Advice for writers.
Every time I attend Conflux, Canberra’s annual speculative fiction convention, it’s different. The uniting theme is of course different and exciting (this year it was ‘Grimm Tales’), as are the guests of honour (this year we had Ellen Datlow, Angela Slatter, Meri Amber and as MC Kaaron Warren – all…
Dear supporter of all things bookish and speculative, I’m thrilled to invite you to the book launches of my solo debut Towards White – one in Canberra and one in Sydney. I’d love to see some friendly faces there, so please consider joining me, and my publisher IFWG Australia, for…
A client’s email was down the other day. I had trouble sending to and receiving from them – there was no knowing if a message had arrived or would arrive, and several ‘missing’ emails sent to me suddenly arrived in a bundle ten hours after they were sent. It made…
These school holidays I got booked in to teach 10 creative writing classes to young writers aged from 5 to 18 years old, at a plethora of Northern Beaches Council libraries and at Mosman Community College, where I usually teach adults. The classes ranged from 1½ hours to full day…
Children – they’re precious, innovative, exciting, cute and annoying all at the same time. I’m so grateful to be a parent (though I do complain *sometimes*), and cherish having a career that enables me to work from home – so I get to be there when my kids get home…
They say you never stop learning and, whoever ‘they’ are, I hope they’re right. I love studying, extending my understanding of the world and those in it. So when the opportunity came along last month to apply for a scholarship for a five-week ‘Writing Inclusive Fiction’ course, I jumped at…
Stephen King (horror writer extraordinaire) says that a story’s opening lines should “invite the reader to begin the story”. “It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.” Of course what one person wants to know differs tremendously from what another person wants to know. So…
