garlic and sapphires in the mud

Hullo, I'm Tori. I live in Bangkok, where I work as writer in residence at an international school. At the moment I keep my main blog at amagiclantern.

I like to write all sorts of things, but my passion is for fairy tales. You can find one of mine, 'The Siren's Child', at New Fairy Tales. I catch myself thinking in riddles and quests, sometimes, and collect Andrew Lang's coloured fairy books. I love monsters.

I'm also very interested in any kind of writing where place is important (comes of being a third-culture kid I guess). Fantasy and SF, or literary travel writing, or anything. Places are strange and lend themselves to strange language-play.

Other than writing I try to draw and paint and make stuff, photograph my city and dabble in theatre. I'm currently directing a dramatisation of T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. I like Eliot. All my internet tags are from Eliot. This one, from Four Quartets. It's pretty:

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
clot the bedded axle-tree
the trilling wire in the blood
sings below inveterate scars
appeasing long forgotten wars.

I'm pondering what to do with this here account. Maybe something to do with folklore and storytelling, maybe as somewhere to stick my attempts at travel/place prose, or write reviews, or put my art, or... something else.

I also like cooking, LARPing, getting lost on purpose, having many cats, reading everything I can get my hands on (haiku, high fantasy novels, medieval poetry, comics...), ineffectually trying to make the world a little better, and David Bowie.

And meeting new people, so please say hi if you feel so inclined.

PS: many thanks to foxfinial for the invite!