Look and Listen

Biography

Books: Cloak of Magic (Shaihen Heritage Book 1 ) published by Authors On Line (2006) Staff of Power (Shaihen Heritage Book 2) published by Pegasus Elliott Mackenzie (2009) Sue Rule lives in Edenbridge, Kent in the UK. As well as being an author, she is a songwriter and musician: one quarter of local family folk group Pig’s Ear (www.pigs-sty.com). In her “day job” , Sue is Director of Sales and Marketing for SMS Ltd., an IT management consultancy in which she and her husband, Grant, are majority shareholders. (www.measuresw.com). In something nominally called “spare time”, Sue is a writing the gripping and original science fantasy series “Shaihen Heritage” (www.shehaios.co.uk). The series grows out of Sue’s love of history and folklore, and tracks the fictional history of an imagined world which is not unlike our own. One or two little accidents of evolutionary history make all the difference – there are dragons in the mountains, and in every generation of the Shaihen people there is one individual with the gifts of a Magician. Sue has been writing bits of the fictional history of Shehaios since she first dreamed up the world and its rather prosaic magic in the early 1970’s. The intervening years spent learning and perfecting her craft have culminated in the “Shaihen Heritage” series. Music and song are a notable part of the culture of Shehaios, reflecting Sue’s other creative life – as a songwriter, singer and musician with English folk group, Pig’s Ear. Pig's Ear have been playing for 20 years, and have recorded five CDs with another on the way. They are regular contributors to local festivals, fetes, pubs and folk clubs in south-east England. Sue is the leading light in organising a small annual folk music festival at the village of Markbeech, near Edenbridge. Everything from ‘60’s rock covers to acapella traditional ballads can be heard at this increasingly popular little festival which takes place on the first weekend in June.

Inspiration

Sue takes her inspiration mainly from the master fantasy writer, JRR Tolkein - and from his sources; the legends of Irish and Norse mythology, and the aural and written history of Northern Europe. The ballads of the British Isles provide stirring tales of bloodlust, villainy and heroism as well as insights - often amusing - into the everyday lives and loves of our ancestors. This living tradition of folk music inspires in Sue's writing a fictional world which has the whiff of reality about it. So you could say Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Ewan MacColl, Pete and Peggy Seegar, and all the other folk revival and folk-rock musicians of the past 50 years are also Sue's inspiration, for breathing new life and energy into the old songs and ballads. Other favourite authors include Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Anne McCaffery, David Eddings, Bernard Cornwell, Allan Massie, Antonia Fraser, Geoffrey Ashe, and numerous other historians, biographers and writers of fiction in various genres.