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 …
Events
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 …
Creating characters for children: A Guest Post by Leigh Hobbs
As a child I only ever had two ambitions.
Being a writer wasn’t one of them.
Firstly, I wanted to be an artist, I’ve always loved drawing. And secondly, I wanted to ‘go to England’ as I’ve always been fascinated …
Sentences Make Magic by Lee Kofman
I am the kind of a writer who writes for sentences. It’s not because narrative isn’t important to me, but rather because I believe the shape and texture of sentences affect our narratives. The structure, rhythm and details of each …