
Writing Residencies: Timing, Planning & Stars Aligning
Well, it’s a long time since I’ve blogged. I haven’t had much to say! I’ve been locked down, head down, or writing down the bones of my manuscript as Natalie Goldberg would say in her excellent writing book of the same name. For the past week and a half, I’ve … Read More

Releasing a book in Lockdown!
Releasing a book during a pandemic lockdown, what can I say? Probably quite a lot, but I’ll try to keep it nice! Honestly, if anyone had told me that this would be the way of the world when my debut novel came out, I’d’ve probably thrown my hands in the … Read More

No Small Shame – The Dreaded Edit
The dreaded round one edit for my novel wasn’t so bad! After all! I wasn’t sure what to expect for my first novel-length edit. My previously published work has either been short fiction for children that I can truthfully say had very few changes made to the words, or short … Read More
Permission to Write Crap and Crap on!
It’s time for me to get back to blogging, but, from now on, without always spending hours researching or pedantically connecting all my posts to serious writing subjects, which takes away from real, actual writing time. At the beginning of a new novel project real writing is top of my … Read More
Libraries Rule for Research
As a writer of historical fiction, many an hour I’ve spent to great result in the State Library of Victoria, PROV and various local and overseas’ libraries. So it was dismaying for me to read a recent blog post on research, on a major, international writing website, that alleged researching your novel in a … Read More
A New Friend for Marmalade – Alison Reynolds
Today I welcome international best-selling author, wonderful writer and friend, Alison Reynolds to celebrate the launch of her, and very talented illustrator, Heath McKenzie’s newest picture book A New Friend for Marmalade. A New Friend for Marmalade is the sequel to Alison and Heath’s first collaboration, A Year with Marmalade, which has sold more than … Read More