Who is Shauna O’Meara?
Shauna O’Meara is a Ditmar nominated artist, writer and veterinarian based in Canberra, Australia. She was a winner of the 2013 Writers of the Future contest and her short stories have appeared in Writers of the Future: volume 30, Cosmos Magazine, Midnight Echo, Australian Security Nightmares and the CSFG anthologies: Next and The Never Never Land (upcoming). She has contributed cover or interior art to several Australian speculative fiction anthologies including: In Fabula-divino, Cthulhu: Deep Down Under, Gold Coast Anthology: Undertow, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 61 (upcoming), Winds of Change, Next and The Never Never Land (upcoming). She also recently completed the artwork for a short comic commissioned by Midnight Echo magazine.
Where can I read more about this fabulous author?
http://www.theshaunacorner.wordpress.com/
What music do they like?
Here are the two artists I am currently listening to…
First Aid Kit is a Swedish folk band I first encountered on Triple J. Their songs are all stories, often containing a mythical, magical quality, that the folk style imbues with a gorgeous, plain-speaking earnestness. Lion’s Roar gave me tingles when I first heard it.
Alt-J can do no wrong in my eyes. I have both Alt-J albums and pretty much play them on cycle. These guys walk that fine line between the exquisitely beautiful and downright disturbing, which I think is what happens when any artist decides to truly engage and not hold back. The lead voice has a quality I can’t describe and there are so many layers to their music and lyrics that, with each section, the most amazing images and feelings are conjured. I would love to have this shifting, layered quality in my writing. I would also like to have the creative fun that I feel these artists are engaging in.
I couldn’t find an official trailer for Taro and some of the other videos they have made for their songs are quite disturbing, so I went with this version which, for me, encapsulates the joy and wild abandon this song makes me feel.
