Writing in the time of COVID-19 has its challenges. The world is in tremendous turmoil. Add three kids and a partner at home, in a confined space, who all want your attention all the time, and the solitude needed for writing evaporates. How do we carve out a space where deep thinking can occur when […]

A few years ago, as I was tinkering with my first crime fiction manuscript in my favourite café, I received a phone call which shook me. The caller asked if I’d answered my husband’s phone. I explained this was my number and asked who was inquiring, after all, the voice sounded cagey. The man revealed […]

The idea for the Peter Carey Short Story Award began as a passing remark. Our library had asked for help hosting a literary festival, something for locals that would also draw others into the shire. Naturally, our ambitions spread, and we were gonna make it huge. Bring in big-name writers who would cement our little […]

Trigger warning: this blog includes references to violent crimes, both real and imagined. Writing is my third career but, when I think about it, I have always been tumbling along this trajectory. The books I read as a child were predominantly mysteries: Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, The Famous Five, anything by Anthony Horowitz. […]

Part 4: You cannot negotiate with time When at last we hand our children over to school, we also hand over information about them, to help the school, to offer support, to make the transition easier. For those of us who have children with disabilities, we become advocates, try to open lines of communication with […]

Part 3: At the end of the world My friend is a teacher and is up late most nights preparing, assessing, completing paperwork. She is exhausted. Not enough time, too much work, so much to do. She wants to do more but she also needs to sleep, have a life, see her own child. Her […]

Part 2: On display After the birth, there is noise. Medical checks, maternal health nurse visits, emergency trips to hospital. Most of the women in my mothers group have taken their husband’s names except for one or two of us. I hadn’t seen the need until I arrive at the hospital one evening with my […]

When I looked up from her hospital cribTo see the wider world, could I help it,If I saw a war?—Katie Ford, From the Nursery Part 1: Being good We meet in the local café. Most of us in my new mothers group are still breastfeeding so we order decaf. Because we are trying to be […]

This is the last of my series with Margaret River Press online, so—if you’ve read the other blogs this month and find yourself here—thanks for making it. I feel like you deserve a bop (and if this is the first you’ve happened to click onto —you, too, deserve a bop):              (for your reading experience, you […]

At risk of cross-promotion, and perhaps at greater risk (considering the sentiments of my first blog for this series) of a touch of hypocrisy, I’ve recently engaged—and distracted—myself by curating a series of short ‘gestures towards performance’ from performance-makers in my various networks, both ‘here’ and ‘elsewhere’. This began on a sunrise after a typically […]