writer | editor | artist
I spent Christmas night sleeping on the floor beside the guest bed in our friends’ home. At one point, in my sleep, I rolled towards the bed – towards you – and must have bumped it. You woke in a sleepy rage. Unwilling to hiss or roar in someone else’s home, you simply kicked me…
What is your idea of perfect happiness? A blank page. A good book. Stimulating conversation. The pleasure of learning something new. The pleasure of giving someone the thing they most need. What is your most marked characteristic? Adaptability. What do you consider your greatest achievement? Learning to read. What is your greatest fear? Losing love….
The story I am writing about you takes place during your fall. It begins at the top of that building in Manhattan, when you step off the roof, and ends when you reach the sidewalk. It begins with a recitation, and ends in silence. After your death, I fell silent. It might be more accurate…
The thing is, I was always afraid of leaving you. Do you remember the story about Lot’s wife, leaving Sodom? The angels took her and her daughters by the hand. They led them out of the city, towards the hills. She would have been safe if she hadn’t turned back. It was the turning back that…
For months now, you have swung violently between demanding friendship, and demanding distance. You have threatened me with homelessness, and poverty. With truths and lies and legal action. You have tried to silence me, and tried to make me speak. You have raged against me, like a cyclone. You have invaded my privacy and undermined…
Two bright bangles on an arm clang, a single bangle is silent, wander alone like a rhinoceros. ~ Khargavi?ana-sutra [the Rhinoceros Sutra] c.29 BCE Clara had once attended a creative writing workshop run by Karen Joy Fowler, and what Karen Joy told her was: We are living in a science fictional world. During the workshop,…
Today’s contribution comes from Carla Billinghurst. I first met Carla about … oooh … well, I know it was before the apocalypse. She’s a smart, funny, and inspiring writer. You can find her online at Carla Billinghurst.com, or follow her on FaceBook. If you are in the Blue Mountains in late November, you can go along…
Woohoo! Approval has just come through for a course I’ll be teaching at USQ in semester one next year. The course is called CWR2001 Fairytales and Other Forms. According to the newly-approved synopsis (not yet available on the uni website, but soon, I promise!): Through close study of a range of poetic forms, and a…
I am interested in usable truths. I am interested in food I can eat, water I can drink, and stories I can tell. I am interested in doorways and roads: leading in, leading out. I am interested in stones, particularly the stones that mark the path we must walk tonight. My mother has died, and her corpse…
After lunch, we wander along the foreshore of the lake. There’s a raised wooden path, shaded and cool. As we walk, she tells we how the lake formed. ‘Where the lake is now,’ she says, ‘used to a great valley full of trees. The local people used to come here and celebrate every three years, when…