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Hello everyone, this week, I’m delighted to welcome a guest poster on my blog. Many of you will have heard of Tahlia Newland. Today, she’s going to tell us a bit about how she writes and her new release. So, without more ado… take it away, Tahlia.

I used to be a visual artist (actually I still am, it’s just not my main income anymore), then I worked in Visual Theatre for over twenty years as a writer and performer, so visual imagery is not just important to me, it’s part of who I am as an artist. Visual Theatre communicates with visual symbolism and my Diamond Peak Series is full of symbolism, so though I’m writing instead of creating visual imagery with paint or with dance, costumes, sets, props, masks and music, my writing is full of visual imagery and symbolism.

I’m a visual author. I guess that’s why I like to write fantasy and magical realism.

Reviewers have said such things as “truly spectacular imagery;”  “unique settings;” “a rich, detailed world building”, and “It’s a visual writing style – you can see the action”. About the symbolism they have said such things as; “author Newland exhibits great skill in allegorical storytelling;” and “an epic adventure with real world symbolism and depth.”

Stories come into my mind in a visual way as well. I see the scenes playing out as a movie and I write the scenes as they come into my head, so I don’t feel as if I’m making the story up, I’m more writing what I see. It makes me wonder if the stories aren’t happening somewhere in some other reality. Certainly in symbolic terms, the Diamond Peak series is played out in the psyches of every person on the planet whether we know it or not.

But the visual and written aspects of my creativity are even more linked than just how they come out in the final product. Part of my creative process in writing is to consider the book cover, and I use Photoshop to mock up different ideas at various stages of writing. Sometimes, I take a break from writing and play with Photoshop and what I come up with helps to clarify the images in my mind.

I’ve just released Demon’s Grip, the latest book in the Diamond Peak Series. I built up this cover with the help of my daughter at Centrepiece Productions Design Studio (a good place for cheap but professional covers).

Here’s the cover of Demon’s Grip, Tahlia’s new release.

It’s always best to start at the beginning of a series though, so to inspire you to do just that, book one in the series is only 99c until the 6th July on Kindle and Kobo, so pick it up and read your way to the top of Diamond Peak.

You can also pick up a FREE short story prequel to the Series here.

If you’ve read books one and two, you can find Demon’s Grip at your Kindle Store , Smashwords & Kobo.

Tahlia Newland, the award-winning fantasy and magical realism author with a metaphysical twist. If you enjoyed this blog post, you can join her on Facebook , Twitter or Google+ You can even fan her on Goodreads. When not reading, writing, reviewing or mentoring authors you may find her being an extremely casual high school teacher or making decorative masks. Tahlia began writing full time in 2008 after twenty years in the performing arts and a five-year stint as a creative and performing arts teacher in a High School. In 2012, she set up the Awesome Indies List to showcase quality independent fiction. She has had extensive training in meditation and Buddhist philosophy and lives in an Australian rainforest south of Sydney. Creativity is her middle name!