Reading is a two-way activity. As such, it stands at the door of poetry, looking both in, and out. Like the Roman god Janus. I’ve written elsewhere about how important it is to read your poetry aloud to yourself as you’re writing it and revising. If you can’t read it naturally, if you get tripped […]

Places By Andrew_Taylor When I was growing up in the Victorian coastal town of Warrnambool (Where Fletcher Jones Trousers Come From!) my father had a man to help him in our very large, almost rural, garden. Mr Akers had come to Australia from Coventry after the Second World War. Ruby, his wife, was a local […]

Poetry as trespass By Andrew_Taylor ‘What kind of poetry do you write?” Anyone who writes poetry will inevitably be asked this at some time or another. Some questions are easy to answer. What code of football do you like? What kind of cooking do you like? etc. But when it comes to poetry, I don’t […]

Getting It Right By Andrew_Taylor Yesterday I had a tree removed from my garden. Actually, that’s not strictly correct, so let me revise it. The tree was, in fact, two trees that had somehow combined to form a dense cluster that was blocking the view of the rest of the garden. And, to be accurate, […]

It’s Called Creative Writing For a Reason By Kate_Glenister A few weeks ago, I was at my high school reunion and speaking to a very talented girl who has gone into fashion since we graduated. I’ve stalked her on Facebook many times and stared at my computer screen in awe – she makes things with […]

Who Are Your Writing For? By Kate_Glenister A few months ago, I was casually browsing through Readings in Carlton when I unexpectedly spotted copies of Shibboleth & Other Stories on the shelf. It was still over a month until the launch of the collection, but I made grabby-hands at a copy: there it was, my […]

The Student Becomes The Writer By Kate_Glenister Last week, I talked about the struggles of confidence in being a storyteller. If you’ve come back to the Margaret River Press blog today, you’re going to notice a certain theme in my writing about writing – total and utter insecurity. This time last week, I handed in […]

Storytellers By Kate_Glenister When I was asked to be the Margaret River Press guest blogger for October, my first thought was ‘me? Really?’ As a writer, this process of questioning myself is nothing if not a familiar concept. I was lucky enough to be featured in Margaret River Press’ 2016 collection ‘Shibboleth & Other Stories’, […]

Where Do Ideas Come From? By Jo_Riccioni I’ve started teaching creative writing recently and the question I’m most often asked by new writers is where story ideas come from. I wish I could give them the answer they desperately want: that there’s an Aldi or Costco for story lines, somewhere writers in the know go […]

Audience of One By Jo_Riccioni “Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.” - Kurt Vonnegut Recently I’ve read several interviews with novelists who say that they write with a single reader in mind, silencing the demands of […]