The best short story writers manage to say a lot, using a little. If you want to see what I mean, you need to read the work of Claire Aman, a writer from northern NSW who writes the most moving short stories, in a most economical and restrained fashion. (Read one of them here – Queensland Bluegrass – I GUARANTEE…
Every so often a writer comes along who reminds you of the immense possibilities of language. Myfanwy Jones is that kind of writer. The way she works with imagery. The way she structures her sentences. The way she creates characters who are real but slightly magical. It’s just so… energising. You can read in more detail my thoughts about Myfanwy’s…
IN BRIEF:The harrowing, yet unsentimental account of a foreign correspondent’s four years on the beat in Asia for the ABC, juggling the coverage of disasters (man-made and natural) with domestic life as the mother of two young children.
Short Reads: This was definitely the week in which I found myself disappearing less and less into the rabbit hole which is in the internet, and delving more and more into the excess of excellent material mounting up on my kindle. Look, I know there are people out there who think Amazon are the anti-christ, and there may be an…
IN BRIEF:Myfanwy Jones is an exciting writer, and she puts those skills on full display in ‘Leap’ – a story of loss and learning to love again.
I have to admit I was a bit shocked when I found out that Eliza Henry-Jones is only 25 years old. Her debut novel, In the Quiet, is wise and insightful. Many people (including me) have described it as ‘quiet’ – but it’s quiet in a way that makes you want to lean in to really hear what’s being said.…
Pick of the web: Unless you have been living under a rock (or not in Australia) you would no doubt have read/heard/listened to commentary on the Adam Goodes booing affair. For my mind, most of it has been a load of wasted hot air, from mostly white people who’ve never experienced a day of discrimination in their lives. But one…
IN BRIEF:A sprawling story about the life of a decent man who experiences the full horrors of war and then finds himself living in an ‘afterward’ he never expected to have.
For a slightly impatient reader and writer like me, this past week has been a bit of a challenge. It was the week in which I had to slow down. I like to see progress in quantifiable terms, whether it’s numbers of words written, or pages read. But this last few days have been all about the one percent. Fixing…
IN BRIEF:A quiet book about grief and loss that will reel you in, page by page, until you simply can’t put it down.