Eros, beauty and friction: what happened when Susan Johnson took her 85-year-old mother to live on a Greek island
This is a copy of a review that I wrote for The Conversation recently. Sydney folk, you might like to know that Susan Johnson is going to be talking about the book at a few venues in early May – I might see you at the Marrickville Library event, May 3. She’ll be in conversation…
Speech and silence in narrative
One of the things I love about my writing workshops is that all sorts of questions come up spontaneously during our discussions, and directly from the creative works underway. Using these prompts, I prepare short essays, or micro-lessons, about these questions of technique, revision and editing that the writers have raised along the way. What…
Episode 3—Position of the ‘I’ from observer to centre stage
This next passage in my series is from the contemporary British author Deborah Levy’s memoir, The Cost of Living: a working autobiography. It’s a brilliant example of how much presence the narrator can have as an observer, on the sidelines. ‘As Orson Welles told us, if we want a happy ending, it depends on where…
Episode 2: The ‘I’ and other voices
This is my second post for writers on the topic of the first person ‘I’ in creative nonfiction and memoir.
Episode 1: the presence of the ‘I’ in memoir and creative nonfiction
One of the challenges of writing memoir and other forms of narrative nonfiction is how much presence the ‘I’ should have as the narrator at any moment in the text.
The earliest humans swam 100,000 years ago, but swimming remains a privileged pastime
One of my life’s aims is to swim in as many lakes, rivers, pools and oceans as I possibly can, to use my liberty and swimming skills as freely as I can. I love the feeling of being in a large, fresh body of water, its soft immersive, vast or deep buoyancy. Review: Shifting Currents:…
Dramatisation & reflection
Over my many years of teaching creative writing I’ve written a great deal for students about the art of narrative writing, and specific techniques. I love doing this kind of work as by reading closely and thinking a passage through, I’m also teaching myself as a writer. By working from a close reading of a…
New work, in Life Writing
As some of you know I’m writing the very last pages of my memoir-biography Raven Mother. I’m almost done, a couple of weeks away. Earlier this year I drew on the manuscript along with new research for a paper now published in Life Writing, titled ‘Suicide in Nazi Germany: transformative family history’. It’s a part…
The myth of the writer’s garret
I declare the ‘writer’s garret’ a myth. By which I mean that the image of the writer (usually male) working alone until such a point as their work is ready for publication, is less than half the story. It’s a myth that intimidates the hell out of a lot of writers though. Indeed a writer…
Coming up in 2023: workshops, mentoring, books
Here’s what I’ve got planned for 2023, along with some reflections on the year that’s been. As you read through, I hope you enjoy the three pages of images from manuscripts by Miles Franklin, Sylvia Plath and Ursula K. Le Guin. Every book begins as a draft, and these pages, with their crossings-out and crooked…
Join us, Sept 6. Spring 22 Writing Workshop.
Immerse yourself in what you love to do, and want to do more of, with me, one of Australia’s most outstanding teachers of creative writing and writing workshop leaders. Join a small group of 9 writers for this year’s Spring 22 Writing Workshop. The workshop offers 6 fortnights of online workshopping and feedback, and 7…
We Were Already Deep in the Song
This story is one I started a few years ago during a writing week at Varuna National Writer’s House. Some writer friends and I organised a week together there for focused writing and writerly conversations. The bush surroundings, the quiet of the place, and the more meditative experience of time passing really helped with the…
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