I'm an avid kickboxer and train five times a week. My
trainer is Carlos Andrade, former WKA European
Light-Heavyweight Kick Boxing champion and every Friday
morning at eight he gets to kick me around in a full-on
sparring session. Sadly, I recently broke my ankle when I managed -- much to my surprise -- to kick his leg out from underneath him. For details of this heroic battle, please check out my blog entry: 'Broken Bones'.
My other great love is music. Without
it, I would not be able to write.
Music
I am passionate about music, so much so that I wrote a novel about it. Titled The Other Side of Silence, it tells the story of three friends trying to solve the riddle of The Pythagorean Comma – one of the oldest mysteries in the science of sound. But this is a mystery not meant to be solved...Read more about it on my website: www.natashamostert.com.
Who do I like? A few favourites:
Nina Simone: voluptuous sophistication and crystalline purity. Leonard Cohen: Super sexy poet. Shahin and Sepehr: My favourite background music when writing. David Hykes and The Harmonic Choir: They do things with their voices that is not humanly possible - every time I listen to Hearing Solar Winds it takes my breath away. Opera: My mother is a voice coach for opera singers and I was fed baby food while Casta Diva was playing in the background. That kind of indoctrination is hard to shake. Loreena McKennit: She sings the way I wish I could write. Tori Amos: Strange (wonderful) little girl. Bruce Springsteen: He's the boss. Dragonforce = Metal poets. Borodin's second string quartet. Pachelbel's Canon – the Leppard/English Chamber Orchestra rendition. I'll take any Bach I can get. And any Mozart. Vanessa Mae playing Classical Gas. Ottmar Liebert Francis Cabrel The Killing Floor Seal'sKiss of a Rose.
Any Hans Zimmer soundtrack.
The soundtrack to the Inspector Morse series New Order. Crystal is best. Razorlight Incubus R.E.M Cengiz A personal friend. A cool guy making great music.
When I'm homesick I listen to Splash, Patricia Majalisa and the Dalom Kids - all great performers of South African Mpantsula jive.
Movies
Too many to mention. Old favourites that relax me: Gattaca, Lawrence of Arabia, Stakeout, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, Tootsie, Manon des Sources, When Harry met Sally, Children of a Lesser God, 84 Charing Cross Road, What's eating Gilbert Grape, Pride and Prejudice (with Keira Knightly). John Sayles movies. Alan Parker movies. Michael Mann movies. Kathryn Bigelow movies. Jackie Chan movies!
Television
Inspector Morse, Battlestar Galactica, Ultimate Fighting Championship (I'm a huge Randy Couture fan – his first fight with Lidell is one for the ages – and the fight against Sylvia - Randy, you beauty!), Simon Schama on Power of Art, Firefly, Numbers, Shark - if only for James Woods. Best timing of any actor around.
Books
Too many to list. A few favourites: Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. Donna Tart's The Secret History (but not The Little Friend). I'm fascinated by Cormac McCarthy's use of language, if sometimes perplexed by his narrative. Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris – how is it possible for any one to be this clever and erudite without being irritating? Neil Gaiman: imagination to the square Anything by Jorge Luis Borges. William Gibson's Neuromancer. Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje. The Apothecary's Daughter by Patricia Schonstein. Sports books: Robert Twigger's Angry White Pyjamas. Dark Trade by Donald McRae. Suspense writers: Barry Eisler, PD James.
Horror: Stephen King.
Heroes
People who manage to face up to everyday drudgery and routine with humour and determination. The nine-to-fivers whose lives may not have much heroic content but who stick it out for the sake of their families and still manage to see the funny side. The ones who, as the Neil Young song says, "never get to fall in love, never get to be cool," but who keep the faith.
Likes to take midnight rides on horseback and practices levitation twice a day
OK, the part about the levitation and the horses is made up. The 'raven-haired psychic' description might be slightly over the top as well. And I haven’t seen a ghost yet, but I plan to. The bit about the suspense novels is true.
I live in London and I write dark, psychological thrillers with a strong dash of mysticism and the paranormal.
My fourth book, Season of the Witch, is a modern gothic
thriller about techgnosis and the Art of Memory and is
now available in the UK and the US.
It received a starred review in Kirkus, which describes it as a 'brain-squeezing thriller' and another starred review in Publishers Weekly, which calls it 'goth SF at its finest'. The novel has also garnered praise from writers such as Mo Hayder who describes it as 'a mesmerising blend of alchemy and sexuality'.
I have lived in South Africa, New York City and London. Previous jobs include selling shoes, teaching Afrikaans at a South African university and moonlighting as a project coordinator in the publishing department of a public television station in New York City. I now write full-time.
To read an excerpt from Season of the Witch,
click here
.
Note for book clubs: Please visit my website at www.natashamostert.com for discussion questions on Season of the Witch.
Season of the Witch launch party in NYC. The lovely lady in blue is my editor, Julie Doughty.
NEW! I have added a discussion board on my website and would love to hear your ideas. This is a free-wheeling discussion board, which is not just about my books but is open to anything that excites your imagination. You are welcome to start your own topic or add your voice to some of the other threads. Please join us!
More praise for Season of the Witch:
'Renders suspense, an atmosphere fraught with eroticism, and compelling characters. Fans of Anne Rice and Joyce Carol Oates should appreciate Mostert's take on mysticism, magic and the ancient art of memory.' Booklist
'saturated in beauty, with wonderful observations, insights and eroticism...a bewitching book.' Ian Watson, author of The Jonah Kit and the
screen story for AI.
If you'd like to know more about me and my work, please visit my website:
www.natashamostert.com
Memory game: Try it out!
To promote my new novel Season of the Witch, my website includes an interactive memory game with prizes to be won. The game is now live, so please visit my site and check it out. It won't work on your Playstation 3 or X Box and there is no fake blood or things that blow up but it's a pretty cool game anyway...:)
The site also features a synopsis of the novel and I have posted notes that will give you a behind-the-scenes peek at how I plotted this book. Click here to visit the site: www.seasonofthewitch.com.
Why mysticism?
My interest in mysticism started in early childhood when I was growing up in South Africa. My aia (nanny) was a Zulu woman who introduced me to African legends and the world of the insangoma (witch doctors). For many years I thought she was the coolest person on the planet and tried to emulate her in every way. I remember exasperating my mother by insisting on stacking several bricks below each corner of the bed to keep out of reach of the tokkelosh – an evil gnome with an enormous head but very short legs! Years later I would write about this in The Midnight Side. The concept of witches and witchcraft would surface again in Season of the Witch.
A different kind of woo woo
Even though I write about subjects, which many people consider far-fetched and fey, I always embed them firmly within a realistic, every-day framework. The ghost in The Midnight Side does not drag chains or howl outside windows - she finds it more amusing to manipulate the stock exchange. My witches in Season of the Witch do not use boiling cauldrons as their tools, but computers and code. By carefully blending hard fact with paranormal conjecture, I hope to seduce my reader not into a 'willing suspension of disbelief' but into accepting unquestionably the veracity of the world I build in my books. My research for my novels is intensive and rigorous.
Praise for Natasha Mostert's novels
'Bedtime reading for the brave' The Times (London)
'A unique, wild imagination' Bangor Chronicle
'Classy psychic thriller...original, unsettling...
kicks the usual preconceptions into shape' The Literary Review
'absorbing psychological detail...
climactic surprise, a humdinger' Kirkus Reviews
'hauntingly elegant' Booklist
'a brilliant tale in the thriller genre
with little dots of spirituality here and there' Cape Times
'Highly accomplished' Toronto Globe and Mail
Who I'd like to meet:
Oscar Pistorius: fastest man on no legs
Aung San Suu Kiy
Thomas Friedman
Neil Gaiman
Joyce Carol Oates
Archie Moore if he were still alive (imagine still being the world light heavy weight boxing champion at age 49.)
Hi Natasha hope you're doing well, I left a comment before saying Happy 4th but I forgot you arent on this side of the world haha but I wish you well all the same :) Goddess Bless, Lady Nephthys
howdy!...well, good luck with everything..got your work cut out for ya ...you think?......insane?.....i like this guy.......can i throw the first stone??......lol....
Ah....I love it already! LOL! Quantum physics is such an incredible subject....Reiki AND a cool bike (you say Honda CBR and I'm going to start drooling....LOL!). I can't wait to read it :-)
Greetings Natasha my new friend and thanks for the add. People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person.. When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend or gift from the Universal Spirits, and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done. The prayer or request or spell you sent out has been answered and now it is time to move on. Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it, it is real. But only for a season. LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons, things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant. Thank you for being a part of my life, whether you were a reason, a season or a lifetime. Blessed Be. Dan.
Hi Natasha! Yes..I DO love your witches! LOL! I raved about the book to everyone for weeks after I finished it! Thanks so much for the add btw. Barry Eisler and I became friends (because of a quote I had on my page that he'd noticed and liked...LOL!) and I asked him about you after I saw you were on his friends list. Barry said you were quite wonderful in person :-) Perhaps someday I'll have the opportunity to meet you as well! In the meantime...more books please! LOL!
How’s it going? I’m just stopping by to tell you I’m going to be the guest on The Odd Mind show on Blog Talk Radio, tonight, June 19, from 9 -11 p.m. Eastern Time. Check it out at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/angellesa or even better yet, check it out and give us a call at 347-945-7025. Hope to talk to you! I'll also be at Clinton Book Shop, in Clinton NJ, with Greg Frost and Jonathan Maberry, 7-9 p.m., Friday 6/20
Writing as D. H. Dublin, Jon McGoran is author of Blood Poison and Body Trace from Penguin Books. Look for Freezer Burn, coming June 2008.
Your space is one of the best looking on the space. I appreciate that. I'm always surprised at how much I have in common with others. I shouldn't be, I guess. I share your anxiety over editors who are in a rush, and I broke--no, crunched--my ankle and heel in 1978. How many times I've wished for a time machine to go back to that summer.
May everything work out for the best for you and your writing.
Thank you for joining me at my new MySpace site, FINISHING TOUCHES MARY (http://www.myspace.com/finishing_touches_mary).
Having you with me is indeed a pleasure, as I 'truly admire' your extreme talent.
Please note that due to the tremendous response I’ve had to my site, I am forced to rotate authors/talents as yourself, so please comment back so others will see you and come to know you as well.
Since time immortal, humans have found various ways to communicate. With the advent of writing, civilization as a whole has grown and expanded in knowledge. If it were not for the written word, we would know so little of the various cultures before us, and it is imperative that we too, leave our ‘footprint in the sand’ of history today, enabling future generations to know and understand us.
I do hope you and your friends will visit me at my site, where I feature some of the most celebrated, avant-garde writers, artists, and producers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
So please ensure you peruse some of our forthcoming blogs and bulletins, as I am certain you will be poised to endorse them as well.
Just passin through to show my ugly grill, hope you're cool and your years goin how you want it to, if it isn't, it's always good to take a step back and look at things again.
WE DON'T LEARN BY GETTING THINGS RIGHT THE FIRST TIME!!! lol
Trees are joy inspiring In those first sweet days of May Stretching forth their lacy tendrils To entice the lark to stay. Trees are gracious, charming When glossed with summer sheen They catch the vagrant breezes And spread their shady green. . And somehow in the Autumn When the magic touch of time Has clad these trees in russet-gold We sense a hand divine. Yet Trees in winter fascinate When their gaunt, nude forms arise And trace in grotesque patterns, Silhouettes against the skies. -C. H. BOLTON
