Life / February 18th, 2019
My father passed away on the 19th of February 2009 while I was somewhere up in the sky on a plane, trying to rush home and see him before it was too late. But I was too late. My original plan was to write a new poem to commemorate the occasion. I’m still working on…
There’s a little over two months to go until our team and dozens of others line up to attempt the 100km Oxfam Trailwalker here in Melbourne. I won’t lie – I’m nervous. *touch wood* On the whole things have been okay so far – I’ve suffered less of the health dramas I had during the…
If you’re a beginning or emerging writer, you might have heard of Submittable already. In case you haven’t, here’s a brief explanation: Submittable is an online submission management platform, designed to streamline and simplify the submissions process – which can be oftentimes problematic for writers and publishers. It is free to get an account to…
This post is sponsored by Philips I’ll never forget the afternoon Riley walked out of class after the home bell and complained that his tooth was hurting. He is rarely sick and has a reasonable tolerance to pain, so you can imagine my terrible, sinking feeling when he pulled back his lip to reveal one…
Welcome to the annual blog monetisation recap – this is the sixth (!) time I’ve written such a post and I hope that it provides a bit of insight and information for anyone who’s interested in doing the same for themselves in 2019 and on whatever scale – small, medium or large. As always,…
Read / January 28th, 2019
Normal People by Sally Rooney was the second book I received for Christmas. It is the 2018 Man Booker Prize longlisted international sensation, so much so that British booksellers are keeping stashes behind their counters. I was curious (like many people!) to find out what the fuss was about, especially considering I haven’t read her other novel Conversations…
Part of me wonders at the use of writing this post midway through the first month of a new year (I have a little voice singing the line ‘The past is in the paaaaaast!’ from ‘Let it go’ as I type). But I’m going to ignore it because I believe in the merit and value…
Read / December 29th, 2018
Before I begin I would like to extend my belated good wishes for the holiday season. I hope it was spent in your favoured ways surrounded by your favourite people. As I have been a writer-in-residence at Montsalvat for a good chunk of this month, you might have noticed that my activity here on the…
Read / November 29th, 2018
I picked up Why Will No-One Publish My Novel? A Handbook For The Rejected Writer by Fay Weldon from the library because I love a writing ‘how to’/guidebook (I wrote one!) and this one is an adorable (almost) pocket-size. That was another reason why it stood out among the shelves. (Penguin has a range of Pocket…
