The Black Hand, vol.48
Antipope ahoy
So the Catholics (amongst whose number I once counted myself, many decades ago) have elected a new pope, which is fine – I don’t have much personal investment in it, being more of the Hamilton Nolan school of thought regarding religion these days. But good for the Catholics, I guess. Mainly, I was amused at how a kind of weird fandom appeared to spring up around the papal conclave, and then I was bemused at how the selection of an arguably ‘liberal’ pope kicked off a lot of shouting online.
Then I read that some people felt that if the newly-elected Catholic pope was too liberal, they should elect their own pope, and I got distracted by Jay Hulme’s post about the Antipope, so I decided to dig deeper and find out what happens when folks go hog-wild with choosing their own pope. Let’s see how that usually turns out, shall we? Brace yourselves, because this is going to get weird.
Apparently, there have been a number of schisms in the Catholic church over the years (particularly between the 3rd and mid-15th centuries) that have resulted in certain factions breaking away and declaring that they’re making their own rules, and nyah-nyah, have elected their own pope. Historically, there are actually a ton of guys who claimed to be pope, but the modern claimants are the whackiest (or the funniest, if you want to look at it in that light).
The Palmarian church, for instance, is a traditionalist Catholic breakaway sect (almost universally described as a cult) which claims that the Holy See, the Papacy, and the headquarters of the Catholic church were actually moved to El Palmar de Troya in Spain in 1978 (seems legit). The church is located at the Cathedral-Basilica of Our Crowned Mother of Palmar, which looks like this:
The Palmarians elected their own popes, as they felt the Roman Curia was packed with masonic infiltrators (who were – among other things – allegedly drugging Pope Paul VI and holding him hostage in the Vatican. I told you it was whacky). A lot of Palmarian doctrine seems to be based on some dude declaring that he’s had a vision of the Virgin Mary telling him to do something or announce something, and that something is almost always weird.
Anyway, here’s an amusing and bizarre bit of detail about the Palmarians: In 2016, the Palmarian pope Gregory XVIII abdicated the papacy after losing his faith and having an affair with an ex-nun, whom he married. Gregory was declared an apostate and accused of stealing the popemobile and embezzling from the church. He also did a bunch of media interviews with his new wife, which included some photoshoots with wild images like this:
Soon after his abdication, there was a break-in at the Basilica in which “two would-be thieves in balaclavas scaled the walls of the compound with a telescopic ladder, armed with a knife, two clown masks, cable ties, duct tape, two pairs of pliers and a crowbar.”
Who do you think the thieves were? If you guessed Gregory and his wife, you would be absolutely correct.
There was an altercation with some other bishops inside the Basilica (I am visualising bishops in their robes doing martial arts moves. Seems fine!) and Gregory was injured with a knife he had brought along. He was airlifted to hospital and subsequently charged and sentenced to six years jail.
I’m going to leave it here, as I think that’s enough to be going on with, but honestly, I could keep talking about this all day – there is so much completely bizarre shit about Antipopes! if any of it is interesting to you, check out this article about the Top 10 Historical Antipopes, but I also highly recommend that you read the Wikipedia entry on the Palmarian church, it’s just one whacked-out thing after another.
Enjoy!
ALL SHALL MOURN hitting milestones
Okay, back to the real (made-up book) world!
All Shall Mourn is about to hit 1000 ratings on Goodreads, which is amazing! It’s always really lovely to see your babies soaring 😊
Usually, once a book is out in the world, I don’t check in on it much – unless there’s some sort of problem, I tend to leave well enough alone. But I guess because All Shall Mourn is one I published myself, I’ve fussed over it a little, and now I find myself delighted that so many people have read it and made the effort to leave a rating/review 😊
If you were wondering, there’s nothing much authors can do to help a book succeed: It’s mostly word of mouth which does that. At the end of the day, if you’ve read All Shall Mourn and then told someone about it, you’re part of the reason why the book has done so well – so thank you!
Signed copies
We’ve had a lot of hiccups with this (sigh), but I will make an announcement about it soon. Stay tuned!
It’s actually been kind of okay not to have orders for copies pouring in right now, as I’m in the middle of edits and I’m barely keeping up with email, let alone postage. But I apologise for any frustration, and I’ll announce on socials and here when we’re ready to go.
Events: Melbourne ComicCon
I’m going to be at Melbourne ComicCon again this year! Come see me if you like!
I’ll be in Artists Alley with a full complement of books – I’ll have copies of All Shall Mourn available, and even a few rare things (a few complete sets of the Circus Hearts trilogy, for instance) – so if you’d like to drop by on either Saturday or Sunday, I’d love to sign your books and have a little chat.
It’s also not out of the realms of possibility that I’ll be wearing my FBI cosplay outfit (definitely on the Saturday, at least) so I’ll be easy to spot 😊
The con is on June 7&8 at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, and there’ll be a ton of other amazing creators plus TV/movie star faves (Giancarlo Esposito will be there! Catherine Tate will be there! Renee O’Connor will be there!) and loads of cosplay and fandom stuff. The vibe is extremely welcoming and inclusive, which is one of the reasons I keep returning – if you’d like to join in, you can grab tix here at this link.
We had a national election
Yes, we certainly did. Australia had an election, and we all went off to vote in it, which looked something like this:
If you have any interest at all in the Australian political system (which has preferential voting, and compulsory voting, and holds its elections on a Saturday so everyone can attend, and has an impartial electoral commission that controls electorate boundaries, among other things), feel free to check out this primer here.
But basically, I’m happy to say that election day in my country is usually a day of warm community feeling. People gather at local schools and town halls to cast their vote, and everyone buys a democracy sausage to support whatever local service is being supported (usually the school where the poll station is set up), and everyone is really polite and friendly, and someone will probably hold your dog for you while you go inside to drop off your ballot. Then, later that evening, you sit down with your friends and/or family and watch the election results roll in.
Australia is really lucky in this way, I feel. Having a free, fair, transparent election in which everyone feels good about voting, and the atmosphere is kind of like a school fete is super nice. Australia elected a (reasonably) progressive centre-left government once again, which was also super nice.
I saw Mariana Enriquez at MWF
She’s Booker-shortlisted! She wrote the amazing Our Share of Night, and A Sunny Place for Shady People, and many more!
Anyway, she was super cool. She used to be a rock journalist, and honestly she has a kind of Stevie Nicks raspy voice. In the panel I saw (which was packed, by the way – note to Melbourne Writers Festival organisers: program more horror) which was Enriquez plus Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta, who wrote lesbian possession horror Feast While You Can, she spoke about her experiences as an Argentinian woman writer and how her country’s history informs her work. I enjoyed it heaps, and fangirled a little in the signing queue 😊
Escapist Routes
Speaking of fandom: A friend of mine, Liz Barr, has been writing a newsletter called Escapist Routes in which she makes insightful and snarky commentary on media of many kinds – even with the stuff I haven’t watched, she somehow makes her notes amusing enough for me to enjoy reading the whole thing.
Her commentary is often spoilerific, so fair warning, but if you’ve ever wanted to take a deep dive into Andor’s treatment of women, how bad narrative pacing is not a good kink, The Pitt as competence porn, plus commentary on everything from Bosch to White Lotus to The Last of Us (and – for bonus points – a squinty look at Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn), this newsletter might be your jam.
Hey, thank you for hanging around, and thank you especially to folks who signed up for Nailbiters when I shared the open edition last month! If you like this newsletter, or would like to support my work with a Nailbiters subscription, please click on this little button and sign up.
I don’t have much else to report this month (except, you know, edits), but I should point out that a book announcement (as in, for my next book!) will be coming soon, and also that MURDERBOT TV IS OUT IN 2 DAYS, so obviously I’m in the middle of stress re-reading all the books.
Until next time, have a great month, hope your tv shows make you happy and that you read lots of excellent books!
xxEllie
Congrats on the All Shall Mourn success, and have fun at ComicCon. I'm going to subscribe to Escapist Routes as it sounds right up my alley. Thanks, Ellie!