Tag Archives: airships

Searching for Auntie Em in Dreadful Poetry

Wizard Kadmeion has just brought his Auntie Em over to say hello to us at the Dreadful Poetry book release party.

Previously: Welcome to the Dreadful Poetry Book Release Party

Auntie Em Wears Fine Fescue Today

Wizard Kadmeion’s aunt, Sorceress Emily (“Em”), is a renowned magical horticulture practitioner. Her specialty is growing root vegetables into human shapes. Magicians seek out her wares so they can animate the tubers with minor demons. These flora homunculi are popular as garden workers.

Lita: Em, we are so pleased you could join us today at Kadmeion’s affair.

Auntie Em: I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Who is this lovely person you’re with, Lita?

Lita: This is Gentle Reader.

Auntie Em: Enchanted to meet you. Did you two hear that Kadmeion searched for me during much of his Dreadful Poetry story? I was quite the star, and I wasn’t even there.

Lita: I know all about it, Em. Remember that I am Kadmeion’s scribe, and he natters at me using mind voice. The wizard and I have coffee together in the early morning, and I transcribe what he says while we chat. Gentle Reader will learn about your part in the story the normal way by reading the book.

As Daft as Sitting on Stilts While Knitting

Gentle Reader: [Methinks Auntie Em is as daft as sitting on stilts while doing some knitting. Ask her why she has grass for hair.]

Lita: Love your new hair style, darling. Usually, you wear mushrooms and leaves on your head. Is that Kentucky Bluegrass you have on today?

Auntie Em: This is Fine Fescue. [Auntie Em pats her head with a manicured hand. The elegant long fingernails are painted pine-tree green.] I don’t need as much water now when I shampoo, because the grass is drought resistant.

Kadmeion and his Auntie Em excuse themselves. They step away to talk with the other guests. Sir Bright comes over, and invites us to join him. We follow him across the room to the buffet table. Hungry? Time to eat something.

Next time: The Dreadful Poetry Cake

Welcome to the Dreadful Poetry Book Release Party

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Watch your step on the gangplank as you come aboard Wizard Kadmeion’s airship.

Disregard the Somewhat Frightful Face

Glad You Came

Love your beautiful hair and outfit, my dear. Is that big purple and white flower on your dress enchanted? Oh, it giggles, and smells like good luck. Yes then, it’s the perfect thing to wear today to the wizard’s affair.

See that homunculus with the three legs standing just inside the door? That is one of Sir Bright’s clockworks creations. Disregard Marty’s somewhat frightful face that looks like a metal triangle. Hand your cloak to him. Marty will remove the snow with a brush made of dragon eyelashes, and hold your garment in the atrium until it is time to go.

The rest of the guests are gathering in the forward lounge. Kadmeion, his elf assistant Bright, and the wizard’s cynanthrope familiar Furgo are here. The woodland fairies flit about, are always ready to perch on your hand, and talk about their naughty ways. Wizard Morton from the university arrived earlier, along with a few Magic Guild cronies.

Before you go inside, take a moment please, and step to the display table over here. This will take only a moment.

Spells Transport Your Copy to You

Get your very own copy of our wizard’s latest story, Dreadful Poetry. Today is release day!

Dreadful Poetry tells about the wee bit of trouble the boys had while at the university. Bright was not always a mage, and Kadmeion had quite the time of it with his field study. For a while, it seemed that both of them would land in magician’s prison.

Thank you for the small amount it takes for the wizards at Amazon to fuel the transport spells that whisk an eBook immediately to you. Their clever enchantments will deliver your book to these magical locations around the world: US, UK, CA, AU, and IN.

Look Who Just Arrived

Kadmeion’s Auntie Em just stepped in. Let’s give her a few minutes to greet her favorite nephew. Oh, look. The wizard is bringing her over to say hello to us.

Next post: Searching for Auntie Em in Dreadful Poetry

The Pleasure of Your Company is Requested

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Now is the time for a few good Gentle Readers to join our ranks aboard the AS Patsy Nottle for the Dreadful Poetry cover reveal party!

December the 7th at early morning

Berth #1 – Pier A at the Lita Burke Aerodrome

Hosted by Wizard Kadmeion, Sir Bright & Their Crew

Dreadful Poetry is available now for pre-order on Amazon.

Return Trip from the Plate-Shaped Ocean World

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Lita has been traveling these past several months to the plate-shaped ocean world where wizards fly airships between islands that float above the sea. She has returned to her castle now in the northern realms, and ooh boy, does she have a story to tell about her trip.

Time Twines Differently in the Clockpunk Wizard World

Twisty Time

Time twines differently between here and the land of Clockpunk Wizard. Lita’s trip took her back to when Wizard Kadmeion and his assistant Sir Bright were attending the Agatha University of Magical Arts and Sciences. The boys had not yet met.

Bright had finished his studies—or so he thought. The afternoon before he leaves on his first job as an airship mechanic, an out-of-control magical episode lands him in jail. Meanwhile, Kadmeion returns to the university after a year of field study. The wizardling suffers from Wizard’s Madness, and he is under suspicion in his field mentor’s death. Worst of all, he must pass a class in magical rhyming called Dreadful Poetry while waiting for the Magic Guild’s Inquiry that decides his fate.

Wizard Morton

Wizard Morton

While on this trip, Lita had the pleasure of meeting the elder Wizard Morton. This curmudgeon is the head of the Magical Sciences department, and is Kadmeion’s academic advisor.

The guild calls in the elder wizard on Bright’s case. This mundane clockworks graduate had an unexplained wizardly episode, and now the lad’s magic has fled. The irresistible puzzle motivates Morton to get Bright out of jail so the wizard can learn more about Bright’s fickle magic.

Sensing that the lads can help each other, he requires Bright to help the mad wizardling pass Dreadful Poetry. Morton encourages Kadmeion to discover why the non-magician Bright all but leveled the Merchant’s Quarter with powerful enchantments. The problem is that madness is a wonderful distraction, and Kadmeion would rather talk with the fish and resident university ghosts. Morton must lend a hand, or matters will never resolve themselves.

Butterfly Matters

Perhaps the most curious discovery on Lita’s trip was why butterflies are significant to Kadmeion’s wizardry. The lad’s elusive Auntie Em, and a basket of wrestling puppies, also visit Dreadful Poetry. Lita also learned what happens when a wizard grows wings, and tries to fly like a harpy.

30,000 Curious Came to See the Show

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What a mad, grand day for Lita Burke’s blog. 30,000 views. Smiles from Lita for all of you lovely and curious Gentle Readers who visited.

Suppose there is a most interesting street where the houses look like books. Inside these houses are places where fey-folk fairies play, wizards sing their magic, and Enchanters give kisses. Anyone can walk down this street, and glimpse at these fantasy worlds through the windows. Lita’s blog is that street. 30,000 Gentle Readers have already walked its twisty cobblestone ways. Here are a few of the wonders in the windows.

Ride on a Wizard’s Airship

Ride on a Wizard’s Airship

All aboard now for a trip to a plate-shaped ocean world, where islands float far above the sea. Dragons fly the sky, and clockworks creations inhabited by minor demons join human and elf-kind magicians in absurd adventures.

A proper wizard uses an airship to visit these floating lands. Others of more modest means use Ornithopters designed by Leonardo’s Airborne Contraptions.

Join in the sometime fun, sometimes scary, but always delightful adventures of Wizard Kadmeion, his half-elf assistant Sir Bright, and their friends in the fantasy world of Clockpunk Wizard. Get your first ride on Kadmeion’s airship, and meet a special dog that digs deadly mandrake roots in Forever Boy.

Unicorn Herd

Unicorn Island

There is a floating island in the royal elf-kind archipelago that has a herd of unicorns. They run in the steppe lands, and gather in the border forests.

The unicorns shed the husks of their alicorns, and the elf-kind collect these precious magical artifacts. An illness has stricken the herd. Lady Luck’s young daughter, with her favorite wizard in tow, visits the unicorns. She learns how to talk to the birds to get to the bottom of the unicorn illness in Glitter Ponies.

Enchanters’ Luscious Magic

Fire and a Hidden Spell Book

Lanith, a magical curios merchant, loses her shop and home to a mysterious fire. Her magician husband Tredan has gone missing.

The morally strict Church magicians, and the Enchanters with their luscious magic that they distribute with kisses, are in constant battle to do whatever is necessary to gain the upper hand in their world of Sye. She learns that her husband wrote a powerful spell book that will subjugate the Enchanters’ magic. His book sits in the middle of the decades-old conflict between the Church and the Enchanters.

With only her dragonette and the clothes on her back, she enlists the help of the Enchanters, and unravels her husband’s life-long secrets. His kidnapping tale starts in Wrath, and Lanith’s story continues in Tredan’s Bane.

Also see:

Glitter Ponies Giveaway on Goodreads

Glitter Ponies by Lita Burke

In Glitter Ponies, a recent college graduate wizard teams up with Lady Luck’s young daughter to discover the cause of a mysterious unicorn illness.

Enter Giveaway

5 Most Popular Pictures in 2015 – Part II

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This is the second of two blog posts that look back at the five most popular pictures on Lita’s blog in 2015. Here are the fourth through first place winners.

Previously: 5 Most Popular Pictures in 2015 – Part I

A Resident of the Floating Lands

Fourth Place: Floating Lands Video

It’s time to roll out another of Lita’s fantasy worlds–Floating Lands. This month is a look at lighter-than-air islands, levitating people, and soaring cows. Check out Lita’s just-released Floating Lands video.

We have all visited floating lands–do you dream you can fly? When asleep, we soar like a lark or hover like hummingbirds.

Sometimes when your legs feel so heavy during your morning run, or you’re at a standstill in commuter traffic, do you look to the sky and marvel at a bird’s effortless glide on the wind? If you parachute, then you have felt the breathless sensation of floating. Ditto if you’ve flown in a zero-G airplane or hovered in the blast of a wind tunnel.

Fantasy fiction is airborne. The King of Eagles plucks the imprisoned wizard from atop his enemy’s tower. Sparkly faced vampires leap the distance of soccer fields from balconies to treetops. Any sorceress worth her pointy hat can levitate a feather or a boulder. More…

Unicorn with an Elf Magician

Third Place: Concerning Unicorns in the Clockpunk Wizard World

Time to set the facts straight about this four-legged sentient creature with a long spiral horn on its forehead.

If Gentle Reader were to cast a searching spell about unicorns in our fantasy world called internet, the spell would say that unicorns are made-up bits of fantasy fluff. Lita says horse feathers (with apologies to Pegasus) about that parcel of nonsense.

The upcoming story Glitter Ponies tells about Lady Luck’s daughter helping Wizard Kadmeion discover the cause of a mysterious unicorn illness. It will be a while until Kadmeion’s airship travels to floating Wuddlekins Island to visit the unicorn herd, so here are some facts from the wizard’s Bestiarum Vocabulum.

Unicorns are the size of ponies with red, black, or white coats. They share the physical features of horses and goats: they have manes, long flowing tails, cloven hooves, and many have a goat-like beard. More…

Home of a Woodland Fairy

Second Place: Care of a Fey-Folk Fairy (Part 1)

Meet Tinker Bell’s naughtier cousins—the fairies flitting about in the woodlands near Lita’s castle.

Today, Lita talks about the worldly fairies that go with Kadmeion on his wizard-for-hire adventures. Fairies take their coloring from where they live. There are four types of fey-folk:

Highland fairies have wings the color of sunshine, and sound like the whisper of shushing snow during flight.
When water fey-folk flutter their turquoise wings, they sound like murmuring rills.
Woodland fairies gather in emerald or jade fairy clans, and their nighttime play is often mistaken for fireflies.
Fire fairies love volcanos, have flame-colored wings, and leap about as if they were sizzling lava sparks.

The tiny fairy magicians build their communal homes from materials rich in latent magic. Predators that hunger for an easy magical snack are a constant danger to fairies. To protect themselves, fey-folk often befriend elf mages and live in their sheltered gardens. More…

An “Ornithopter” personal flying machine by Da Vinci

First Place: How the Airship Works

Welcome to the topside Map Room in Wizard Kadmeion’s airship. It adjoins the Pilot House.

The magical world of Clockpunk Wizard in Forever Boy is a spinning plate with a large mountainous land mass at the spindle called the South Pole. The rest of the platter is a vast ocean dotted with small sandy cays.

The strong magical field at the South Pole causes a certain volcanic rock to float. These rocks break away from the primary landmass and drift toward the Rim. These hundreds of floating islands are the habitable archipelago for the magicians and other inhabitants of the Clockpunk Wizard world.

The weather is calm near the South Pole. Storms are common toward the outer edge of the plate. At the Rim boundary, violent winds destroy everything. All the floating islands eventually drift to the Rim and disappear. Smaller islands move more quickly to their death. The largest floating islands can last for a century or longer. Magical creatures flourish on the floating islands. Many island residents have need of a wizard’s skilled services. This is the basis of Kadmeion and Bright’s roving magician-for-hire business. More…

5 Most Popular Pictures in 2015 – Part I

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This is the first of two blog posts that look back at the five most popular pictures on Lita’s blog in 2015. Fifth place was a four-way tie. Here are the pictures and delicious teasers from their blog posts.

Jack Frost, Your Nipping Kisses Leave Flushed Cheeks

Fantasy Boy of Winter: Jack Frost

Burr, it’s wintertime outside of Lita’s castle here in the northern realms. Someone painted icy filigree on the windows. Let’s bundle up, go outside, and meet the artist.

Say hello to handsome Jack Frost, winter’s fantasy boy. This magician embodies lacy window paintings, trees draped with sparkling snow, and crystalline sculptures made of ice. He tosses about sheets of sleet as if they were billowing linens on a clothesline.

Jack is an affectionate one. He nips noses and toes with tingling kisses, and leaves behind his enthralling magic.

Snow sports enthusiasts adore this mischievous ne’er-do-well’s wintry efforts. Mister Frost delights in all chilly artwork, whether he fills mountain valleys with champagne powder for skiers or freezes a lowland lake until it is a perfect dance floor for an ice skater’s blades.

Jack Frost on His Way to Another Window Painting

He is an artist and sculptor, too. His icy paintings on windowpanes have many admirers.

Jack also molds frigid streams into whimsy ice figurines. He does his work when your back is turned or during the long and dark winter nights.

Just don’t try stealing a kiss back from handsome Jack by putting your lips on a frozen well handle. Ouch. Lita warned you.

Hear that cad giggle at your foolishness in trying to catch him unawares? More…

See the Strands of Pixie Dust Swirl Around Her?

Care of a Fey-Folk Fairy (Part 1)

Meet Tinker Bell’s naughtier cousins—the fairies flitting about in the woodlands near Lita’s castle.

Today, Lita talks about the worldly fairies that go with Kadmeion on his wizard-for-hire adventures. These wee magicians fly in, lavish their wizard with effervescent pixie dust, and give him spicy relationship advice. Despite the frivolity, these pretty spell casters harbor a deep magical sorrow.

This post is the first of two with tips for Gentle Reader on how to care for a fey-folk fairy. Today we focus on practical matters. Next time, we will talk about a fairy’s magical concerns.

Let’s Straighten This Out

First of all, why are they called fey-folk, instead of fay, faie, fee, or fae? The wizard’s Bestiarum Vocabulum describes fairy magic as flighty, fanciful, fragile, fantastical, fickle, and foolish. To reduce the tongue twisting, Lita calls them fey. More…

Sea Nymph and Water Birds Fairytale

3 Naughty Ladies of Fantasy Fiction

A warning today for the gentlemen. In some Fantasy Worlds, you will find lascivious females. Guard your virtue!

While Lita was researching her next book, Old Bony Blue Eyes, she found several kinds of mer females in fantasy and folklore stories. An alarming pattern emerged. The mermaid tales combined two dangerous mysteries for menfolk–women and the ocean.

Could this all be mistaken identity? Lonely sailors long at sea might mistake sightings of manatees and dugongs for our aqua princesses. Perhaps the manatee’s seductive smile is an irresistible lure, and sailors will shipwreck in their haste to meet this lovely gal.

But wait. These gentle, large water mammals look nothing like a shapely human woman. Must be water mirages. Let’s stick with fantasy artistry for our sea girls and not spoil the mood. More…

Next Time: 5 Most Popular Pictures in 2015 – Part II

Most Popular Blog Post in 2015

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Of all the new posts on Lita’s blog last year, here was the most popular for 2015. Kadmeion talked about his vacation visiting the unicorns on Wuddlekins Island, and Lita explained the Internet and eBooks to a 16th century wizard. Here is how the wizard’s interview started…

“On Wizard Kadmeion’s airship, the forward sitting room has the best views and conversation. Lita invites Gentle Reader to join the chitchat with the characters in her upcoming story, Glitter Ponies.

Wizard Kadmeion

The twenty-something-year-old wizard takes a seat on a nearby Chesterfield, and studies us with his handsome dark brown eyes. His unstarched casual white shirt has a discreet gold-embroidered Magic Guild insignia near the left collar.

He wears a souvenir from his Glitter Ponies trip on the right side of his head. Kadmeion has braided an intricate gentleman’s hair clasp into some tendrils of his long brown hair. The wizard’s boy-fey, Izlyesende, clings to the clasp. When the fairy fans his beautiful green-mottled wings, they brush Kadmeion’s cheek. More…“

Find out more about Kadmeion’s world of Clockpunk Wizard:

Glitter Ponies: All Aboard the Airship for Chapter 1

Glitter Ponies by Lita Burke

Chapter One
Peach Pits, Wuddlekins Island

A flaming peach pit whistled past Wizard Kadmeion’s ear. The projectile bounced on the gangplank, rolled to his feet, and disappeared in a pop of fruit-flavored smoke. He spun toward the source. The aerodrome dock was empty.

“I see them.” Bright had paused at the top of the gangplank. His assistant’s voice was soft. “Brownies.”

Kadmeion stepped down onto the dock, and whisper-sang a vision acuity spell. The wizard squinted, and tried to get a glimpse of his attackers. Bright came down the gangplank, and stopped at Kadmeion’s right side.

“I can’t see them, Bright.”

“Then it is true.” More…