I am a mermaid

In other, lighter news, please admire the gorgeous Portuguese cover of my novel Mermaid:

Also: this past weekend was the 65th anniversary of WEEKI WACHEE SPRINGS, and a great reunion of past and present mermaids. I would absolutely have been there except that I’m an associate faculty member at the University of Alaska at Anchorage Low-Residency MFA Program, where among other things I secretly encourage everyone to write about mermaids, and our yearly residency intensive is happening as I speak. Regardless, I plan to talk to some mermaids and post some photos for those of you who tragically missed this event the way I did…

Plus: there are new mermaid books! Both Tera Lynn Childs and Sarah Porter have just had new books in their mermaid trilogies come out, and I’ll be posting new interviews with both of them soon (they also both have original stories in Mermaids magazine, as it happens). And there are plenty of others, too, so just you wait.

And THEN, when the play starts again: dancing, singing mermaids!

These Broadway mermaids are comprised mostly of men in long-haired wigs, with bikini tops made of rubber duckies, mustard bottles, tea cups, and kitchen strainers, and with long skirts that flare out into actual fans (which look remarkably like real flukes). Said costumes should give hope to cash-strapped aspiring mermaids the world over.

Here’s a video of Adam Chanler-Berat, the actor who plays Peter, introducing us to the show’s mermaids, which according to Broadway.com include “Hot Lunch,” the mermaid who longs to squirt mustard on hot dogs, “Honey Loquat,” the brown-skinned mermaid offering up “some good throat healing” and the chocolate-addicted mermaid who can’t seem to find a date…
 

Antonio Meucci, a Staten Island resident of Italian birth, was the unacknowledged inventor of the first telephone (or telettrofono), conceived in 1849, when he accidentally discovered, while administering electrical shocks to a man suffering from rheumatism, that sound could travel along electrical wires. Many of his inventions—a marine telephone, a lactometer, flame-retardant paint and smokeless candles—went far beyond the imagination of his contemporaries.

For “Telettrofono,” Bennett and Harvey meld ambient sounds from the borough with invented noises such as pianos of stone and glass, or a bone-xylophone, with a poetic script for an audio walking tour that weaves Meucci’s tragic true-to-life story together with fantastical elements. Bennett and Harvey envision Meucci’s wife, Esterre—a mermaid who leaves the water for land because of her love for the sounds above ground.

Telettrofono is being offered in Staten Island’s St. George and New Brighton neighborhoods over the the next four weekends—July 14–15, July 21–22, July 28–29, and August 4–5—and begins at the stillspotting nyc kiosk by the Staten Island Ferry Terminal in St. George. For more info and to order tickets, click here. There’s also a snippet from the soundwalk itself.

In the meantime, I spoke with both Matthea and Justin about the project, about working together, and, of course, about those gorgeous fish-tailed creatures we all know and love and might possibly, secretly, be.

MATTHEA:

Since I last interviewed you, I know you’ve attended the World Mermaid Awards and have this new collaborative soundwalk project that involves mermaids. Have mermaids continued to inspire you? How have they inspired you in new or unexpected ways (if they have!)?
I wrote one more prose poem after attending the World Mermaid Awards. It was called “The Objectified Mermaid,” because I saw a lot of young female mermaids being photographed by older male photographers (I was trying to photograph the mermaids when they were less sexy and smiling, more bored, hungry or crabby—that’s when they seemed most real to me).

I thought that I was done with mermaids then, but clearly, mermaids dove deep down into my brain, because when I started working on the soundwalk, I very quickly came up with the idea of a mermaid who has a special relation to sound. At first, I thought she might eat sound, but then I quickly got excited about the idea of her loving the way things sound above water.

There were some strange coincidences. Antonio Meucci’s tomb has a bronze plaque on it showing Meucci listening to a woman who’s in the water, with what could be legs or could be a tail. Also, in the original little mermaid, the mermaid gets legs, but it hurts her terribly to walk. Esterre Meucci had rheumatoid arthritis and was confined to her second floor bedroom for much of her life, so it seems clear that she was my mermaid.

photo by justin bennett

What did you think of the World Mermaid Awards and being around all those real-life mermaids (and mermen)?
I loved it. It was perfectly surreal to be in Las Vegas surrounded by merfolk. I loved finding out the different reasons that these people don their tails—whether it’s because they’ve always loved mermaids, are passionate about ecology, or perform in daily mermaid shows. I do a lot of photography, but I’d never been that interested in photographing people until being at a mermaid pool party in Vegas. When I came back to NY, I have to admit that I googled “centaur conference,” but I sadly I couldn’t find one…

So how did this soundwalk project come about?
The soundwalk is part of “Stillspotting” organized by David van der Leer and Sarah Malaika from the department of architecture and urban studies at the Guggenheim museum. They asked Justin Bennett to create a soundwalk and then, luckily, he chose me to collaborate with him.

How did you go about creating the idea/story for the soundwalk?
We spent a week walking around Staten Island in January. Justin had started researching the island, and he suggested Antonio Meucci as a subject, since he lived there from 1850 until his death (he came from Florence by way of Havana). Meucci was one of the first inventors of the telphone—decades before Alexander Graham Bell. Once we started reading more about him, it seemed clear that he was our guy—an inventor who made a marine telephone, diverted a river underneath the Gran Teatro Tacon in Havana to improve its acoustics and tried to make a noise prevention system for elevated trains—he was obsessed with sound! The route of the walk really determined how the story progressed—things we saw along the way became key elements in the piece.

Why mermaids in Staten Island?
Doesn’t it seem like the obvious place? You’re close to the water, close to the land and people are crossing the water every half hour… There are even aquariums in the ferry terminal!

Can you tell me about working with Justin—did you have to come up with mermaid sounds? How did it work? What kind of sounds did your mermaid hear above the water?
Sarah Malaika and I recently recorded the mermaid chorus. We thought they should have female unearthly voices, so we chose a ten year old, fourteen year old, and two women—one who works in security at the museum and a poet I had just met while teaching a workshop, who have a lovely mermaidy voices. In the studio, our four mermaids read everything in unison without even practicing—it was uncanny and made me feel like I only want to write for mermaid choruses from now on! Before the mermaid chorus speaks, each time you hear this lovely mixture of bubbles and giggling that Justin created as the signal that you have entered “Marine Telephone Mode (mermaid chorus).” I’m also really fond of the sounds Justin made for when her tail turns into legs.

Initially, Esterre Meucci (the mermaid who turns human) loves all sound. Hand clapping. Footsteps. Babies wailing. Waves. Birds. It was easy to write about this, because after going on some recording sessions with Justin, I became really aware of sound in a way I hadn’t before. I would never, on my own, have stood still on a railroad track while listening to the buzz of electric wires above… Sadly, Esterre’s bones aren’t really up to handling all this sound and they start to crumble….

What can people expect from your soundwalk?
People from outside Staten Island will see some places they’ve never seen before and learn some of its history. Residents of Staten Island will hopefully look at and listen to some familiar things in new ways. And ideally, someone will spy a mermaid hiding behind a rock or diving in the ferry’s wake!

JUSTIN:

Can you tell me about your work?
I listen to cities, record their sounds and make things with them. I listen to nature too of course, but most of my work is to do with urban space, development, architecture and the stories of people who live in these spaces. I especially like to work with rumours. I have made quite a few soundwalk pieces where people walk a route along which a story unfolds. I think that walking and stories go together, and because it’s a form without any rules (yet!) you are very free to use sound in any way you like: voices, music, field recordings, sound effects can all be mixed together into something like a movie soundtrack. Except that the listener is the star, or at least the camera, in the film and all the film sets are real!

How did you come to be involved in this project?
The Stillspotting team from the Guggenheim invited me to develop a piece for Staten Island, I guess based on the works I’d made already concerning sound and silence. It was nice to make a piece for somewhere I’d never been before. You have to arrive and wander and search and get lost and dig around for stories. It was great working with Matthea—we both jumped onto the story of Antonio and Esterre Meucci and it took us with it.

Did you have any interest in/relationship with mermaids before this project?
As a rumour, yes—especially in their Siren form, but Matthea convinced me of their existence In Real Life.

How did you approach thinking about sound from a mermaid’s perspective and/or thinking about mermaid sounds?
If you put your head underwater you can still hear, but of course you don’t hear like an aquatic creature does. So the problem for me was how to make things sound like they are underwater but still be audible to mere humans. I made a lot of recordings with hydrophones (underwater microphones) of waves and boats and things around Staten Island, so you will hear the underwater environment as it really is. But the biggest problem is the mermaid voices. How can mermaids speak underwater? Maybe they don’t, but in my imagination they speak in bubbles. Bubbles of sound.

What can people expect from your soundwalk?
Like I said earlier, it’s a little like walking in your own film, meeting characters along the way, being guided to places where you would never normally go, piecing the story together, hopefully enjoying a poetic and musical experience. Staten Island is a very special place.

 
Can you tell me about Splash into Summer?
I started Splash into Summer last year because there were two mermaid novels coming out that I wanted to promote, Lost Voices by debut author Sarah Porter [see this blog’s interview with Sarah here], and Fins Are Forever by Tera Lynn Childs [see this blog’s interview with Tera here]. The two books came out almost back-to-back and I thought it would be fun to do an event celebrating them. It wound up turning into a huge event that extended and I had so many authors and mermaid lovers stop by to guest post. The event was so much fun and I can’t wait to do it again this year!

Splash isn’t just for mermaids, though. It started out that way, but then I realized I wanted to feature books such as Selkie Girl by Laurie Brooks and decided that the term Splash was ambiguous enough that I could celebrate all underwater creatures, not just the Mer.

What kinds of mermaid topics have you featured in the past? What can we look forward to this year?
Last year’s Splash featured book reviews, author interviews and guest posts, giveaways, and more. I also had fun posts such as a vlog on Mermaid Fashion and 15 Little-Known Facts About Mermaids, which also featured a mermaid anatomy chart and then-recent article on mer-physics.

This year, I want to feature more fun, light-hearted posts as well as highlight a new crop of mermaid books and authors, while bringing back some repeat visitors.

I’m also co-hosting the event with my Mermaid Soul Sister Literally Jen, and we’re doing three weeks of fun right off the bat!

What’s your take on the recent mermaid trend in fiction? Do you see it accelerating/decreasing; has it peaked yet, do you think? What kinds of mermaids are you seeing in recent fiction?
I love it! The more mermaids in fiction, the more books there are for me to purchase and love! I had a bookshelf just for mermaid books and because of all the new releases, I had to move it a few weeks ago. Now the mermaids are on the same two shelves as my fairy tales and mythological novels.

This year is the first to feature a huge surplus of mermaid novels. A lot of these books have sequels in the works, too, so I think we’ll see at least the same amount of books next year, if not more. I wouldn’t be surprised if publishers jumped on the trend and will be publishing an influx of mermaid books for another year or two yet.

I’ve noticed that most of the mermaids I’m seeing right now are in Teen Fiction, which means that most of these books have a romantic element to them. I have noticed a couple of books launching this year that were narrated by mermen, which was really exciting because authors usually just focus on the mermaids.

I’ve also read a couple of mermaid books from this new group that I don’t like as much because it seems the research just…isn’t there. The author thought, “Maybe I’ll hop on this mermaid train” and didn’t look at all the stops along the way. I tend to get pulled out of a mer-world if things are contradictory and the Mer hate a certain human thing or shouldn’t know about it, then suddenly do anyway, for example. I’ve read so many Mer-related books that the world needs to feel real to me at this point or the Mer need to interact within the boundaries the author has created or I just can’t enjoy myself.

Why do you think people like to read about mermaids?
For my age demographic and younger, at least, I think a lot of it has to do with Disney’s The Little Mermaid. I was young when the movie came out and instantly captured by the notion of mermaids. I’ve heard a lot of other people say the same, so I totally blame Ariel.

I’m also a huge water baby and would like nothing more than to live in the water, so it’s nice to think of the possibilities of becoming a mermaid.

What are some of the more interesting mermaid titles you’ve read/look forward to reading?
My favorite to date is Sarah Porter’s Mer trilogy, of which I’ve read the first two books. I think her new book, Waking Storms, is even better than Lost Voices, which is saying a lot. The trilogy is much darker than any other mermaid tale I’ve read, which has turned a lot of people away from the series, but Sarah’s underwater world feels very raw and real to me.

I also love your own novel, Mermaid. I was enamored by the concept of a retelling of the original Hans Christian Andersen version rather than the Disney version (You might be surprised at just how many people don’t realize that The Little Mermaid is NOT a Happily Ever After story), especially since you used alternating POVs and showed us things from the princess’ perspective. I’d never seen this done before, and combined with the gorgeous descriptions that brought a new image of mermaids to mind, I was hooked.

I’m also a big fan of Tera Lynn Childs’ FINS series and was excited to see that she was coming out with a third book this year. It’s such a cute, fun series, and you really come to care about the characters. I also wish Between the Sea and Sky by Jaclyn Dolamore was on more people’s radars because it was gorgeously written and really felt like I was reading an original fairy tale last year.
 
I’m most excited to read Fathomless by Jackson Pearce, which is coming this fall from Little, Brown. It’s a companion to Sisters Red and Sweetly, but about mermaids, so I’m already hooked. And while it may not be Mer-related, Macmillan/Tor Teen is releasing a book in November by J.A. Souders entitled Renegade with an underwater world that sounds delightfully creepy.

Have you always been a fan of mermaids?
I’ve always loved mermaids (or at least, I have since The Little Mermaid), but I don’t think I had ever been as obsessed with them as I am now. I started buying mermaid novels, children’s picture books, folklore anthologies, seashell encyclopedias, underwater documentaries, etc., because I’ve had a mermaid story inside me since high school that wants to come out. I want my world to be as realistic as possible when I begin writing and evolving the idea.

However, Mermaids has still not come out, though it was supposed to be out late last summer, and then last fall, and then this spring… Some people have pre-ordered it and are now steaming mad, as they are still Mermaids-less and out of some hard-earned dough (and for these people there is a special compensation that I describe below, OR they can get a refund if they don’t want to wait! My email is listed on the right-hand column here, so anyone with an issue can contact me to resolve it). And plenty of people are not mad, but simply filled with longing and/or burning questions about the delay.

So here’s the deal: The magazine has not yet been printed because Kim’s company, Gwynn Oak Studios, is, like many small publishers, struggling financially, and a magazine this lush and massive costs a pretty penny to put out. Add to that the fact that Kim’s been dealing with some family crises that I won’t detail here as that would be very unladylike of me, but trust me, it’s been a hard year for her. I wish this whole process had been as easy as it seemed when we started, but them’s the breaks.

What Kim’s decided to do, then, is this: run a Kickstarter campaign to gather the dough she needs to get this thing printed and to your door and/or local bookstore (the goal will be to raise $25,000). If you contribute to the campaign, you’ll get the magazine as well as any number of other wondrous things, depending on how much moolah you send. At one level, for example, you’ll get the magazine (plus a few other things we’re working out now) PLUS a signed print of the original artwork Charles Vess created to accompany Alice Hoffman‘s “Ten Ways to Fall in Love with a Mermaid,” which she wrote for Mermaids.

Here is a sneak peek, which I hope gives you some sense of how beautiful the magazine will be:

At another level you’ll get these things plus a quarter-page ad in the magazine, and so on. At a very high-roller level (if you’ve got a few thousand dollars to spend), you’ll get all the amazing things mentioned plus many more, PLUS an underwater photo shoot with Twig the Fairy in her mermaid guise. If you’ve already ordered the magazine for the cover price of $14.95, you’ll automatically get the magazine plus whatever you’d get at the $50 level of the Kickstarter campaign. So basically, what you ordered plus $35 of extra awesome stuff.

The Kickstarter should be starting by late next week, and will run for 20 days. Obviously, I’ll announce it here and it will be on the Faerie Magazine website, too, with all relevant links and information. The magazine should FINALLY be done and out some time in August, and I very much hope you will agree it’s been worth the wait.

So mermaid photographer extraordinaire Chris Crumley posted this gorgeous photo a month or so ago on Facebook, and mentioned it was being used for a new mermaidly book cover, and as I shared this photo on my own wall I was secretly very jealous.

Isn’t it beautiful? This is model Christina Macfarlane offshore in Cozumel, Mexico.

Then a few days later I was google alerted to an announcement of my own novel Mermaid, which is about to come out in Brazil. And here it is:

I KNOW! So I was secretly jealous of… myself, and my very own book translated into Portuguese. And no, sadly no one is flying me down to Brazil, which is very ungracious of them I think.

Speaking of wondrous mermaid book covers shot by Chris Crumley, here is the cover for Sarah Porter‘s new novel, the second in her Lost Voices trilogy, Waking Storms (with cover quote from yours truly!), which comes out next month:

This cover was also shot with model Christina Macfarlane, but in an inland lake in Palau, Micronesia. According to Chris, “the lake, Jellyfish Lake, has thousands of jellyfish that over time with no natural predators, have lost their sting.” Can you imagine? I just got scuba certified in November in Nicaragua (after years of avoiding the ocean… but when you talk to mermaids all the time, you get infected!), and when I entered the water for my first dive I was surrounded by these little translucent ghosts, which at first I thought were a trick of the light, and then realized were actual creatures. By the time I thought to be scared I realized they would have already stung me if they were going to. Turns out they were medusas, strange and magical. I can only imagine what it’s like to swim in a lake surrounded by stingless jellyfish…!

Speaking of SCUBA and Chris Crumley, I will ALSO mention that this AUGUST yours truly will be joining him and Malena Sharkey (co-proprietor of Chesapeake Bay Diving Center) and mermaid Iara Mandyn and several others on a 7-day mermaid diving trip out of Nassau. Lots of diving every day, including shark dives, night dives, and mermaid shoots. See what happens when you become a mermaid expert? Later this month, Chris and Malena will be hosting a special workshop on mermaid photography, also out of Nassau. I’ll post more about both those trips later.

The August trip will happen at the very same time that MER-PALOOZA is happening, which is this year’s MerCon. Mer-Palooza is happening August 10-12 at the International Palms Resort in Orlando, Florida, just down the road from Disney World. I’ll try to post photos from the event so that if you are, like me, unfortunate enough not to be attending, you might be there in voyeurly spirit.

Another awesome event happening this summer (which I also tragically cannot attend, due to teaching duties in Alaska) is WEEKI WACHEE‘s 65th anniversary. To celebrate, Weeki is inviting ALL the mermaids who have performed at the park since 1947 to one jam-packed-with-glamour reunion on July 13, 14 & 15. There will be special performances starring the current mermaids and former performing mermaids, and there will be lots and lots of vendors and, well, a gazillion mermaids.

Kae-Leah is also writing a novella series, Nerissa Sanderson, the Part-Time Mermaid of Sunshine Valley, CA, and posts this and other writings on her page at Fictionpress.com. Here is a moment from said novella series, just after her main character transforms into a mermaid for the first time:

Her tail turned out to be far more beautiful than she could’ve ever imagined it. Humans tend to describe merfolk as being literally half-person, half-fish, but Princess Nerissa’s mertail was more elegant than any fish’s fins she’d ever seen. It began right below her belly button, and was blanketed in delicate aqua, lavender, and pastel pink scales that shimmered in the fluorescent bathroom light. Instead of a single, broad tailfin like so many aquatic animals possessed, Nerissa’s Sea Nymph appendage ended in a pair of semi-translucent flukes which seemed almost too silky and billowing to be adequately aquadynamic. Only their vaguely ribbed texture suggested that there were some kind of bone or vein inside.

Isn’t that lovely?

Recently I got hold of Kae-Leah to ask her some penetrating and possibly even deeply insightful questions about her own mermaiding and mermaids in general.

Our gorgeous Q and A follows.

So what drew you to mermaiding?
When I first heard of people buying or making mermaid tail costumes much more realistic-looking than those cheap mass-produced Ariel Halloween costumes for little girls that don’t even reach the ankles, I was quite intrigued and needless to say wanted one for myself. I also was very inspired by the passion some mermaids like Raina the Halifax Mermaid and Hannah Fraser have for environmental activism, and wanted to also use a mermaid identity as a tool to advocate for causes that are important to me, as well as promote my novella series, “Nerissa Sanderson, the Part-Time Mermaid of Sunshine Valley, CA.”

I also think my love of fantasy in general, not just mermaids, has at least partly to do with me having an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Like most folks with ASD, I’ve always felt pretty out of place in mainstream society, so I have always fantasized about a different world. I imagine the mer-world as being a more peaceful, more simple, less stressful and confusing place.

Have you always identified with mermaids?
Kind of, I have loved mermaids for most of my life. I’ve often thought of mermaids as living a very peaceful and very free lifestyle, simply serenely drifting through the water without a care under the sea, and I’ve for a long time admired and frankly kind of envied that peace and freedom. I also love the ocean and all its beautiful creatures, so I liked the idea of being friends with and being able to communicate with sea creatures, as portrayed in Disney’s Little Mermaid film and animated series, instead of killing and eating them as most humans do.

How important has the mermaid community been to you in helping you express yourself?
Being in the mermaid community and having a public mermaid page on Facebook has given me an outlet where I can express my views on ocean conservation, and other issues, pretty freely, and it’s helped me get in touch with the person I truly am deep down and who I want to be.

What do you think the attraction is to mermaids?
I think people are attracted to mermaids for many different reasons. For me, they represent being at one with the ocean and its beautiful creatures, but they can also represent beauty, serenity, freedom, the unknown, many different things. I’ve learned from experience that the mer-community is extremely diverse, and we all have different reasons for being drawn to the fantasy of merfolk.

Can you tell me about your mermaid message?
There are lots of causes that are very near and dear to my heart that I want to do all in my power to promote, but I suppose the message as a mermaid activist that I’ve become most strongly associated with is, in a seashell, to quote Finding Nemo, “fish are friends, not food!” To me, living a mermaid lifestyle is NOT about how well you can swim (heck, I can’t swim at all due to health problems!), how realistic your tail looks, or anything like that, but doing all I can to protect the ocean and its creatures, which means not eating any seafood, recycling and composting whenever possible, trying to make an effort to limit my consumption of single-use plastics, etc. Overfishing is destroying the oceans very rapidly, according to some statistics as much as 90% of fish are gone from the oceans and within a few decades, there won’t be any fish left at all, so while I realize some may view my stance as very extreme and radical, I personally think it should be quite obvious that stopping eating seafood altogether is an option strongly worth considering. I want very much to inspire people to stop viewing the oceans as a food bank and a sewer, and to be friends with nature instead of destroying it.

What about your mermaid writing?
I’m the author of “Nerissa Sanderson, The Part-Time Mermaid of Sunshine Valley, CA”, a young adult novella series that I self-published on Fictionpress.com. It’s about Nerissa, an ordinary, insecure, 15-year-old girl who lives in sunny Southern California with her eccentric single mother. Her normal teenage world is turned upside down over night when she finds out that the father she always was told was dead isn’t only very much alive, he’s not even human! The series follows her as she discovers her destiny, learns more about the world she was born into, and finds herself caught in a love triangle between Lord Zale, a devastatingly handsome, and very kind and romantic merman, and Adam Fonda, son of the CEO of a seafood company.

What kind of reactions do you get from people?
My beloved mama couldn’t be any more supportive of it if she tried, but since mermaiding is still a very new concept, so honestly, offline, being a mermaid isn’t exactly something I shout from the rooftops, if you know what I mean, but I think most of those who have seen my tail and my pictures are impressed, even though they more than likely have never seen anything like it before.

So how did you become a mermaid?
I’ve always been fascinated with mermaids and the underwater world since I was a child so the progression for me to gain my tail seemed like a natural one. In my mid-teenage years I felt a great pull to the mermaid world which led me to scouring the internet for books, pictures and videos. On this search, I stumbled across videos on Youtube of mermaids swimming with amazing tails like Mermaid Raven and Hannah Mermaid which inspired me to look into tails, monofins and other expensive items a teenager can’t really afford. Once I hit university I had the resources to get my first monofin, make my first tail and start swimming.

What are the advantages to being an Australian mermaid?
Australia has some of the best beaches in the world and its home to the great barrier reef which makes our marine environment spectacular. The diving in my area is amazing and if I’m not in my tail then I’m likely to be diving in Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay discovering shipwrecks, reefs or gorgeous sea creatures. I’ve come face to face with sharks, rays, octopi (including the deadly blue ringed octopus), seals, dolphins, cuttlefish, squid and so many other amazing creatures! Also it helps that most of our population lives in major cities close to the ocean so being a landlocked mermaid in Australia is much harder to be than in the middle of the US.

Can you tell me about your shark encounters?
I love sharks, I find them to be fascinating creatures that are horribly misunderstood by the vast majority of people. I think my first shark encounter was when I was snorkelling with some large sharks on the great barrier reef. Since then I’ve dived into two aquarium shark tanks, the largest colony of grey nurse sharks in Australia and even saw a banjo shark a couple weeks ago on a shallow dive. He was so calm that I managed to get really close and admire the gorgeous markings of his back while a mixture of snapper and batwing fish circled around us. Wobbigong sharks are also really common in my area but they don’t even really look like sharks at all, they look like oversized catfish. In all my encounters with sharks I’ve never once been bitten although I’ve had sharks come up and take a good look at me to make sure I wasn’t a tasty seal. Shark attacks are rare but are so hyped up because of films like Jaws that portray them as villains but in my experience, sea turtles are much more likely to come up and snap at you than a shark. Sea turtles can be vicious although people seem to think they’re much more peaceful than sharks, I have no idea why!

Would you say there’s a mermaid movement in Australia? Have you met with fellow mermaids, etc?
I’d say there is a worldwide mermaid movement which certainly can also be seen in Australia. When I started out mermaiding I did it with some like-minded friends and together we formed the group Mermaidens, which has been an amazing experience. Volitania and Nerissa are both very talented mermaids who inspire and support me to be the best mermaid I can be. We do most things together and while we haven’t really met too many other mermaids we all contribute on MerNetwork, a worldwide Mermaid forum.

Hannah Fraser started mermaiding in Australia. Has she (or any other prominent mermaids) been a big influence on you?
Hannah Fraser was a massive influence on me, her videos inspired me to get my first monofin and start swimming. I think most modern mermaids would say that she founded the mermaiding movement as we know it and in some way shaped them.

Another massive influence would be Mermaid Raven who not only makes amazing accessories and tails but is a true performer. I can’t think of another mermaid who embodies the grace and mystery of the mer when swimming more than she does. Mermaid Raina is also fantastic with her fun quirky nature (see her mermaids in winter video) who is very active in the MerNetwork community as well as a talented educator.

How do people react to you in public?
Normally people are really positive and want to take photos, ask questions and talk. The Mermaidens are often swamped with excited kids wanting to chat/play with us and so far we haven’t really had any negative reactions.Some adults even get more excited than their kids at seeing a real mermaid!

Sadly another local mermaid went and gave her story to the paper which then wasn’t expressed in a very positive light so she got a lot of negativity thrown at her.

What kinds of events do you do?

Debris dive horrors

What do you think the appeal of mermaids is?
Mermaids represent the unknown, there is so much of the ocean waiting to be discovered, explored and enjoyed. We can only ever see a tiny portion of it which lends to question: what lies beneath? Was that tail a fish or was it something else?

What kind of a message do you have, as a mermaid?
The ocean is an amazing place that deserves reverence but humans pollute and destroy it. I was swimming with grey nurse shark a couple years ago and I saw the most heartbreaking thing, a majestic grey nurse with a giant hook through the side of its mouth. Grey nurse sharks not only endangered but harmless to humans and an important part of the ecosystem. We need support our environment before we create a world with an environment that can not support us.

What I’m referring to, of course, is the “The Effect of Global Warming on Mermaids” panel that is being held on Saturday at 4pm in the hot tub at the Hilton.

Because this is an issue I am deeply passionate about, I will be participating in said panel.

Please expect a full report, not to mention many more gorgeous mermaid interviews that are neither global-warming- nor hot-tub-related, in coming days.

Also, in completely unrelated yet what I feel is totally relevant news, my new novel, The Next Full Moon, went on sale YESTERDAY.

1) Please admire the MERMAID SNOW SCULPTURE below, from Anchorage, Alaska’s Fur Rendezvous Snow Sculpture Contest. I took these photos on my BlackBerry on Saturday in the snow, after watching the start of the IDITAROD, and I admit they are not the best quality. But still. On what other mermaid blog will you find such a glorious mermaid snow sculpture, even if it looks more like a Sphinx sitting atop an igloo?

2. On February 24, I attended Vintage Roadside‘s Mid-Century Mermaids presentation as part of Modernism Week in Palm Springs. Jeff and Kelly (who make up Vintage Roadside) gave a fantastic, comprehensive lecture and slideshow about the popularity of mermaids in the mid-century, with tons of details about aqua shows featuring mermaidly creatures, porthole lounges with mermaids drifting by glass windows, films featuring mermaids, mermaid attractions like Weeki Wachee and Aquarama and Aquarena Springs (and more), and all kinds of mermaids in advertisements and other popular culture around the mid century.

It was awesome. I believe yours truly was the only person in the audience frantically taking notes, however, but I prefer to think of this behavior as more glamorous and less nerdly.

(Also, when I was in Portland earlier a few days earlier, I got to visit Jeff at home — Vintage Roadside is based in Portland — and see all kinds of very very fabulous costumes from Aquarama and Weeki Wachee and the Sip n’ Sip Lounge in Great Falls, Montana, in person. My goodness were those designer creative with the fake gems and rhinestones. I am swooning right now, remembering.)

After, MeduSirena herself gave a gorgeous performance at the hotel pool, which was lined on all sides with an appreciative, tiki-loving audience. Look at this amazing photo by Kari Handler. (I took photos on my BlackBerry but because MeduSirena was using so much fire in her performance, my photos make her appear as one giant, unglamorous ball of flame. What can I say, I forgot my camera. Sigh.)

And the stylish sign pointing to the event:

3. So when I was in Portland, Oregon, a couple of weeks ago, my friend Wendy Rover of Roving Horse Henna decorated my hands and forearms with the most gorgeous henna. She did this freehand (!!!) while we chatted casually in her living room, and then afterwards sprinkled her design with green and blue glitter. How gorgeous and mermaidly is this? Sadly, the next morning I had to scrape off the gloopy henna, and all the glitter with it, but the henna designs have lasted two weeks and counting now.

Obviously, you should go find Wendy and get her to henna you, too.