Raven Mother: War, Family and Inheritance, a memoir — out now
For Sydneysiders, you’re invited to the launch of my new book, Raven Mother, on Tuesday March 24, being held at the bookstore I’ve had the longest relationship with, the award-winning independent bookstore, Gleebooks. Register/RSVP here: 6pm for 6.30 start. I’ll be in conversation with award-winning author and genius editor Kim Kelly. Gleebooks events now have…
H2O: RAIN, OCEAN, TEARS, ICE, in Meniscus
I should have been polyamorous from the start. I learned the hard way with my first two books, Night by Night and Provenance. I barely wrote any other fiction during the years of those two novels, and, much as I loved writing them, I was hostage to them. Then towards the end of Provenance, the…
The intimacy of Unspoken thoughts in Third Person
In this post, I’m looking at varied ways in which unspoken thoughts can be conveyed amidst other forms of speech. We’re all familiar with the back and forth of ‘she said/he said’ of Direct speech (i.e. speech said aloud in conversation). But Direct speech is just one of the forms of speech and dialogue used in fiction…
Narrative thrives on the promise of disturbance
You can use a foreshadowing opening as a generative writing tool, to challenge yourself to explain the promise of what is yet to happen.
Reading aloud for revision and performance
Reading aloud is so physical, and revealing. That’s exactly why reading aloud is such an excellent writing and editing tool.
What we’ve been talking about. Time & Time-Shifts.
The post discusses the narrative use of time and time-shifts and the challenges they pose for writers. It emphasizes the importance of purposeful time shifts, providing examples and insights from a writer’s workshop. Additionally, the post invites writers to join Jane Messer’s interactive online workshops.
Don’t bother with resolutions, just write.
New workshops for 2024. And other news. There’s no need to be writing into the ‘void’ as one of my workshoppers described the very solitary journey of writing her novel. For many of us writers, at one time or another, working on our own, without a readership to encourage, critique or in any way appraise…
Reading Like A Writer
Thanks to Lee Kofman for inviting me to contribute to her blog, ‘The Writer Laid Bare’. See below for a brief bio on Lee. Read my original contribution at: Reading like a Writer: A Guest Post by Jane Messer (leekofman.com.au) Reading has been essential to my development as a writer. I don’t just read as…
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…
Position of the ‘I’ from observer to centre stage
This passage 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 we stop the story.…
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.
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