Six months after giving birth to my second child, blogging now feels just as exhilarating and subversive as sneaking out of the house after 6pm with a small handbag that contains no nappies. Ah, the extravagant (guilty) pleasures of early …
Events
Showing-and-hiding Emotions in Memoir: A Guest Post from Josianne Behmoiras
Some memoirs are written from the bottom of a heart that has been burdened with an unresolved story. Such was my memoir, Dora B (reprinted with a new title, My Mother Was a Bag Lady), in which I wrote …
On Writers and Cafes
When internationally renowned Israeli novelist Aharon Appelfeld was barely nine years old, he escaped a Nazi concentration camp in Romania, surviving by moving from one hiding place to another for the next three years. As an adult, still haunted by …
The Secrets of Travel Memoir Writing: A Guest Post from Walter Mason
Travel has always inspired writing, and the two share a symbiotic relationship. There is something about being away from home which inspires a mania for recording events and impressions. Perhaps it’s the knowledge that this is, in all likelihood, a …
The Writer’s Guide to Giving Unhelpful Feedback
For years I’ve been participating in, and facilitating, writing workshops. I’ve been doing this as a member of writers’ groups, a student and a teacher of writing. These experiences serve as the basis for this guide, which I hope will …
A Guest Post from Virginia Lowe: The Picture Book, the Storyboard and You
So, you’re writing a picture book – not illustrating (you’re not an artist) and you know that publishers prefer to select for illustrations whoever they think would suit the work best. If you’re lucky it will be a fairly well …
Writing from the Body
When famous writers decide to get grumpy with their fans, one of their popular complaints is being asked supposedly ridiculous questions, such as whether they write with a pen or a pencil, or nowadays – a keyboard. The last time …
A Guest Post from SJ Finn. Your unfinished work: to keep or not to keep?
When we put a manuscript away, in that mythical drawer, we don’t always expect to get it out again. Indeed, it can be a big decision when to let an unfinished draft rest, when to work on it, or even …
WHAT IS WRITING? (MEDITATION AND SPECULATION.)
Fingers. Their performance on the keyboard, pianist-like; this private recital. Their pulsing sensations and rhythms are supposedly at our mind’s service, but really – feeding it, stamping their music onto our vocabulary and imagination. They labour hard. Sometimes they …
A Guest Post from Kev McCready: How to Get into ‘The Zone’ of Writing
As a writer, one has certain responsibilities. Being a guardian of truth and beauty in a howling, godless void is a mere detail. We also have to pay the rent, do grocery shopping, clean the toilet, and have meaningful/meaningless relationships. …