Dear Blog Readers,
Please forgive me this self-indulgent post, which is this time a brief report from the book launch of my memoir The Dangerous Bride. In my defence, I am such a slow writer that I promise not …
Events
Pre-publication Blues
Six copies of ‘The Dangerous Bride’ recently arrived in my house. It took me five years to write this memoir and then I waited more than a year for the publication to happen, and here it is – printed. The …
A Guest Post by Susan Wyndham, the literary editor of SMH: On Not Writing a Novel
I am writing a novel. I have been writing it for five years. But most of the time I write it in my head. Does this sound familiar? Am I just another wannabe novelist who talks big but will never …
That Damn First Draft
Now that my memoir The Dangerous Bride is finally printed and about to be released in a month, I am at work on my new writing plans. I always need lots of plans to produce a little something. Making plans …
A Guest Post from the renowned writing mentor Sydney Smith: Understanding your antagonist
Whenever a writer tells me they have a problem with Act 2 of their novel, I ask them about their antagonist, the character who opposes the protagonist and prevents them from getting what they want. Act 2 forms the bulk …
Can I be honest with you?
My husband, a doctor, jokes that whenever his patients say ‘Can I be honest with you?’ he wonders what was the point of their visit in the first place if they didn’t intend to be honest? The same applies to …
A Guest Post from Jan Cornall about how she looked for Marguerite Duras, but found her mother
I’ve always loved the memoir genre. Most of my writing, be it for theater, film, poetry, song or prose has an autobiographical base. Often my fictional characters serve as vehicles for discussing those aspects of my life that I feel …
Adventures in the New Melbournian Writers’ Festival
This year Melbourne added yet another literary festival to its already busy calendar – the biannual Melbourne Jewish Writers Festival, held at the end of May. For a new festival, its program was surprisingly rich and ambitious, with many Melbourne-based …
A Guest Post from Charles Bane, a Poet Laureate of Florida: What I Have Learned From Writing Poetry
My phone rang three weeks ago, and I was informed that I’d been nominated to serve as the next Poet Laureate of Florida, where I live with my wife and son. When I hung up, I turned and glanced, for …
Why do I write about strawberries?
‘What is the most necessary thing for a writer?’ I often ask in my writing classes. ‘A publishing contract,’ an occasional smartass might reply. Mostly, though, I get sound answers: a voice, a good ear for dialogue, a compelling narrative. …