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 …
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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 …
My Hair, My Self
I had imagined, on many occasions, cutting my own hair. I would take the lot of it in my left fist as if to make a side pony-tail, a pair of large strong scissors would glint in my right hand and I’d slice through. I would do it in one slow movement, watching each strand …
Pricing Your Writing
I’ve spent the last six years selling handmade jewellery on Etsy. I even grew enough of a business from it to make a basic living and began selling wholesale to boutiques. So I think I know a thing or two about pricing your creative endeavours in order to turn a profit. As a writer, beholden …
An open letter to the writers whose friends don’t get it
To whom it may concern, How are things going with you these days? I was wondering if, when you started writing or later even, if your friends and family didn’t ‘get it’? Whether they struggled with why you’d be interested in that or were worried about it being a risky pursuit? I know some of …
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Strong Women
I’ve been enjoying Sunil Badami’s blog posts on Southerly lately and so when the latest hit my inbox I began to read eagerly… then I stopped. 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 …
