It was on a balmy evening in Mozambique that I discovered my love of writing groups. I was working there as a volunteer teacher. With lots of free time and few distractions, I hoped to revise a manuscript I had …
The Writer Laid Bare
Alcohol, insanity & other methods for unblocking writer’s block
Writer’s block, as I discussed in my previous post, is a common, and debilitating, phenomenon among writers. The good news is it is possible to fight this condition, but the trick is to find what works for each of us. …
The challenges of writing historical fiction: a guest post by Linda Weste
Recently I gave a reading from Nothing Sacred, a work of historical fiction set in late Republican Rome, in Canberra, at the once-residence of historian Manning Clark whose A History of Australia is regarded as the best-known general history of …
The Myth, or Reality, of Writer’s Block
Ten years ago I was awarded my first writing residency in Australia. At that time I was living at a crazy pace, juggling several jobs, studying for my MA and trying to write a novel. Oh, and I had a …
WRITING AS PLAY: a guest post by Perle Besserman
Question: What did William Shakespeare, Friedrich Schiller, and Karl Marx have in common?
Answer: They all regarded play as the most exalted of human activities.
Two of these men were among the greatest poets England and Germany ever produced, and …
Re-connecting to writer’s voice in the cyberspace
In the autumn of 2008 I was approaching the fifth anniversary of my writer’s block. During those years I never stopped writing and sometimes even produced publishable works. However, writing had become much harder than it used to be and …