Writer, reader, teacher
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The pen is mightier than the horizon
Pleased to have a post on the Allen & Unwin blog this month, talking about the Faber Academy Writing a Novel course I did with Carrie Tiffany. You can read the full piece here.
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Fanny Price, the necessary ninny
Mention Mansfield Park to a devoted Austen-ite and you get the tell-tale sigh: yes, but Fanny Price! Why does she have to be so … Pious? Humourless? Blessedly, teeth-grindingly annoying? In any situation, you can count on Jane Austen’s heroine (a poor cousin taken to live with rich relatives at age 10) to be terribly proper. […]
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Making pretend people matter
When my husband was four, he asked for a clock. Any kind, really. As long he was going to be allowed to pull it into tiny little pieces. Over time, he moved on to old TVs, broken video recorders, radios, cars. Eventually he learned to put things back together—and at some point, he even found […]
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Running’s not about, um, running
When I was 14, my foster sisters told me they were going for a run. It’d only be about 1km, they said. Would I like to come? By the time I’d ‘jogged’ down the driveway and onto the road, the two of them were blurry, heat-affected smudges in the distance. My ankles were searing. My […]
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Sea Hearts, love … and hair
Really pleased to have a piece on Killings, Kill Your Darlings journal’s blog, today. It’s about Sea Hearts, a novel by Margo Lanagan. Here’s a taste: “There’s a right mess unfolding here, but it’s not moral condemnation we’re being served with. It’s a kind of truth. These are people in all their difficult, mean, loving glory.” You […]
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Knock, knock
On Day 14, Kat drew this: On day 10, this: And on Day 3, this: Day 3 is my favourite. Something about that feather-ish headdress, the Big Top-like shape in the backdrop, and the rings radiating from the figure. Every day now, for the past two-and-a-bit weeks, my friend Kat—whom I share housed with back […]
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Everyday strange
So you wake up one morning, and you’ve become a bug. You’re flailing on your back, the bedroom door is locked, and you’re really worried: you’ve missed not just one, but two early trains to work. You may well recognise this as the opening sequence of Franz Kafka’s novella Metamorphosis. I didn’t. I only picked […]
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Failing, blathering … playing
Breath trembling and vision fuzzing around the edges, I picked my way through the crowd. Messed it up. Started over. Crept away. The kids in the front row were encouraging, and the applause was friendly, but I left that stage – my first piano recital – feeling that I’d failed. We tell our children that making mistakes […]
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The Katniss strategy
I don’t like games. Don’t care about sport. Can’t see the point. I realise this makes me a freak. In Melbourne, having an AFL team is a tribal thing. I’ve had friends who grew up interstate tell me that you can’t live in Victoria and not follow footy. But I’m here to tell you – you can. […]
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On Beauty
Let’s pretend. Let’s pretend that I spent my high school lunchtimes in the library because I was an undiscovered genius with an unquenchable love of books. And not because I was – ahem – between friendships. These days, I mostly visit the library to stock up on picture books and novels featuring mystery-solving mice. Occasionally, […]