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Cleaning up: a reflection
Today I had a day off work, and was possessed of a mad cleaning frenzy (they don’t come around very often, so I like to take advantage), focused almost entirely on books. Our house is small, and so the bulk of our books are kept in the shed, in the hope that one day...
Just say no
Like many of my female friends, I’ve been trying to not-hear the details of what’s been going on re certain rugby league events – and not succeeding. I am horrified by the way fans will automatically take the side of the players, that they have had all the media...
Testing the polling feature
I’m not sure how or if this will work, but ahead of my talk in Adelaide in June, I wanted to test the poll feature. Any/all responses welcome.
Liberty and friends
I am (and will be) putting in some pretty extensive hours in the dayjob during the week, and madly editing Chess Nuts on weekends, so I haven’t got much time for reading. However, on my bedside pile at the moment I have a couple of compelling books which appear...
The joys of writing
Writing is a hard gig.** First there’s the actual writing, a rollercoaster of pleasure and pain. Then there’s finding a home for the product of your many hours of bum-numbing (literally) labour, and the possible (and, for so-far unpublished authors, inevitable) pain...
The blogosphere bites back, and internalised sexism in the CBC
As an author, probably the biggest recent change in publishing is the proliferation of YA book blogs. The power of review has been taken from the same few in the newspapers, and given to the diverse many. I have some misgivings about this: sometimes the quality of...
Baby, I’m in the mood for you
From about the age of 16, I was a Beatles maniac. And I mean maniac: I could have gone on the Einstein factor with my obsessive knowledge of the chronology of the Beatles rise and demise (with special reference to John Lennon.) I had every Beatles book in...
To or not to be (explicit)
No, I’m not talking about sex in writing this time, although I’ve had some amusing Facebook suggestions on how to name girls’ lower picnic areas for the virginity novel (and also a suggestion that it is called just that: The Virginity Novel. Further opinions...
Pictures speak louder than words (except in this case)
It hasn’t been my week. The Children’s Book Council Awards shortlist came and went; I worked the sort of hours that made requisite sleep a (waking) dream; and something has died in our roof (oof!). And now, I wanted to post the draft cover of Famous!, but the...
I heart you, Justine!
One of my sorrows about having missed the Perth Writers Festival was not getting to meet Justine Larbelestier, whose open-hearted and funny blog I adore. In a recent post, she offers entirely apt advice for those struggling with the whole...