January 5, 2022
While I haven’t made New Year’s resolutions for years, I have created lists such as 19 Things to do in 2019, or selected words to reflect my focus for the following twelve months. However, with so much uncertainty still surrounding us as we step in 2022, it feels somewhat counterintuitive to make plans or create […]
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November 2, 2021
Have you ever thought about the legacy you might leave for others, or the legacies passed down to you by previous generations? Whether or not we have direct descendants, or know our ancestors, our lives and stories have the power to connect with and impact others in numerous ways. Last week, I had the opportunity […]
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October 19, 2021
I haven’t always been a reader of historical fiction. When I was much younger, I preferred contemporary fiction, and I can’t pinpoint when that started to change. Perhaps when I started researching the Second World War for my book about war widows. Or maybe a few years before that when I finally started taking an […]
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October 5, 2021
Over the years, I’ve read a lot of books about researching and/or writing family history. Some of my favourites have been published here in Australia including these three: Family History for Beginners & Beyond, 16th Edition, edited by Danny O’Neill Whether you’re just starting out on researching your family history, or you’ve been on […]
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October 5, 2021
This month’s writing prompts are inspired by the loss of my 16-year-old cat, Fergus, as well as a couple of competitions with an animal theme and the fact that our furry friends often offer comfort during dark times. 1. Warm Up: Five Words Include the following words in a scene: fur, forest, future, freedom, family. […]
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August 7, 2021
Welcome back to Six Degrees of Separation, where we all start with the same book title and link it to six others in any random way our mind chooses to create connections. It’s fun and it’s free, so join in! This month the starting book is Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher. Postcards from […]
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July 27, 2021
I was recently chatting to a teacher from Mt Isa in Queensland, whose class is studying Black Snake: The daring of Ned Kelly by Carole Wilkinson. One of the students’ tasks is to write a recount of an event in the book from the perspective of an individual character. Hearing about the class researching Ned […]
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June 1, 2021
I recently ran a workshop for a group of local year 8 students to help them make connections and links between books, both the ones they “have” to read at school and those they are choosing to pick up outside the classroom. At the end of the workshop, I left them with the choice of […]
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