Menu

Home
Current Project
Blog
Teaching
Contact

Contact

Name *

E-mail address *

Your message *

I consent to kajablackley.com storing and using my personal data submitted with this form to get back in touch with me.

About Me

I write and I draw. My repertoire is eclectic – it includes children’s books, short stories and YA novels, sequential art and film. Please message me if you’d like to connect.

kajablackley

Another lovely review. Thank you @reading_is_my_yo

Another lovely review. Thank you @reading_is_my_yoga #freckledmagic Believe in it. “Nurture. Nature. Respect Mother Earth.”
~
~
Some time ago I won a giveaway hosted by @maggiemaccormack and @readwithangie and received this wonderful book. It took some time to finally pick it up and it was absolutely amazing! I loved every single page and now I can't wait to read the next part.
~
Maggie is a twelve-year-old orphan who has seen more foster families than any other kid. After her last guardian suffered a fatal heart attack she is brought to a new family. This one is decidedly different from any other family she has lived with. She feels welcome and accepted from the start but soon weird and magical things happen around her.
~
I absolutely loved all the characters. They were cute and loveable. I would have loved to sit in Fiona's kitchen and have a cuppa with them. Maggie is a great character. She's tough and self confident but sometimes she acts like an older girl. But I think growing up as an orphan will definitely make a person grow up faster.
~
The story is full of magical creatures: dragons, shifters, greenmen, and talking animals. The villains are definitely scary and threatening. The world building is wonderful. It's set somewhere in Scotland at the coast which is always a great setting for a book.
~
The thing I loved most about the story was the message: take care of nature. There's only one and if it's gone everyone is screwed. A graffiti by the people opposed to Maggie says: "Burn the Woods!" The books explains why burning the woods is a very bad idea. In the light of current slash-and-burn methods going on in the Amazonas and wildfires at the West Coast this topic is very relevant.
~
So, thank you again @maggiemaccormack and @readwithangie . This book was beautiful inside and out. I absolutely recommend it to everyone who loves stories about white witches, love for nature and great characters.
~
~
QOTD: If you were a witch, what kind of magic would you wield?"
AOTD: I'd definitely be a wood witch. Being connected with all things nature would be wonderful.
~
~
#yafantasyseries #ireadyalit #yabookreview #canlit #fantasybooks

The Book Fairies have brought Maggie to Sweden. Wh

The Book Fairies have brought Maggie to Sweden. Who will discover the Witches’ Wheel first?
#freckledmagic #yafantasyauthor #read #magic #ireadyalit
#Posted @withregram • @bookfairies_sweden Ska du åka tåg i Lund men glömde läsningen? Det löser vi! Någonstans på centralstationen finns Maggie McCormack and the Whitches' Wheel av Kaja Blackley, med en present, att hitta! 🧚
.
Going by train from Lund and forgot to bring your read? Not to worry! Somewhere at the central station, a copy of Maggie McCormack and the Whitches' Wheel, and a small treasure, by Kaja Blackley is waiting to be picked up! 🧚

#bookfairytreasure
.
.
About the book:

Maggie is a ginger-haired, twelve-year-old orphan who has been passed from one foster family to the next all her life. She never knows where she’ll end up so she’s become suspicious and independent, scrappy and resourceful.

As the story begins, Maggie is placed yet again into foster care – this time into a much more welcoming family. But Maggie can’t shake the feeling that something is a bit irregular about her new home and its charming, yet eccentric, inhabitants. She slowly ends up having to toss everything she understood about herself and her life out the window. But by that time, things have gone pear-shaped – it’s too late for her to run from the approaching danger.
.
#ibelieveinbookfairies #bookfairiessweden #bookfairy #bookfairies #bokfe #bookdrop #booksofinstagram #bookcommunity #bookshelf #bokälskare #bokhylla #maggiemaccormack #maggiemaccormackandthewitcheswheel #kajablackley #lund #lundscentralstation

My father was a world-respected jazz drummer and t

My father was a world-respected jazz drummer and teacher. My world has always been filled with music and my work has always been inspired by it. Music is with me on my walks, especially now – on my daily COVID-constitutionals – and often acts as my bridge to cross over to the ether.
When I was 10, my father gifted me my first stereo and with it he gave me two albums that changed my creative life and still inform it today: Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert and the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Both albums – each in its very distinctive way – demonstrated to me the heights of artistry one can reach and the limitless possibilities available to a storyteller willing to reach beyond the conventional norms so conveniently employed in the mass market. Other artists, in other genres –– like Kurosawa, Klimt, Keats and Kirby –– have inspired me, and they too braved a unique path, but Jarrett and The Beatles remain dear to my heart. And today, as I walked on concrete sidewalks, then soil paths, under dried leaves strewn like so many dead bats crunching under my feet, trees desperate for the spark of spring to call forth and cover their bare branches with a robust green canopy, it was again Keith Jarrett’s music that cleared the way for a new, emerging project to take root. More to follow.
Stay safe, everyone. Be well.

#inspiration #keithjarrett #thebeatles #jazz #music #authorofinstagram #fictionwriter #indieauthor #magic #authors
#writerscommunity
#writersofig
#reading
#author
#write
#imagination
#klimt
#kirby
#Keats
#Kurosawa
#canadian

@mabelsfablesbookstore Mabel's Fables, one of Tor

#edwardgorey There are many artists, writers and f

#edwardgorey
There are many artists, writers and film directors who owe a debt to Edward Gorey. He was a true original.

Edward Gorey was a master of macabre storytelling, setting his work in either the Victorian or Edwardian period. Some of his books were wordless; others were deliciously morbid, exercising great economy of prose. Often his stories involve one or more people meeting a gruesome end. There’s mystery, drama, humour and a touch of the surreal in almost all of his works. Some people will know of Edward Gorey not by name but by the intros he made for PBS Mystery!
Gorey was said to be a rather solitary man, who lived in a house on Cape Cod, in the company of cats. Yet, he was open to meeting fans of his work, even people who showed up at his front door uninvited (Gorey was listed in the phone book). He was eccentric, and could be seen walking around town in a fur coat, his fingers cupped with rings. He liked watching soap operas, movies and attending the theatre.

Gorey’s illustrations are wonderfully distinctive. His compositions are masterful. Usually in black and white, textured with crosshatched lines, he evokes the mood of dread, despair and loneliness; his characters exude a sense of emotional detachment. The viewer becomes a voyeur or accomplice to the many dreadful acts Gorey’s characters commit on other cast members. His illustrations have inspired many illustrators to emulate his style, but no one does Gorey better than Gorey.

If I had to pick a favourite among his work, it would be the Ghastly Crumb Tinies. How could you not love a book using an alphabet that starts off with, “A is for Amy who fell down the stairs; B is for Basil assaulted by bears.” I could describe Gorey’s work as an acquired taste, though I ‘m sure those who cannot separate the humour of the stories from their gruesome elements might never acquire it. What I will say is that Gorey’s work has brought me a lot of pleasure over the years. I list him among those special artists who, even after death, continue to have a lasting impact on new and old fans alike. #blogpost #folkloreandfairytales #fictionwriter #freckledmagic #gothichorror #bookworm_insta #booksaremagic

C. S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia Lewis wa

C. S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia

Lewis was an atheist whose friendship with J. R. R. Tolkien influenced him to embrace Christianity. Every so often one reads internet reports of the urge to make C. S. Lewis more “marketable” and less “hurtful” by expunging any Christian reference from his work or banning The Chronicles of Narnia from bookshelves.

I enjoy The Chronicles of Narnia, and have done since I was a boy. I just loved the gentle, imaginative tale and the world where both Mr. Tumnus and the White Witch existed. I certainly did not see an underlying Christian allegory. As an adult, I can see the biblical references, but it doesn’t deprive the story of one iota of magic and wonder.

We can only wonder if Lewis would have imagined Narnia had he not been aroused by his friendship with Tolkein and a call to Christianity. But I don’t have to share C. S. Lewis’ belief system to enjoy his work. Neither am I prevented by it — or Tolkein’s influence – from enjoying it. I like Lewis’ voice and I like his writing style.

I haven’t read all of Lewis’ works. I’m assured by many of my friends that his Space Trilogy is quite interesting. I think The Screwtape Letters is wonderful; so is The Great Divorce. I like the themes and symbols found in both works. However, Lewis’ The Problem with Pain and Miracles haven’t yet attracted me.

I’m appreciative of what C. S. Lewis shared with us. I resent attempts to take stories out of the context of their writing and declare them too startling, dangerous or unprofitable for a contemporary public to receive. I am grateful to live in a part of the world that affords me the right to pick up, criticize or ignore storytellers’ original, unredacted creative efforts.

May we never lose this right.

Image of C.S. Lewis © Arthur Strong, 1947

#blogpost #cslewis #narnia #loveyourlibrary #readeverywhere #thelionthewitchandthewardrobe #yafantasy #ya #opinion #fictionwriter #fantasyfiction #freckledmagic #instaread #fantasybookseries #fantasybook #imagination #bookworm_insta #booksaremagic #bookishlove #tolkien

Load More... Follow on Instagram

Contents TM and © Copyright Kaja Blackley 2020. All rights reserved.