Culture Street asked me to write about five books that influenced me, including one from childhood. This was a fantastic exercise as it made me really think hard about which books - among many many - had some sort of influence that I could trace. I had 100 words limit to spend on each, they [...]
Category: Publications
How good is this?
Am catching up with an old school friend on Monday (she lives in Sydney, me in Melbourne). She texted confirmation for our coffee and then included a link to an article in which she shared her response to my book with her readers. She also tweeted about it. She didn't have to do any of this, and [...]
Sunday reading catch up including PURITY by Jonathan Franzen
But first, looky here: This is what I saw in The Age Sunday Life magazine this morning. Nice! This is what I cooked last night. I don't think anyone can make a better spaghetti marinara than me. Romeo's in Toorak? I think not. TIAMO in Carlton? Pffft. * Yesterday I spent a lot of the day [...]
Happening
My book is in all good book shops. My book is quite comfortable, in a stack, as a pillow. My book is very beautiful and quite nice to read too. My book wants to be in your house, in your bookcase. My book has the most beautiful cover. Did I say that? My book is [...]
Sleepers Almanac No. 9
The Sleepers Almanac is being launched tonight. I have a poem in it, which is weird because I don't really write poetry. But I did write this one, and it got in. Come along tonight if you're in Melbourne and aren't so tightly diarised that you can go to something with two hours' notice. I [...]
Sarah Drummond’s Salt Story
Photograph by Tracey Armstrong ABC South Coast This is a photo of my blog buddy Sarah Drummond who has a new book out about sea dogs (Bill, aka Salt above) and fisherwomen (aka, her own good self) working in the south-west Australian region of Albany. There's a partial interview with her, link below and also [...]
A good week
Last week was a good one. On Tuesday I heard that a piece I submitted to Kill Your Darlings journal had been accepted. It's about a trip to Lake Eyre I made in 1989, and it's also about the sour-end of a one-way crush, flowing in the direction of me to him. Oh, unrequited crushing. [...]
Excited about MWF13
I haven't been this excited about the Melbourne Writers Festival in like, forever, and I haven't been to anything at any festival for ages. No offence to previous organisers, but this year is pretty dang fabulous and I've diarised a total of 16 spots. This is what caught my interest this year: There are various [...]
New: Sydney Review of Books
There's a lot of good stuff going on right now in the Australian reading/writing world. First came the Australian Women Writers space, created by Elizabeth Lhuede in 2012. Elizabeth blogs at Devoted Eclectic. The AWW have a 2013 reader challenge that you can sign up for, which follows the inaugural challenge last year. The AWW [...]