Bits and pieces

Bits and pieces

1.  Back in the early 90s, when I first got into the writing scene in Perth, there was an incredible bubbling of energy, ideas and poetry collections from writers like Morgan Yasbincek, Tracy Ryan, Barbara Temperton, Marcella Polain, and Sarah French, to name but a...

A little oasis of time

As a full time employee, the joy of Easter is not about religious significance, although as a member of a family full of Catholics and having grown up with flurries of church attendance, I’m not altogether insensible to this. No, to me a clump of public holidays means...

Just say yes

No, this isn’t a reference to the Great Virginity Debate.  It was a new year’s resolution of sorts, and so far it’s bearing fascinating fruit. Chess Nuts! is my tenth publication in ten years.  Last year I was overwhelmed by the dayjob and other projects, and I was...

Introverts unite

In my list of advice for practising but as-yet-unpublished writers, I discussed things that you might do, or attitudes you might take. But what I should perhaps have mentioned is the matter of temperament. Temperament is a vague, catch-all term, I know, but it seems...

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finding a home for the product of your many hours of bum-numbing (literally) labour, and the possible (and, for so-far unpublished authors, inevitable) pain...