by Helen Brain | Jul 29, 2019
When I was 27 and a stay at home mum, I signed up for a distance learning degree. All went well until I got hit by post-natal depression. I kept pushing through, determined to keep going. One day I received back an assignment I’d worked really hard on. The mark was...
by Helen Brain | Jan 31, 2019
A few months ago US publisher Catalyst Press bought the international rights to all three books in my Elevation trilogy. It’s now renamed the Fiery Spiral trilogy, and we’ve just finished editing and extending book one, The Thousand Steps. The Fiery Spiral...
by Helen Brain | May 16, 2017
I’ll be at the Franschhoek Book Festival this weekend talking about Elevation, so please come and say hi if you’re around. Thursday I’ll be visiting local schools, and Friday and Saturday I’ll be taking part in three panel discussions: FRI 19...
by Helen Brain | Mar 8, 2017
I found this photo in a charity shop. It’s by Cape Town photographer Athol Moult, and it perfectly captures my mental image and mood of the opening of the final book in the Elevation Trilogy. At the end of Book 2 Ebba combines the four amulets. She’s...
by Helen Brain | Jan 12, 2017
I’m focusing on creating a mythology for Celestia this month. It’s complicated and right now it feels impossible to conjure this whole world out of nothing. Then I have to make sure the story hangs together and the world is consistent. I have to think...
by Helen Brain | Dec 13, 2016
When I first came up with the idea of Elevation, I struggled to imagine what Cape Town would be like if the sea rose 83 meters. I’m not very good with spacial stuff, and my sense of Geography is rubbish too, so I needed help. First I did some research and came...
by Helen Brain | Dec 13, 2016
This is my dog Isidingo. I love her more than any dog I’ve ever owned. We adopted her at the saddest point of my life, when my husband Luke was dying, and she has been at my heels ever since, following me from room to room, and sleeping next to my bed at night....
by Helen Brain | Dec 13, 2016
This year my creativity has been attacked from an unexpected quarter. In February we adopted a puppy from a shelter. Harry was a happy, sweet, golden mishmash of Africanis, Labrador and Great Dane staring up at us from the puppy pen and whining that he’d chosen us....
by Helen Brain | Aug 27, 2016
I found these in a charity shop. I was amused by the way I could create a narrative by putting the scary revolving head dolly in front of the framed postcards of the Dutch children. I ended up buying them of course, to add to the piles of junk -with – potential...
by Helen Brain | Aug 27, 2016
I’m starting Book 3 of Elevation, and for months I’ve been thinking about the Gods that inhabit Celestia and what they look like. I fell in love with Agosia Arts’ folk doll creations – human body, animal head, and I started to make one using her method. I created the...
