A HUGE welcome to the thirty wonderful beta users who have come on board to test-drive my new online writing courses platform, Writing Sparks! These good folk are taking the course, Novel: Planning; the first in a four part novel series, ahead of our official launch date in late September / early October this year. […]
Stage 4 lockdown in Melbourne has given me the shove I needed to finally combine my two passions, writing and teaching. The result is WRITING SPARKS – an online, four course series created to take emerging writers from inspiration to publication. Currently, I’m looking for beta-users to test the first course in this series, NOVEL:
Recently I attended the online launch of, Sunflower, a beautiful, thought-provoking middle grade novel written by my good friend and fellow author, Ingrid Laguna, as a follow-up to her 2019 novel, Songbird. It was fabulous celebration of Ingrid and her writing, and of the The Little Bookroom, a local bookstore which continues to trade and
This year, the MWF went online and pulled-off a literary line-up guaranteed to keep our lock-down blues at bay. Unlike past festivals, the 2020 program saw local and international facilitators and guests telecast interviews from their lounge rooms, dining tables and home offices. It felt strangely intimate, and comforting, to witness these domestic realms and
I\’m looking forward to chatting with the wonderful Pearly Jones on Insta Live this Saturday the 14th of August from 8pm. Join us @pearleyjones to hear delicious discussions on life and literature. BYO drinks and sofa… * For those of you who are wondering, Instagram Live is a feature on Instagram Stories that allows users to stream
Some days you hanker for words that just cut through… \’In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.\’ – Alice Munro
Melbourne Writers Festival 2020 kicked off yesterday in full digital format with an illuminating discussion between Torres Strait Islander writer, Thomas Mayor, academic, Megan Davis, and lawyer, Teela Reid, about Black Lives Matter and The Uluru Statement. Despite missing the buzz of physically being in this and other sessions, this year’s digital program allows me to attend far more events than
Are you looking for an absolute page-turner? Then put this one on your list of TBR books… The Mother Fault by Kate Mildenhall is coming soon and is guaranteed to keep you in your pyjamas and glued to the couch from beginning to end. \’You will not recognise me, she thinks, when I find you
Many of you will know The Big Issue. But for those of you who don\’t, it is an independent, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to supporting and creating work opportunities for people experiencing homelessness, marginalisation and disadvantage. In short, The Big Issue helps people help themselves. Homelessness is an already complex problem made more complicated by COVID-19.
Recently, a friend alerted me to a competition being run as part of the 2020 CYA All-Stars Conference. I quickly prepared a submission, which included the first part of a manuscript I\’d been working and reworking for years. This particular MS is very close to my heart, as the writing of it involved the help