writer | editor | artist
“Maps are essential. Planning a journey without a map is like building a house without drawings.” [Mark Jenkins, The Hard Way: Stories of Danger, Survival, and the Soul of Adventure] This is the second in a series of posts designed to help you focus your writing. Last week, your homework was designed around making an…
Not everyone wants or needs to work with a mentor, but many writers feel the need to refocus their writing practice at some point. This is the first in a series of posts that, together, will comprise a kind of DIY mentorship. The DIY mentorship isn’t designed to replace a real mentorship, which also includes…
Recently, I was delighted to publish an article, in SALT magazine, on a real Sunshine Coast icon: The Big Pineapple. The article is largely about the early history of Sunshine Plantation, which was founded by Bill and Lyn Taylor in the 1970s. The article draws on a range of sources, including archives in the fabulous…
This isn’t really a fully-blown, well thought out post. It’s just a skeleton placeholder for some ideas I’ve been thinking about. Well, when I say *some* ideas, I really mean *an* idea. About publishing. I was thinking about why I’m so resistant to the hoopla around self-publishing, particularly ePublishing, and how many writers, particularly aspiring…
Instructions for writing a story for a small child, as a gift. First, consider the child. Is it small and sticky, or tall and clumsy? Does it prefer pickles, or ice cream? Pants or sequins? Measure it: first, from top to bottom, second, from belly button around to belly button. Is said belly button an…
Well, it’s not every day you receive a lovely full page review in the national newspaper. George Williams reviewed Rupetta in The Australian this weekend. A lovely review. I was working in the kitchen when I received a message on my phone telling me to check out the weekend paper. I was expecting to find…
Today, I answer some questions from Adam Mills over at Weird Fiction. You can also read an extract from Rupetta (The Miracle of Consciousness) published free and online in the same issue. There’s also little review of Rupetta included here. I’m all over that place!
Ray and Rosalie just forwarded me this review of Rupetta in The Tablet, a Catholic periodical. I was pretty worried about how the reviewer would respond to the quite critical portrait of (an) organised religion in the book, let alone to the oodles of lesbians romping around in the book. Turns out … nothing to…
Entries are now officially open for the 2013 Big Issue fiction edition – now an annual highlight of the publishing year. The Big Issue‘s fiction edition has become one of biggest selling short story collections in Australia. All submissions are judged ‘blind’, with no names attached. This year we are inviting all writers – of whatever age,…
Entries are now open for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Competition Entry Fee: £10 +VAT for two entries Prizes: £500 plus publication and a selection of complementary books Length of entries: 2000 words for short fiction, 40 lines for poetry Deadline for entries: 31 August 2013