Samuel Maguire contributed to the Authors For Fireys fundraiser in January 2020. This mammoth undertaking was organised by Emily Gale and Nova Wheetman. They raised over $480,000 for firefighting equipment and to help Australia’s bushfire survivors, both human and animal.
The entire original Authors For Fireys series of interviews and guest blogs are here. The ‘thank you’ posts, each of which include my cardmaking efforts, are here.
Meet Samuel Maguire
Samuel’s original guest post on DMZ is here. However, I’ve copied over his introduction:
I’m Samuel Maguire, Brisbane author and professionally mentally ill person. I grew up in rural Queensland during a massive drought so constant bushfires was a big part of my life. It’s really easy to feel useless in the face of natural disasters. So I wanted to give people an excuse to participate as well as make some great memories in the process.
I don’t have much practical to offer, but I do have a lot of experience running pen and paper role-playing games. My contribution is a personalized role-playing adventure using my own home-brew game system that I have been developing for nearly twenty years. It is the same system that I am currently using to write my next book series Brambles. As icing on the cake I will make a damn fool of myself and dress up as a wizard for the entire thing.
Tiny Owl Workshop published my first book, No Point In Stopping, a memoir about Bipolar Disorder and wizard fights last year. My website has been running for a decade and there is a plethora of fiction, memoir and swear words up there for perusal.
Dark Matter Zine says thank you
I am a novice card maker but I made the pictured card. This is a thank you to Samuel for appearing as a guest on Dark Matter Zine and for supporting Australia’s firefighters.
About the card
Samuel said he’d dress up as a wizard for his event so my mind immediately jumped to Unseen University in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.
But who would wear the hat? Being a novice cardmaker, my craft supplies were limited. I didn’t have any stamps or dies for a rotund wizardly figure as befits an Unseen U character although I’d LOVE some!
In the end I opted for a Greebo-like cat. Sure, Greebo is a witch’s cat but he’s a dynamo who rules the world.
Except in Witches Abroad. Greebo met his match there.
