I read Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes, a novel full of full of chronologies, bestiaries and other clever discourse devices, in 2014. I subsequently had a conversation with a friend about the moments in her past which, with the gift of hindsight, she was able to recognise as significant in guiding her to her current …
Strong Women
In 2015 I was enjoying Sunil Badami’s blog posts on Southerly. One in particular made me think. The first paragraph read “As I mentioned in my previous post, most of my characters and protagonists aren’t named; and nearly all of them are women. I couldn’t tell you why, other than that I was raised by a …
Greed and Fear
A friend said to me the other day, every decision we make is governed either by fear or greed (I’m taking greed to mean wanting something you don’t currently have, there’s nothing mean or miserly about it). It’s not hard for me to agree with this statement and when I reflect on my own life …
What does writing add to the world?
When I was considering a thesis topic as part of my Masters degree I had the following conversation with my then boss: "What would you do it on?" she asked. "Female relationships in fairy tales," said I. "What do you hope to get out of that..." I paused to think... She clarified, "As a practical …
Letters From the Road: Gold Coast
Dear Dreamers, It's good to have family. Especially family that happen to live along the south east coast of QLD and can put you up on your way to NSW. My cousin in Brisbane and my aunt and uncle on the Gold Coast did (and continue to do) that. We've been wined and dined and …
American Gods – Neil Gaiman
"People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen." Date Completed: June 18 2017 Page Length: 635 Goodreads If you've been following my Letters From the Road you'll know I've been reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods …
The Sadder Sex: The Gendering of Grief in Hamlet
The experience of pain, sadness and depression in Shakespeare's Hamlet is complicated and multifaceted. As the goal of this essay is not to diagnose the characters of Hamlet, pain, sadness and depression along with other terms, such as grief and mourning, will be used interchangeably to refer to the various states from which the characters …
Continue reading "The Sadder Sex: The Gendering of Grief in Hamlet"
Magic for Adults
I’ve started babysitting for my partners boss recently and my absolute favourite part is the conversations I have with the five and six-year-old cuties. Most recently the younger of the two asked me what job I did on the farm (after I’d convinced him I was, indeed, a real adult). I told him I didn’t …
In which many good things happen
I’ve been having a string of good luck lately. In the last week I received my Masters degree from Deakin in the mail, placed first in The Writing Junction Mentorship and Microfiction competition for my story 'Crow' and had a short story published in The Airgonaut. My Facebook and Twitter pages have become the grounds …
How to Treat Writing Like a Business
With the advent of companies like Etsy this really has become the age of the indie business. And if creatives such as painters, graphic designers and furniture-makers can turn their passion into a small business, why can’t writers? The increasing availability of self-publishing services has enabled writers to do just that, but treating writing like …
