SHADOWPLAY WEBZINE

Fiona's only contribution to Shadowplay in its original form was purely financial. She pounced on a new issue whenever she happened on one. At the time she was busy with her own project - a dead good, thrashy, guitary, techo-y band called Def FX. Attentive listeners would have detected a certain Witchiness in Fiona's lyrics. Titles like As Above, So Below and Spiral Dance might have set the bells ringing ever so slightly.

The subtlety lark was thrown to the wind when Fiona outed herself as Wiccan in the Australian edition of Rolling Stone, subsequently cropping up now and then in the media, doing a fine, entirely unpretentious job of explaining the Craft - which is much harder than it sounds. The mainstream media interview is a tightrope walk over a river full of crocodiles and a lot of well meaning Witchy people take a tumble. Fiona, a seasoned performer already, had the knack of getting across the rope with barely a wobble.

Since then, she's balanced her very positive Craft PR with her career as a singer, writer, public speaker, journalist, radio and television performer and ... well, I'm sure that only covers Monday to Wednesday afternoon. The girl's a cyclone in platform heels.

The Shadowplay connection came about thuswise: at a loose end after the magazine's final issue, Liam Cyfrin read that Fiona was planning a book on the Craft. Volunteering his assistance, he was duly snaffled up as a consultant on Witch: A Personal Journey, which to date has been reprinted nine times in Australia. Not at all too shabby for someone's first stab at writing a book. In 1999 Witch - A Magickal Year appeared, Cyfrin once again riding shotgun on the project.

In early 2001, these two volumes were merged for release in the British and US markets (omitting all the interviewy stuff and most of the Cyfrin/Shadowplay stuff - remind me to send the relevant publishers a Thank You spell one of these days). A third book - Life's a Witch: a Handbook for Teen Witches - kept the up and coming Witchlets of the world happy. More books, telly spots in Britain, the US and Australia, and miscellaneous magical projects continue to keep Fiona in a state of perpetual motion.

Sadly, Def FX imploded shortly after Fiona began the first Witch book, but she's still keeping the vocal chords gainfully employed on a variety of projects and has released two singles: Shut Up/Kiss Me, a wonderously loungey duet with Oz permanent-television-fixture and unreconstructed, old smoothie-trousers, Paul McDermott; and Let's Go Out Tonight, a bit of pure Blondiesque pop that Fiona's own website describes as 'disgustingly catchy'.

To date, she is the only member of the Shadowplay extended family to have been photographed skyclad for Playboy but the rest of us are naturally expecting calls any old time.

In 2001, Fiona forsook mannered Melbourne for manic Los Angeles. The Australian Shadowplay contingent requests the US to take exceptionally good care of her and return her to us in good condition one of these days.

CAST & CREW