Writing can seem like a lot of effort for little reward. Your books (if you’re lucky enough to get published in the first place) might be ignored, go out of print, drop off the radar (or never be picked up by the beacon in the first place), or date too quickly (I...
This week I spent three days at the wonderful All Saints Literature Festival. It’s the ten year anniversary of the festival, which made me realise with a jolt that it’s ten years since Obsession was published: All Saints was the first festival I presented at. My...
The one event I saw at the Perth Writers Festival this year was Richard Lloyd Parry speaking about People Who Eat Darkness, which partly deals with Joji Obara, a Japanese-Korean serial killer who, after a long and torturous legal process, has only recently been given...
‘In these uncertain times playfulness, whimsy, creativity, music, writing and art are all the more important. Here’s to the things that nourish and support us and provide our brave selves with hope.’ Brigid Lowry Last night I launched Brigid’s wonderful, playful,...
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will know that this week Shaun Tan won an Oscar* for the animated adaptation of The Lost Thing. The kids’ lit community in Australia went nuts with joy and with pride, intensified by the fact that not only is Shaun a rare...
Yesterday I was cleaning out my shed and found these: The first example, written when I was ten, reminds me that a) I’ve never been able to draw and b) despite my sometimes difficult relationship with my grandfather, my fondest memories of him revolve around...
