I am a middle-aged, British, female geek with a penchant for fantasy and science fiction as well as a cauldron-stirring witch from Devon (UK).

I attended Cauntersfield Academy of Witchcraft for OWLs and NEWTs (Head Girl 1977), then studied under Sinistra and Vector at Hogwarts for two years before studying Mineralogical Magical Theory at the Scottish Institute of Magic. I have also studied at Miskatonic University.
I have published several papers on Minerals in Magic, Broomstick History and Lithiculture.
I am no longer working entirely in the magical world due to health concerns. (The DMLE has determined that Death Eaters can be injurious to your health.)

Consultant in Lithiculture to Pagan's Wish seed company, (Otterley, Devon).
Consultant to Singularis Ocularis scrying and potion supplies, (Ottery StJude, Devon)
Specialist consultant in Cthonic Lore to DoM.

I write, tinker with computers and electronics, and collect minerals (the avatar image is a drawing of a Harmotome crystal collected in Scotland)

I write a few tales for my own pleasure, but I have neither the patience nor the focus to complete a longer story - so most of my completed scribblings are short stories.

Answering reviews: I try to answer every review. Unfortunately, FFN sometimes loses track of what goes where and by whom, and the reply system falls on its face. Anonymous (guest) reviews are always unanswerable. If you don't hear from me - especially if you have let me know about some insanity I've managed to post (duplicate chapters, strange typos, lines of utter gibberish), please assume that the response system is broken.

Cross-Unders: These are stories that include aspects of other fictions without being actual cross-overs - usually where some (real) piece of fiction causes characters to emulate something from the referenced fiction: an example would be God-Emperor of Little Whinging is where Harry's reading of Frank Herbert's Dune series causes him to become a fictional Arakeen Sandworm hybrid.

On the subject of copyright protection: Read the short story The Reconstruction of Mingus by Phil Manchester; it is set in a world where copyright is enforced so vigorously that everyday speech is reduced to 'authorised phrases', and all creativity is gone from the world.

This is not to say that copyright protection is wrong, only that over-vigorous enforcement IS.

For the record, I make no money writing and make no claim to ownership of anything I write that is based on other works.

Everything is derivative, and fan fiction doubly so. I have read so much original fiction as well as fan fiction, that I cannot guarantee that anything I put in a tale is original - even the cliches are based on pre-existing cliches.

I don't have a beta reader but I do have both a spell-checker and a dictionary (and I use both).

Reviews: Reviews are always welcome, constructive criticism is welcome, smiles and pleasant wishes are most welcome.
Destructive criticism, flames and just plain whinges are not welcome at all, and will be treated with the utmost contempt - and may result in the critic/flamer/whinger being lampooned (which, in turn, may or may not involve a light-post and a big fish-hook.)

Latest News -

April 2016 - My muse is still missing presumed living it up in Barbados, so things are moving slowly. The stories aren't dead, just in suspended animation (I hope).

Llamas - if anyone has a way of getting llama-stains out of the wallpaper, I would be most grateful. I am working on a self-help guide to laundering llamas. Most of the tips seem to work for emus, too.

Responses to a guest review or two:

Story: The Trousers of Time

:Not quite sure the point of this. Fate was fed up with Dunbles and so let Harry find the pants, but at the end time somehow reverses to before he finds the pants and this time decides not to put them on. So what was the point?

Interesting concept, all the different possibilities, but kinda pointless.

I would point out that the last decision-tree to be explored was the one where he didn't wear them.

Story: GodEmperor of Little Whinging

:W* was this.

A crossunder with God Emperor of Dune, which features a Sandworm-Human hybrid.

Most guest reviewers are quietly polite, may make a point or raise a question, but one has recently been something other than pleasant.

A MESSAGE TO THE SNIVELLING, ANONYMOUS, COWARD - you know who you are.

You do not have editorial control, if you don't like what I write, then you are free to closebox - after all, you didn't pay anything to read my scribblings.

If you have nothing constructive to say, then stay silent. Your rants are treated with the contempt they deserve, and you merely prove that you are an irrational, addle-pated lackwit wirth an over inflates sense of entitlement, a lack of social graces and an uncontrolled urge to invite the worst kinds of ridicule and humiliation to be visited upon you.

If you want to say something that will be listened to - get an account and sign in.