Monday, December 21, 2009

Coffee with a canine: Juliet Marillier & Pippa, Gretel, and Sara

Today's featured quartet at Coffee with a Canine: Juliet Marillier & Pippa, Gretel, and Sara.

Marillier, on how her dogs joined her household near Perth, Western Australia:
They are all rescue dogs. Gretel has been with me for six years. She was found wandering in an industrial district and taken to a refuge – she was there several months before I adopted her. It is amazing that nobody took her earlier as she is a good-tempered, pretty little dog. She does have a major health issue – she’s epileptic and needs daily medication for life. My best companion.

I’ve had elderly, blind Sara for just over a year. Most of the time she’s sweet as pie, but she can transform instantly into a growling, biting ball of aggression. I took her in as a foster dog, and once she was settled here it seemed too cruel to expect her to move again. She has a heart condition but is doing OK thanks to good veterinary attention plus love and care. She spends a lot of the time sleeping.

Pippa is the newest arrival. Her owner was an elderly acquaintance of mine who died suddenly last winter. Pip was his precious only child, and I took her rather than see her go to a refuge. She came complete with a wardrobe of hand-sewn dog coats ranging from brocade to faux fur. She’s had to learn to share her house and her human with other animals. A bundle of energy in a small body. Oh, and she’s so good at...[read on]
Visit Juliet Marillier's website to learn more about her books and works in progress, and read her "author's spotlight" essay at the Random House website. Also, check out Writer Unboxed, a genre writing blog which she shares with several other writers and editors.

Marillier's Wildwood Dancing is on Amazon's 2007 list of top ten books for young adults; it also won the 2006 Aurealis Award for best fantasy novel.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Heart’s Blood.

Read an excerpt from Heart’s Blood.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Juliet Marillier & Pippa, Gretel, and Sara.

--Marshal Zeringue