Read / February 25th, 2008
The most important part of a book is the words, right? Well that’s not precisely true when it comes to children’s picture books. The words and pictures are at least equal to each other in importance. Surprise! will be published after it’s gone through eleven drafts. I thought it was ‘done’ at five, but I was…
Read / February 9th, 2008
“Aren’t you excited?” I keep getting asked. They’re talking about my book, naturally; a three-dimensional object with a cover and an ending and lovely words in between. Yet to me and most other writers who wrestle with their own projects, their dragons who refuse to sleep in the dungeons of their subconscious, it is so much more…
Read / February 1st, 2008
For weeks I’ve been posting in here with a duplicitous spirit. I have been sporadic in my posting, neglecting to offer any real ‘juice’ as to the workings and wonders of our little family life, as near or far as it relates to the next person. I have been ‘here’ and yet I haven’t. You…
The presents are opened, the recycling bins are choked with paper, and the leftovers are being served up meal after meal, so much so everyone is starting to complain and you say: “Enough! You want something else, go and damn cook it yourself.” The cricket is on the television*; there is nothing else on television…
Read / December 30th, 2007
I first studied ‘At the Park’ when I was sixteen years old as part of the poetry component of my HSC Curriculum. I first studied this poem at an age when I had no business, I think, to be studying it at all. At the time, I used all the perfunctory language I had been taught to…
Read / October 12th, 2007
Psychoanalysis? That’s something to do with Freud, isn’t it? * To talk about Freud in the 21st century is almost to invite conjecture and doubt, especially when we specifically referring to Literature and creativity. This is because in its early years, psychoanalysis did suffer from over-applied textual analyses. If a text contained imagery or description…
On Saturday, as rather a spontaneous decision unlike me, I decided to go to the Melbourne Writers Festival. So, I went to see Clive James and, in another session, Cory Doctorow speak on a panel. I was quite excited, as the last time I went to the MWF was four years ago, when I was…
