The Realm of Katherine Vick

 Author Interview - The Merry Band For those who are curious, here is an interview I did with my publishers Thinklings about my upcoming The Disposable sequel. The Merry Band ! I hope you enjoy it. :)

  The Name Game I have a confession. I love names. I’m an avid collector of them. For example, there are some wonderful historical names my mother has uncovered in the course of her family history research – the winners so far being Valentine Pratt, Strange Peacock and brothers Wildsmith and Griffin Badger (the latter two being indeed a part of my genetic make-up!). As a child (sad as this makes me sound), I used to pause the credits of films on video and list any interesting names I found there. I have a number of name books, both conventional and slightly more unusual – my books of Cornish and Celtic names are an especially good source of fantasy names. And any time I come across a good name in normal life, I have a little notebook on hand to write it down. Strange to confess, I don’t do this purely to collect names for my writing. I do it because I like names. But, of course, it does come in handy in that regard. I’ve seen a number of discussions hither and thither on the ...

 I wrote this short story for a challenge long ago as a little poke at the fantasy/scifi idea of the sole hope for salvation and why it might not be a bad idea to have a backup...;) The Heart In Glass In ancient times, in ancient lands, there was a man. Admittedly, this was not unusual. But this man was faced with a terrible evil and he knew that what must be done could be done only with cold steel in the place of his heart. And so it was, he called upon the ancient light of power to pull all the love out of his soul and, sealing it with a glass container, he buried it high in the mountains, deep in the snow of year long winter, to be hidden from weak temptation by the roll of oncoming storms. But he feared, and he was right to fear, that with cold steel in place of his heart he would forget himself and so before he acted, he wrote what he had done and concealed that too within a beacon that would manifest should he fail to return for the love in his heart within ten thousand...