Venice and the Church of the Skiing Jesus

Travel in Italy
Written By
A statue of Our LAdy on top of a church steeple. Behind her is a clear blue sky.

Statue of the Madonna atop the Chiesa di S. Maria del Carmelo © A. Harrison

So I’m going to rot in hell. I know Our Lady is standing atop a crescent moon (a symbol of both her purity and her role as Queen of Heaven) with a crown of 12 stars above her. But, seriously - doesn’t she look like the patron saint of skiers and snowboarders?

Just another wonder in the mysterious city of Venice.

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Some of my writing you may enjoy:

Featured
Ariadne's Thread
Ariadne's Thread
A$4.00

I peered around in the darkness. Neither the light of the stars, nor a streetlight, filled the blank void. I actually hadn’t rolled into the wall; I wasn’t even in bed. I’d hit the back of the couch — the short one.

As Caitlyn''s week of working nights draws to a close, she comes to question her belief that her past decisions have brought her to where she is; is she now too far along the her chosen road to have a choice? Or is it time itself which holds her prisoner in a place she no longer wishes to be.

The lift doors opened onto the tunnel. Like any entrance to hell, it smelt stale. Stale vomit, stale urine. Stale bodies, everywhere. A winter of rain couldn’t cleanse it. Tattered posters clung at odd places to the walls, reminding everyone to be alert, not alarmed. Despite two security guards sharing a smoke, the tunnel remained a perfect place for a murder.

Over the course of just one work shift, Caitlyn discovers it takes but a packet of Twisties, a ghost, and thoughts of a minotaur for her to break free.

Floating Elephants
Floating Elephants
A$4.00

A book of poetry by Anne Harrison

I’ve spent too long not seeing.

Shadows are for remembering;

They hold no secret depths, only echoes.

Also available for kindle/on amazon

In A Dark Wood Wandering
In A Dark Wood Wandering
A$3.00

The novella In A Dark Wood Wandering weaves two storylines through the modern day and early Renaissance Florence.

Leaving behind a depersonalised world, a young woman seeks a retreat in a convent in the hills above Florence. Here, she soon discovers, is an Irish Mother Superior with a Machiavellian agenda against a communist mayor and invading archeologists. She soon has 'la donna bella' helping exhume some old graves at the convent, some of which date back to early Renaissance time.

In one of the graves she unexpectedly finds the remains of a young woman of wealth, buried with her child - and someone else. This is the woman from the other storyline. A daughter of a newly-rich merchant and a greedy mother, she is unusual for her time in that her father has taught her to read. The day before her father finalises her arranged marriage, he takes to the Badia, to hear Boccaccio reading from the works of Dante. Whilst there, her life is irrevocably changed.

Through the interweaving of these worlds, both young women – unnamed throughout the novella -–learn not only how to lose loss but also that to be un-noticed is not synonymous with invisibility, or worthlessness. Both learn to see themselves.

Also available for kindle/on Amazon

last-tuesday-poetry-cover.jpg
Last Tuesday
A$4.00

A book of Poetry

Also available for Kindle / on Amazon

footstep-thief-cover-novel.jpg
The Footstep Thief
A$5.00

A murder mystery with no murder, The Footstep Thief takes place in a Kafkaesque world where Stephanie enters a maze of night shifts in a university laboratory in an Australian country town. When time allows Stephanie passes her nights hunting down the perfect vending machine, searching for the Grey Nurse, imagining herself in classic movies, and talking to her dead brother, Dave.

Yet over the course of one week Stephanie's world untangles. Struggling to find a hidden meaning in Dave’s cryptic last message, she has to cope with the likes of her ex-lover, Jason (now a fledgling celebrity) who reappears to prepare a television show; or Gillian, Dave’s would-be fiancé, who places a controlling finger everywhere. Even Stephanie’s flat-mate keeps a list of her failings against God on his clipboard.

Then one night Stephanie sights Dave’s nemesis, Sir Dom.

The Footstep Thief was originally published as a short story (Ariadne’s Thread) in the 2010 Sleepers Almanac (reviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald as grim but vivid – Kerry Goldsworth)

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