Blog | Page 2 of 12 | Pen Hanley

Walking with Annabel: her wonderful books on women walking

May 1, 2024

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Pen

in Annabel Abbs, Annabel Streets, Living creatively, stress management, walking

Expanding the moment Annabel Abbs wrote Windswept: Walking in the footsteps of remarkable women (Two Roads, 2021) about some famous and not so famous women who were serious walkers at times when that was unusual and often dangerous. (It’s back in the library before I took a photo, so another of her books I discuss below features in the picture.) In Windswept she explores the lives of Simone de Beauvoir, Daphne Du Maurier Frieda Lawrence, Clara Vyvyan, Nan Shepherd and painters Georgia O’Keefe and Gwen John by travelling in their footsteps. In the spirit of Gwen John she began sketching…
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In Praise of Walking and 52 Ways To Walk

Feb 14, 2024

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Pen

in Annabel Streets, vertigo

The importance of core control In Praise of Walking by Shane O’Mara, 52 Ways To Walk by Annabel Streets and Howard Jacobson’s The Dog’s Last Walk. Can you spot a theme here? Okay, the last is a joke but it was on my reading pile and I’d been enthusiastic about walking five or six kilometres a day again and wanted to reinforce my intent with some scientific facts about the physical and mental benefits of regular walking. The first two books offer ample evidence that if those benefits could be put in a pill some drug corporation would be making…
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Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken (Cornerstone Press, 2023)

Jan 3, 2024

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Pen

in Anti-ageing, Chris van Tulleken, david gillespie, health, Jules Clancy food, nutrition, sarah wilson, sustainable living, Ultra-processed food, Why do we all eat stuff that isn’t food and why can’t we stop?

Definitions of Tragedy When I mentioned in my last blog that everyone inevitably suffers tragedy, that’s not quite correct – some people do escape it – because tragedy refers to untimely death. The death of parents, even though it might feel tragic to their children, is not a tragedy (unless those children were really young) because it’s in the natural order of things. But if the manufacturers of fast food and now of almost all food available in supermarkets continue having their way (making ever-expanding profits from addicting us to their ultra-processed food) we’ll all go to untimely deaths in…
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‘Lost Connections’ and ‘A Heart That Works’

Dec 6, 2023

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Pen

in Andrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon, Democracy, depression, Dorothy Rowe, humour as medicine, Inequality, Inequality – Australia, Johann Hari’s Lost Connections, mental illness, National Health Service UK, Public Good, Rob Delaney – A Heart That Works

How to find hope in a world gone mad During a week at the coast recently with four others, one of the books I’d brought was Johann Hari’s Lost Connections: Why you’re depressed and how to find hope (Bloomsbury, 2018). Three of those friends at different times picked up the book and couldn’t stop reading it. Not because they were depressed but because Johann Hari’s books are like that: exceptionally easy to read and about intrinsically fascinating topics. He has the beautiful style of a bright person who reveals his mistakes and the anxieties and puzzlements of his heart in…
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Tools for self-destruction – Max Fisher’s The Chaos Machine

Oct 15, 2023

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Pen

in capitalism, dangers of social media, digital technology, Inequality, mental illness, miscarriage of justice, politics, value of the arts

The manipulation of neural pathways The weekly radio co-hosting preparation was swallowing too much time and compelling me to spend most of it on current affairs. I’m doing it only once a month now. Without the radio over-commitment, I limit current affairs consumption to basic knowledge of what’s going on. What’s going on is always depressing. And there’s nothing ordinary people can do about the corruption and ignorance level to which this country has sunk. According to Max Fisher we can thank social media for this. Fisher has outlined how this happened in his The Chaos Machine: The inside story…
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In the arms of the angels: How To Be An Artist and On Connection

Sep 1, 2023

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Pen

in imagination, leadership, Living creatively, value of the arts, Winston Churchill, writers’ health

Courage and the imagination ‘Every good work of art has courage in it somewhere,’ writes Jerry Saltz in his How To Be An Artist (Hachette, 2022). He also claims that ‘Courage is a desperate gamble that will place you in the arms of the angels.’ (p. 81) Is the concept of courage relevant when we’re thinking about making art? In a world where we’re being sabotaged daily with messages telling us not to, telling us to consume instead, in a world where the manipulators of marketing know precisely how to best sow the seeds of self-doubt in order to sell…
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Greed, vanity and a cautionary tale about multi-tasking

Jul 17, 2023

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Pen

in Cook books, Mindfulness, multi-tasking, Near Death Experience, writers’ health

Braidwood radio and four other artistic pursuits I’ve been filling in for someone on Braidwood Radio https://braidwoodradio.com.au on Tuesday afternoons (Rod and Penny on ‘Bunkum Faves and Raves’, 3.00 to 4.30 on current affairs, ancient history and the arts – an eclectic but entertaining mix). What with researching for that and continuing with the Argentine tango plus collage plus a new writing group, it’s been a while since my last blog. As well as all this and trying to keep au fait with contemporary literature, a couple of friends and I are reading the six short-listed Miles Franklin award novels.…
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Alba Donati: a cottage full of books

Jun 12, 2023

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Pen

in Alba Donati, Bookshops, Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop, gardening, Living creatively, stress management, value of the arts

Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati. Trans. By Elena Pala. (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2022. 193 pp) People want stories In December 2019 Alba Donati opened her bookshop in Lucignana, her home town, a village of 180 people. The bookshop sat on a two and a half metre site on a craggy hill. Just before Covid, in the middle of nowhere – surely a venture destined to fail. But no: in the hands of the right person, such a seemingly mad undertaking can be just what people need, and people came and are still coming to her little bookshop.…
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Thirty Two Words for Field and Sand Talk – Irish and Indigenous wisdom

May 12, 2023

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Pen

in arts and health, Australia behind, Blasket islands, Books, capitalism, Common Good, Democracy, Indigenous wisdom, Inequality – Australia, Living creatively, Manchan Magan, mental illness, Nature writing – Irish, rural Ireland, Sand Talk, sustainable living, value of the arts

Connecting with a better world Apart from reading some fantastic books, I’ve been having fun with my new Kick-Start creative writing workshops. They’ve been zipping along with the poetic contributions of talented students, filling the BRAG room on Tuesday nights with laughter and creative verve. BRAG stands for Braidwood Regional Arts Group and you can find it here: https://www.bragart.com.au I’ve also been filling in for someone on a local radio station plus submitting my novel MS, Off the Plan, and making collages out of my painted papers and photographs, even working towards an exhibition with some others. And still dancing…
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‘You are the author of your own life’ – creative writing workshops to write a bright new chapter

Feb 28, 2023

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Pen

in Living creatively, Penny Hanley’s Creative Writing course, Perseverance in writing, Short stories, Tim Ferriss, value of the arts, writers’ health, Writing – tools of the trade

Risk We tap into our creativity through play. The technique I use in my Kick-Start workshops is a key that smoothly unlocks a door to the side of your brain that’s much less used in our linear, left-brain-dominant society. Under the Neo-Liberal economic dogma dominating every aspect of society no matter which major party is in power, results – sorry, outcomes – in every field are measured by the sole criterion of financial profit. Under these conditions and with all the unnecessary evaluative paper work engendered by this dogma, we forget how to play. Creativity requires risk. If we’re too…
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