Year: 2016
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Brave books about love
I’m back after an orgy of reading. I was still putting piles of library books in the basket of my Trek bicycle and racing home to devour them when I suddenly got another writing job. Before that, one of the many authors I read was the person everyone’s talking about: Liane Moriaty and her recent…
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Writing Ergonomics: Tips for a Healthy, Happy Writer
Don’t do what I do; do what I say… It wasn’t as if I could plead ignorance. I’d done the Alexander Technique course on how to sit properly and how to iron out the kinks in my spine every day. I’d been told about the importance of taking a break every thirty minutes. I also knew about…
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What is story? Intercultural Perspectives on Narrative
[Feature image: Christine Napanangka Michaels’ painting “Lappi Lappi Jukurrpa” © Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation] What makes a good story? Blogger in Residence, Sophie Constable, expl… Source: What is story? Intercultural Perspectives on Narrative
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Psychic space and an unusual recipe for mitigating a cold
When I was chosen to be a blogger in residence at the ACT Writers Centre I planned to supplement those once a month blogs with more frequent postings on this personal blog. But I’m going to have surgery soon (nothing serious) and I’ve been psyching myself up for that and doing all the things I…
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Food Blogging- more than just a love of food
https://actwritersblog.com/2016/08/01/food-blogging-more-than-a-love-of-food/
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A divided world – depicting the lives of refugees
‘Refugees live in a divided world, between countries in which they cannot live and countries which they may not enter.’ Elie Wiesel, Romanian-born Holocaust survivor, writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner, said this. He believes that it is the moral responsibility of all people to fight hatred, racism and genocide. After World War II…
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Diving into the River
My first blog as a Blogger in Residence at the ACT Writers Centre is up on the CAPITAL LETTERS site. It is on screenwriting. Future posts will be on writing and refugees, prisoners’ writing, the health of writers (all that sitting, for one detrimental thing!), food blogging, writers dreaming … all topics I’m interested in…
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Wear books like hats upon your crazy head…
‘You must write every single day of your life. You must read every single day of your life. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy head. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will…
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Patricia Highsmith’s handbag
Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995), prolific author of crime novels plus the novel Carol, recently made into a film directed by Todd Haynes, was a prolific drinker and smoker as well. She smoked a packet of Gaulloises a day. Famously not very good with people, Highsmith had an intense connection with animals. She loved cats. Snails made…
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A Sense of Style
Style is ‘the mirror of an artist’s sensibility’. That was what Truman Capote thought. I think style is what comes naturally because it’s an expression of who you are, a projection of your personality. Edith Wharton wrote about the ‘unassailable serenity’ of being at home in ourselves, just as the French talk about being ‘happy…