Advice for writers.
Last Wednesday I gave my judge’s report at the Mosman Literary Awards 2018, held at Mosman’s Barry O’Keefe Library. This annual prose and poetry competition attracts budding poets, playwrights and authors from schools across the state, all of whom compete for a share in the $2,000 prize pool. I’m the…
Have you ever been so busy with work that it puts a strain on your health or relationships? Like the well-known stress management scenario about holding a cup of water – you can hold a cup of water easily enough for a minute, but after an hour your arm will…
Last night I was invited to participate in a council think tank about arts and culture on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. A dozen participants were selected, introduced to each other as champions of their respective arts, well-connected and dedicated to their passions. It made my heart sing to be described as…
Characters, characters, characters – they’ve dominated my last few weeks. This weekend I judged the Mosman Youth Awards in Literature and was impressed by how well entrants got into the heads of such a diverse range of characters – young and elderly, real and surreal, abstract and concrete, monstrous and…
Opportunity can be a funny old creature. It often hides in the shadows out of reach or lurks where you least expect to find it. It can disguise itself as a closed door or sheer cliff-face drop destined to destroy you. It can seem to offer itself to everyone else…
Life doesn’t always go to plan. This week I’ve received a career knock back every single day. Every – single – day. I celebrate a lot of my successes on this blog, but it’s just as important to share my behind-the-scene disappointments – that way you get to experience my…
Sometimes as a writer it’s hard to know how much impact your words are having in the world. After all, how do you monitor ‘impact’ – by sales figures, fan mail, awards, the number of stories you’ve published, Twitter follower figures, or something else? I like to think of it…
