Or Autumn in the north (or Fall?).

The days and nights are equal, the light even with the dark, the seasons calmer, cooler, preparing for the long haul.

For us, the heat will be over the next hill, and it’s not a very high lump. We’ll be hot for much longer than we were cool or cold or combined cool and cold. Hot lasts eight or nine months. Cool and cold maybe three.

But this day, and the one in March, gives a moment to breath in a calm breath while we prepare for what’s to come.

How many people were born on this day?

I ask this because I’ve met dozens who have the equinox as their birthday. The timing seems to be a side-effect of the season of celebrations.

In a family I know well, there is one person born on the Spring equinox, one born on the Autumn equinox, one born on Christmas eve (summer solstice), one born on winter solstice. Then the one born on a holiday day (Australia Day’s current date), one odd one out, but then she was born on April first, so it has to be odd. And the other one (I think the last one) was born on Feb 29.

That’s one family. Okay, I’ve included the parents and the children, but it’s one family.

I wonder … there must be a story in that … but who would be the bad guy?

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Anyway, as it’s a special day, I’d like to tell you about a current project that will be published sometime in October.

The Call to Magic will be a series based on each turn of the wheel. It’s dark urban fantasy, so not suitable for all. The first in the series will be subtitled Novitiate, cos that’s where we all start when we’re on a new job.

When I get the cover sorted, I’ll put it up for comments (some have already seen the preview of the almost-final draft of the story, but the cover is not my schtick so I leave that to a professional, Dronstad). And I’ll work on the blurb a bit more before I share it — takes me a lot of time to work out a hundred words to get a nose to stick beyond the first glance.

And, wouldn’t you know it — I have a short story to be published in the Zodiac series by Aussie Speculative Fiction (I’m in the Libra one, not out yet, but soon, soon) and Outback Horrors by Things in the Well is up and running. If you like scary Australian/New Zealand stories, this is for you: