Looking through my phone’s notes and found this poem. Did I write it? Why else would it be on my phone? It’s from February 2020. Usually I note the writer if I save something. This is a strange sensation. I quite like it. How odd. Maybe it isn’t mine. I’ve googled the first line and … Continue reading Poem: Did I write this?
Why am I re-blogging this? I was a plain female protagonist in my own early life and I searched for plain woman heroes who were at the centre of things. Jo March in Little Women, Jane Eyre. They still got the man, which seemed to be the prize to aspire to, albeit not the MAIN … Continue reading Reblog: Whither the Plain Female Protagonist? On “Great Beauty” in Literature
Last year I wrote a summary of my experience of sending work out to be judged and found wanting. Here’s an update 14 months on … I didn’t send much off in 2021. I was too busy reading and writing for the MA (and still being found wanting - justifiably). However, I did send off … Continue reading 2021: Walking the writer’s walk, an update
Re-blogging sound advice from an editor person. I love being an editor. I love pointing out craft fixes that immediately make this book and all an author’s subsequent writing better. I love …Getting Over Over-Editing
The marvellous Jupiter Jones has a book out. I have had the pleasure of reading other stories she’s written and know this will be fantastic (and Ad Hoc Fiction agree). If you pre-order you get a discount. Let her tell you in her own words … My novella-in-flash The Death and Life of Mrs Parker will be published … Continue reading The Death and Life of Mrs Parker
by Annie Proulx Tried to read this pre-MA days. A couple of times. Captured by the characters and the idea but never got further than meeting the Aunt. Why? Maybe it was the prose style. The disjointed sentences. The head hopping. The MA has done something, because I finished the whole book yesterday and when … Continue reading Review: The Shipping News
I was in a play last night. That’s a photo of me in rehearsal, which is why there’s a massive telly. In real life we performed in the very beautiful Clandon Woods. Bombshells, by Australian Joanna Murray-Smith is a set of six monologues about women at bombsell moments of their lives. I did two, my … Continue reading Bombshells
That’s me.* I’m a woman of a certain age. Wow, don’t I know it. Turns out it’s not going to be wearing purple, or leather mini skirts and singing my heart out in the rain (couple of Tina Turner references there, some of you young folks** will need to look it up). Started using HRT … Continue reading Women of a certain age
I expect there should be content warnings, but recommend reading the essay Eileen wrote. Yes, of course I cried too.
By Eileen Vorbach Collins
I have an essay that went live this week. I wrote it months ago and I’m happy that it’s found a good home. It’s a very personal piece that was a sucker-punch to write and, if not for my critique group, would have ended up yet another discarded half-finished thought in a drawer.
I read that piece last night and cried. Not just a little whimper but a good long lament with lots of tears and noise. Then I thought, What have I done? I already know this story. If it makes me weep, why the hell would anyone else want to read it? Who’d want to subject themselves to my pain?
These thoughts were fueled in part by my recent experience in two book clubs. In one, when it was my turn to choose the book, I picked a memoir. I’d wept when I…
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By Michel Vimal Du Monteil (Hawkeye Books, Australia) I received an advanced copy from Hawkeye in exchange for an unbiased review Paul, originally French but settled for many years in Australia, is a wealthy, retired businessman. He reads that ‘a massive swell [is] about to hammer Sydney’s beaches' and sets off with his surfboard to … Continue reading Review: Where There is A Will
Just waving 