When you’re writing, do you sometimes go off at a tangent? Head off in some absolutely fascinating direction, only to discover later that’s not where you wanted to go? Or perhaps you decide the tangent is the new direction, and that what you wrote before is mostly irrelevant. (Maybe life is like that too?) In […]

Author, editor and journalist Gary Kamiya intriguingly suggested that the primary responsibility of an editor is not to the writer but to the reader. He said an editor is responsible for making a piece of writing ‘more like a Stradivarius and less like a microchip’. Karen Lee, CEO of the Institute of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd) sent me Kamiya’s […]

If, like me, your senses respond to the feel and smell of books in a bookshop, you’ll like Avid Reader. This award-winning independent bookstore has been in the high street at West End in Brisbane for 22 years and has firmly established itself in the local community. In recent years they’ve spun off a successful […]

Kim Wilkins smiled when I asked her what the main stumbling blocks are for aspiring writers. ‘Some writers think that if they see a lot of Marvel movies, they can write a good book,’ she said. ‘But you have to serve your apprenticeship.’ And Kim should know. She’s the author of more than 30 novels, […]

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 […]