Jane Horrocks The Lavender Witch A long time ago when the very first characters from the world of Boad (It was called Fiddleebod or Fiddleeebod then) began appearing in my head, the good witch squinted at me from the unnamed little group. I knew she was muddled and would have trouble turning her thoughts into […]
I nominate this fellow as the greatest villain in all of literature. He stalks and dominates the pages of the first two volumes of the surreal medieval Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake. His name is Steerpike. “His face was pale like clay and save for his eyes, mask-like. These eyes were set very close together, […]
Scraps, the Patchwork Girl, drawn by John R. Neill, is prominently featured in Ruth Plumly Thompson’s 1927 Oz book, The Gnome King of Oz. I borrowed Plumly as a name for the Earth girl Bekka meets later in her chronicles because I particularly loved Ruth Plumly Thompson’s Oz books when I was a young fellow. […]
In the Woods Beyond the Wood, where Bekka travels in THE WOODLOCK, there are only two seasons, summer and winter. The transition from summer to winter and winter to summer lasts but a few moments. The riot of summer color on flowers, stems, hedges, trees, branches, leaves, roots, fades to winter white. The winter white […]
That book right there turned me into a voracious reader. A boy drops his line into a little pool and imagines all of the fantastic fish he might catch. That’s it, simple and wonderful. I am still a fan. Around the same time I was captivated by THE 500 HATS OF BARTHOLOMEW CUBBINS, a Dr. […]
