Cirrus@Austlit

'... When you write a Zenku, you create your life in moments. In Zenku 365, Jay Verney offers a year of Zenkus (plus a Leap Zenku, plus spares!), and a micro workshop to guide you on your way to writing your own Zenku life. ...' (Source: Amazon website)

'Creating A Custom Fit In An Off-The-Rack Genre World is about the three main kinds of characters found in murder fiction: the investigators, the victims, and the suspects. It is possible to place these characters along a creative continuum. from the relatively formulaic to the relatively unique, from stock characters to more fully-realised human beings. Custom Fit takes a fresh perspective on these characters, suggesting new terms for each role. The detective or investigator becomes the Proximal Investigator, and the victim the Corpse of Convenience. The collective term for the suspects is the Family of Circumstance, remembering that, initially at least, everyone in a murder novel is suspect.

'Using examples from novels by Peter Hoeg, Henning Mankell, Walter Mosley, and Sara Paretsky, this text asks questions such as: how do murder fiction’s characters achieve a sense of difference in their roles, even as they abide by established conventions, demonstrating traits and behaviours similar to other investigators, suspects and victims? How do they flout convention while following it? And how do they contribute to the genre’s evolution and development?

'Creating A Custom Fit in an Off-the-Rack Genre World is a stand-alone text but also a companion essay to the novel, Summon Up The Blood, both of which formed the author’s doctorate in Creative Writing, which received a University of Queensland Dean’s Award for Outstanding Research Higher Degree Thesis.' (Publication summary)

'The Women Come And Go is a memoir of several generations of working-class women from a Central Queensland family. Told through personal knowledge and memories, and recreations of events, along with family artefacts such as treasured love letters from the author's father to her mother, Jay Verney offers a story both intimate and relatable. The Women Come And Go considers the interdependent historical, cultural and personal contexts of the women's lives and how each generation has irrevocably influenced the next.

'The second part of the book, The Women Came And Went, is an essay which critiques and reflects upon the memoir, establishing the background to its conception and creations and describing an Index of Artefacts both unique to the family and universally recognisable.' (Publication summary)

'"Haiku With A Twist" is for lovers of cats, food, gardens, and poetry, in particular, micro poetry. The 300 catku, foodku, and gardenku poems in this book are selected from Jay Verney’s previously published works, "Zenku 365," volumes one and two of "The Mindful Art Of Verandaku," and her poetry blog, Zen Kettle – It Makes Tea (www.zenkettle.wordpress.com if you’d like to check it out at your leisure), which has been running continuously for over four years (and is chock full of energetic little poems about everything).

'Haiku is a poetic form that punches above its weight. Its strict boundaries of three lines and a limited number of syllables (usually 17 or fewer) are the very elements that give it power and, perhaps counter-intuitively, the creative freedom to explore every moment without exception. Good things, as the saying goes, come in small packages.

'Haiku is both immediate and timeless, and offers the reader an opportunity to welcome each poem into their own life’s experience as a friend and an inspiration.

'"Haiku With A Twist" can be read from ‘cover’ to ‘cover’ (pixel upon pixel) or as a lucky dip. What do you love the most? Cats, food, or gardens? Can’t choose? Don’t worry, simply go with the mindful flow and enjoy.' (Publication summary)

'A little boy murdered in the most tragic of circumstances, and avenging angels intent on revenge. Obsessed, unscrupulous art collectors and the international antiquities thieves who service their desires. The Olympic Games and an elite group of corrupt Chinese agents double-crossing each other. An organised crime family on the path to redemption. What could they all possibly have in common? Livia Galvin - grieving mother, Olympic shooting champion, art gallery owner, and now, an unwitting participant in a conspiracy with a billionaire oligarch. Attacked by would-be assassins on her way to Beijing airport, Livia finally arrives home to find her family in chaos after the unexplained death of her godmother. It's only the beginning of a quest in which Livia will need all of her considerable strength of purpose and character to accept her unexpected new role when the most startling and life-changing surprise of all is revealed. With new revelations and threats at every turn, Livia Galvin and her most faithful supporters must truly 'imitate the actions of the tiger, and summon up the blood' in this novel of intrigue and passion that stretches from Bogota to Boston, and from Beijing to London, with its ultimate source in sub-tropical River City on the 27th parallel: the sunniest place in the world for some of the shadiest people you'll ever meet.' (Publication summary)