Blog – Page 41 – Deborah Makarios

April 14, 2020April 14, 2020

Coming Soon to a Screen Near You

So, I have some bad news, some good news, and some more bad news.

Bad news #1 is that there is a global pandemic on at the moment (you may have noticed, even if, like me, the major difference in your life is the explosion in your email inbox) and this has Repercussions. Many people are seeing Very Bad Repercussions Indeed, so let us all be thankful that the repercussions for publishing books are not quite so dire.

They do, however, mean that I am unable to give you a date when The Wound of Words will be available in paperback (and the date I gave to the National Library will need to be amended). I can’t sign off on distribution until I’ve seen a proof copy, and I won’t be seeing a proof copy until such time as postal services are available for non-essential traffic – and that’s assuming the Print On Demand facility is still up and running. (Subscribe on the Home page if you want to be the first to know when the paperback does become available.)

Enough of the bad news for now: have some good news! The cover for The Wound of Words is complete! Feast your eyes upon this:

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April 7, 2020April 7, 2020

How Do You Like Them Apples?

If I had a dollar for every time I found a recipe which called itself ‘simple’ but was actually simple only to those with larders like specialty stores and a mis-spent youth watching food-related television, I would be… well, marginally more plutocratic than at present.

This baked apple recipe, however, actually is simple. It has few ingredients, many of them optional or variable, and the processing required is minimal. Nor will it have a noticeable effect on your power bill as it does not require an oven to be heated, thus greatly speeding up the whole process.

First, catch your apple – the more or less compulsory part of the recipe. In my case, it is a Bramley from the back garden. Ballarat apples are also suitable (albeit less fluffy once cooked) or, probably, any other kind of cooking apple. I haven’t tried this with any but the two apples named, as this is an unspectacular two-person kitchen, not the National Baked Apple Research Laboratory. Which, I’m sorry to tell you, is not a thing.

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March 31, 2020March 31, 2020

Eight Sorts of Solitaries

If you go by what one reads on the internet regarding the lockdown spreading across the face of the earth in the tracks of the coronavirus, there are two sorts of people.

There are those who are bored out of their minds, and resorting to all sorts of eccentricity to pass the time, and there are those who are suddenly gaining a new appreciation for the work of teachers and childcare professionals.

I fall into neither of these groups. I fall into the rather quieter group that lives most of its life at home anyway, and therefore find themselves busier than usual, since they have all their usual work to do still and can’t knock off all their people things at once. Not every meeting can be an email, but they’re all trying to be.

However, since we are all in the same basket (figuratively speaking; try to avoid joining anyone in a basket unless they are part of your bubble), let us take a moment to consider the many and various kinds of people who have dealt with isolation in the past.

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