writer | editor | artist
For the past few weeks I’ve been in Melbourne, on research leave, working on two novels (the endgame of one, the beginnings of another), attending conferences and so on. One of the most excellent things I’ve been doing is messing about in the Monash University’s Rare Books Collection, most specifically having a wonderful time with…
In Book IX: lxviii of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, the author tells a story about an unusual contest between Cleopatra VII Philipator (69-30BCE), and the triumvir of Rome, Marcus Antonius (83-30BCE). Nor, indeed, are these the most supreme evidences of luxury. There were formerly two pearls, the largest that had been ever seen in the whole…
A beautiful oak carving of Saint Barbara was purchased by the NGV in 1945, the last year of the war. She was first put on display in the Buvelot Gallery in February, 1946. In the National Gallery of Victoria’s quarterly bulletin (Volume II, No I, 1946) Daryl Lindsay* writes: The French saint … is sophisticated in treatment, and…
There are an enormous number of general empirical propositions that count as certain for us. One such is that if someone’s arm is cut off it will not grow again (L Wittgenstein, On Certainty) There were nine of them to begin with. Children, that is. Ten, if you count poor Dora, dead before she began. There were…
Here’s a list of upcoming (short) publications you’ll see from me. I had a short story (The Nature of Things) published in Volume 13, Issue 5 of the Review of Australian Fiction, alongside a wonderful piece by Jessica White (When The World Shivered). This short story is a piece of historical realism set just prior…
I have the most amazing news! Next year, in May*, my new book, Dying in the First Person, will be released by Transit Lounge. I received the edits yesterday, and they confirm everything I believe about the enormous benefits of a good editor. They make the work better; they work with the text (and with…
There was a long road into the forest, and I drove down it in my old ute, with the children in the back, bouncing and laughing as we made our way down the rutted dirt road to our new house. The house was made of stones. We walked around the outside, putting our hands into…
I know, I’ve been decidedly absent from my blog for a while. Things got busy, and messy, and real, and I felt that I didn’t have things to say, or perhaps it’s just that I wasn’t sure I would ever find the right words to say the things I most needed to say. Anyway, at…
Ren is a first year student at USQ, and she’s just nineteen. Which are only two of the reasons she’s amazing. There’s also this story she wrote! When asked to write a little bio, Ren came up with the following: Ren Patzwald is a nineteen year old from Queensland who likes reading and writing so…
Finally! A new fairy tale from one of my talented students at USQ. This one is an original tale by Stephen Denham. Stephen is a film-maker/singer-songwriter currently in the final year of a Creative Arts degree at USQ. Doctors determined that writing was in his blood from a very early age which, unfortunately, led to a…