Welcome back to Six Degrees of Separation. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know how it works: Kate from booksaremyfavouriteandbest provides us with a starting book title, and we link it to six others in any random ways our brain sees fit. It’s fun and easy, and you never know just […]
Are there authors you believe you should read simply because they’re considered one of the literary greats, or have appeared on best seller lists? For many years, Isabel Allende was that author for me. At uni, I’d studied the magic realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 100 Years of Solitude, but never quite managed to […]
You may be aware that I continue to update my list of Competitions for Young Writers, as old competitions inch past their closing date and new ones come to my attention. The following creative prompts draw on some of the themes identifiied in the competitions open at the time of publishing this post. Regardless of […]
Six Degrees of Separation is a literary meme hosted by Kate from booksaremyfavouriteandbest. Each month, Kate provides a starting book title, and then participants link that to six other books in whatever random way the mind decides to make connections. My links are usually in the form of either reading recommendations or books on my […]
When author Judith Kerr passed away on 22 May 2019, there was an outpouring of accolades, obituaries and memories in print, online and across social media. I confess that while her picture book, The Tiger Who Came to Tea and her semi-autobiographical novel, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, were vaguely familiar to me, I’d never […]
I’ve recently been running a series of workshops on writing memoir and family history at the City of Vincent Library and Local History Centre. In our first session, I led participants through a series of activities to help them stare down the blank page and start writing. It was fabulous to see just how many […]