not write in the old style of Japanese. Yet, this is how I was taught to write them many years ago and I find haiku such as these very pleasing to read.

Three times a year I feature haiku by one guest writer. This is by invitation only. The best way to receive an invitation is to submit 4-5 haiku on the current theme whenever Pure Haiku is OPEN to submissions.

Pure Haiku is OPEN right now to submissions!

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© Freya Pickard 2018

Ambassador – cover reveal

Thank you to everyone who has downloaded Silver Fire for FREE!

If you’ve already read Silver Fire, Volume Two of The Kaerling, will be available in early October!

The twins, Otta and Erl, are trapped in Aure Vere, the capital city of Falnaboldu. Due to a misunderstanding at the gates, Otta is having to pretend she is one of the Kaerling Ambassadors currently visiting the King and High Priestess …

Until September, have a pleasant summer. I will be busy running my business and won’t be around online until the autumn is well under way. Thank you for following me and reading my works. Much appreciation to you all!

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© Freya Pickard 2018

Colourless, piercing eyes …

The cave mouth waited, black and impenetrable. Dracomagan strode straight into the cave, blade held before her, Peagreen close on her heels.

“What’s in here?” Parsley followed Sorrel inside.

“Don’t know.” Sorrel sounded apprehensive. “Can’t really see anything…”

As she spoke, a faint light glimmered in the darkness. At the centre of the light walked a thin, pale woman. She was clothed in a flimsy white garment that left her feet bare, but she did not appear to feel the chill in the air. Her skin was white, but no trace of age carved lines upon her blank face. And her eyes which stared piercingly at them were colourless.

“”You are expected.” Her voice was low and quiet. “Follow me.” …

This is an excerpt from the second episode of my FREE short story, The Attar of Chervil. The tale began in The Essence of Thyme and continued in The Oil of Sage but each story stands alone. If you’d like to read a FREE short story every year and sample some of my FREE short form poetry as well as getting a glimpse into my real life, simply sign up for my Newsletter at dragonscaleclippings@gmail.com and put “Request Clippings” in the subject line! (Your email will not be sold or passed onto anyone else and I will only ever use it to send you the link to my Newsletter).

“Whenever you describe a scene, I don’t need pictures; the images are so clear in my mind. From ‘a chill wind rattled the dead leaves,’ and ‘only the wind moaned,’ right through to the end, you have such a unique, expressive and eloquent usage of words.” S Evans

A huge thank you to one of my collaborative partners, Jonathon B. Hoyt, for his creepy front cover for this issue of my Newsletter.

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© Freya Pickard 2018

I’ve started making some videos about my writing! Please check them out at YouTube.

Escape Pod Emulation for Isabel Caves

Welcome once more to my Escape Pod Interview series. If you’re not familiar with this kind of post, please read the back story at Escape Pod Emulation!

Whose in the Escape Pod today? Well, hello there! It’s Isabel Caves!

I’m going to be the one to save my people – my 5 items will allow me to uncover the weaknesses of the strange beings who have attacked us, and devise a plan to restore peace and justice.

My Complete Guide to Alien Species – I’m going to spend every second of my escape researching the strange beings who have attacked us. They must have a weakness. I bet I’ll find it in here.

My ice cloud gun – in case any of them snuck on board. They can toggle between solid, liquid and gaseous phases. In their gaseous form they can spread thin enough to be invisible. A cloud of ice should knock them back down to a more visible state.

An electronic journal – I’ll put all my research notes in here. If anything happens to me someone else can pick up where I left off.

A charger – to make sure the journal doesn’t run out of power.

And a stress ball – because boy, am I going to need it.

Isabel Caves loves fantasy and all things magic, as well as ghost stories and sci fi. She publishes literary pieces too and her mind is always cooking up new stories …

Discover Isabel’s book, Strange Beings, at: –
Smashwords
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
It’s a permafree ebook containing 23 flash fiction tales of mages, witches, demons, faeries, ghosts, and those beings for which we have no name …

You can follow Isabel at: –
Isabel Caves
Twitter
Goodreads
Smashwords

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© Freya Pickard 2018

This Is Me – peek inside …

pink little stoma rosebud bright

innocently gleams in the light

who could believe such pure flesh

could vomit forth such filthiness?

Poem from Insides © Freya Pickard 2018

birthed from the ninth wave

foaming mane, spindrift tail

fertile, burgeoning

Poem from My Mythology © Freya Pickard 2018

to see through a glass darkly, mirror, of course, but what if

it also meant a window, grimed, muddy with mortality

only when you pass beyond, does the view at last make sense

Poem from This Is Me © Freya Pickard 2018

I’ve recently launched my first ever paperback anthology, containing three volumes of poetry! Find out more at This Is Me, YouTube and Amazon.

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This Is Me

Sometimes, the past is too painful to put into prose.

Sometimes, the past can only be portrayed through poetry.

This Is Me, is my first anthology containing 3 volumes of poetry and it is available in paperback from Amazon!

Dragonscale Delvings is the series title for my poetry publications. This paperback contains my first three poetry collections; Insides (also available as an e-book), My Mythology & This Is Me.

Insides is a hands-on experience of cancer. Discover what it is like to find out you have cancer. How do you deal with a temporary stoma? How do you cope after major open surgery? How do you even start recovering? And how do you get through the dreadful experience of chemotherapy?

My Mythology is a compendium of everything and everyone who has inspired me to write. From the tales of the Bible to Celtic and Norse legends, from unicorns to dragons, from vampires to werewolves, from Dr Who to Space Oddity … Read on for an inspiring smorgasbord of verse!

This Is Me is about my daily life; writing, working, dancing, reading, observing, loving … I often find it hard to put into prose how I really feel. (Writing stories is easy – I’m being someone else). But real life is hard to capture in plain prose. Thus I express myself and my innermost feelings through the varied and flexible forms of poetry.

In this book I am honest, playful and brutally truthful. This is me. The real me. If you really want to know the person behind the name, read this book. You’ll understand me better than the people who know me face to face but refuse to read my writings! “I love your beautiful way with words … You bring light and truth with your creativity …” Julie P.

And, as usual, I’ve prepared a short video as a teaser to get you reading! Check it out at YouTube

The E-book versions of My Mythology and This Is Me will be released at some point in the future!

Please feel free to share and re-blog this post!

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© Freya Pickard 2018