Why do I do this? What motivates my writing and makes it a necessity? Why do I not only expose myself, my inner-workings, but dream of my work to be read and appreciated?
I ask myself these questions when I …
Events
Why Funny Writing Matters: A Guest Post by Bynny Banyai
There is writing that changes the world, or at least changes the world of the person who reads it. Then there’s writing like mine, which, I would hazard, has never prompted any of the above. Before you brace yourself for …
The Mother/Writer Conundrum: A Guest Post by Nina Wan
Recently I was on a panel at the Berri Writers Festival where the discussion turned on Cyril Connolly’s famous quote, ‘There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.’ As someone who wrote her …
On Being an Israeli-Australian Writer
A slightly modified version of this post was published in The Jewish Independent
Several years ago, way before October 7 and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war, I was having lunch with colleagues from the writing and publishing universe. We …
Writing About Trauma: A Guest Post by Roz Bellamy
I’m magnetised by sad stories, and collect them the way I imagine a comedian gathers humorous anecdotes. I offer them up like a depressing form of stand-up to loved ones, who aren’t always appreciative.
In my memoir, Mood: A Memoir …
Why Write Autofiction: A Guest Post by Rochelle Siemienowicz
‘You might get some bloke at a writers’ festival who stands up in the audience and asks: “In your “research” (titter, titter) for this book, did you really have two dicks in your mouth?” – but that’s out of everyone’s hands, and you’ll …
The challenges of whipping up a cookbook: A Guest Post by Elana Benjamin
Psychologists say it takes us only one-tenth of a second to form an impression of a stranger. While I couldn’t find any research as to how long it takes to form a first impression of a cookbook, my experience is …
Murder, I Wrote: A Guest Post by Jane Sullivan
A friend recently reminded me about Jessica Fletcher, the crime-solving novelist in the 1980s television series Murder, She Wrote. Played by the magnificent Angela Lansbury, she was an amateur detective and a bestselling writer, and she handled each task …
The fairytales that shaped my words
Once upon a time, there was a young girl who was bed-bound on account of her sickly heart, and so she spent much of her time daydreaming or consuming the abundant fairytales in her family’s vast library. There she found …
Writing With Multiple Voices: A Guest Post by Maggie Walters
When I set about writing my memoir Split, telling the story of my life with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) – or as it’s called today, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), I envisaged that it would be a mix of poetry …