Do you know me?

This Is Me, the e-book has been launched today!

A serpent biting at my breast
Myself a rotting sepulchre.
I am the living dead
Carrying the Crab
Whose offspring multiply within.
Both fang and claw
Eat away my flesh
Draining me of life.

Another biographical offering from Freya Pickard, tracing her development both as a person and a poet from her early twenties to mid-forties.

Freya Pickard is a cancer survivor, whose fight for life has forever changed her. These changes are reflected in a variety of poems she permits to be published here.

I want to be exciting, revolutionary, unpredictable,
I will cut my hair short and dye it purple,
I'll pierce my body and get tattooed in unmentionable places.

Initially determined to be single, Freya reveals what it was like to discover her soulmate. Enjoying physical and mental fitness, she tells how she struggles post cancer.

Always an observer, Freya looks within and without to catalogue her journey through an eventful life.

You don’t need to have read either Insides or My Mythology, but if you have, you’ll find This Is Me continues the threads of imagination and post-cancer trauma.

half light – otherworld
shadowed mist conceals land
transient journey

This Is Me is available from Kindle (all marketplaces), Kobo, iBooks, Nook and many other online stores.

Watch the book trailer HERE!

Listen to Freya’s playlist for This Is Me HERE!

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Reality Concludes!

My Newsletter readers have now received the last episode of my short story Reality!

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When you sign up to my Newsletter you DON’T get inundated with emails. You’ll simply receive one email to let you know you’ve signed up successfully, and, after that you’ll only receive one newsletter per month. And each month you’ll receive something different: a glimpse into my real life, free poetry, a hint of what I’m writing and of course, one free story in three episodes each year! I work with photographer Jonathon B. Hoyt and artist Elisa Ang Choi, who, along with myself, provide the illustrations for each issue.

Please make sure you’ve marked my email address as safe, otherwise my newsletters will end up in your spam or junk folders! My email address is dragonscaleclippings (at) gmail (dot) com

I also announce any new books I’m launching along with discounted prices on my other books in each Newsletter. So you don’t need to worry about getting flooded with emails from me!

Next year I’ll have a new story to share with you that follows on from the end of Reality, plus more poetry. What 2021 will hold, only the Divine knows. Will you travel with me on my writing journey?

To receive my FREE Newsletter each month, simply SIGN UP here!

Catch up December 2020

Well, we’re nearly at the end of 2020 and what a year it’s been!

I hope you have all survived OK. Despite the Lockdowns, or perhaps because of them, I have been prolific and creative. Without a business to run between March and July, and then again in November, all I had left was my writing!

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Thank you to WhizzBuzz Books for featuring my novel The Day of Weird in August. Check out the link HERE! The Day of Weird contains the first three volumes of The Kaerling in one paperback book!

Thank you to Susi Bocks who published a haiku sequence of mine in October, “Once upon a time in Nirunen…” with an amazing photograph that complimented the poetry! If you’re reading The Kaerling series, you’ll enjoy the historical references in these verses.

Thank you also to Spillwords for publishing my poem “Wake up and smell the corpses” in October as part of their Halloween special! It’s a cheerful little ditty about the wild hunt and demons trying to walk the earth again…

Keep a look out for my poem “Finger of light” that’s going to be published at Fmme writes poems tomorrow as part of Sarah’s Poetry Advent Calendar! Thank you to Sarah Connor for supporting and promoting self-employed writers such as myself!

I’ve still managed to publish 3 books this year: The Day of Weird, The Butterfly Tree and Hidden Lands. If you’ve read any or all of them, please take a moment to leave a positive comment online! Thank you!

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If you’re looking for a new book to read, I can thoroughly recommend Victoria Goddard’s Stargazy Pie: Greenwing & Dart Book One! It’s different, it’s quirky, it’s humorous and I couldn’t put it down! Check out my reviews about this book at Amazon and Bookbub.

I’ll be blogging all the way up to Christmas as I’ve got a couple more things to tell you about! So, keep reading, keep buying and keep sharing!

Much love Freya xxx

Paperback Books!

I LOVE paperback books!

I always have done and always will. Although my Kindle is useful and stores lots of volumes without me having to fill my bookcases, it’s just not the same as a real book.

I never liked hardbacks – too heavy and awkward to hold in bed or the bath. But paperbacks – they’re flexible and light and easy to conceal in a coat or handbag.

I hardly ever get rid of paperbacks. My bookshelves are doubled stacked with them. I re-read them again and again because the books I bought in the 1990s & 2000s are still relevant today. And if I do get rid of paperbacks, I always give them away to a charity shop…

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To be honest, the last time I went into a bookshop and looked at the paperbacks, there just wasn’t anything there that grabbed me. I buy paperbacks online because I like the author. That’s it. I NEVER buy a book because of its cover – mostly the covers confuse me, because if the cover shows a character, I can’t find them in the book! I have a strong imagination and I don’t need a book cover to tell me what the main character is supposed to look like.

I apply all this to the design of my own book covers. I only have a few paperbacks available, because they are so difficult and time consuming to prepare. (And when you try and order proofs from KDP they don’t always let you…!) However, I am very happy with my cover designs. I use a mixture of Kombmaker’s sketches and paintings, and also commission Jonathon B. Hoyt to use photographs to create front covers. Each of my covers gives the potential reader a genuine glimpse into the book’s subject matter.

How many of my paperbacks have you bought so far?

The Day of Weird

This Is Me

Dragonscale Leggings

The Rusalka Ritual & Other Stories

Vintrig’s Kingdom

Vintrig’s Throne

© Freya Pickard 2020

Freya’s Newsletter

This year I am trying out something different from my usual Newsletter!

Lady Parsley Wigglinis by Elisa Choi Ang

Freyan Verse Seven Liquid Fire

Freya’s Notebooks

This year there will be no more pdfs. Instead, I will be producing a much shorter Newsletter once a month.

This year I will be rotating an insight into my real life, a poem from my inner landscape, a character study and an episode from the current free story.

I received the last issue of clippings at the end of August, I found it wonderful! The episode is so funny and intriguing, your poetry excellent. I really loved all of your elfje, which present very vivid and powerful images and scenery. C Messelodi

This means you’ll get something a bit different each month and will hopefully get a glimpse into my life as a writer.

Once again I’m working with photography, Jonathon B. Hoyt and artist Elisa Ang Choi.

Are you on board yet? If not, you can sign up safely and securely HERE!

Welcome to my world. It’s a strange place but full of unexpected delights and dangers …

If you prefer to understand me on a deeper level, then further insights into both my real life and my creativity can be found at Patreon!

© Freya Pickard 2020