Asta Lander is a Perth artist and creative mentor, whose exhibition, Monkeying Around, opens at the Victoria Park Centre for the Arts on Friday 2 December 2016. Asta has worked as a school art specialist, volunteer art therapist, a primary and ESL teacher, and a school chaplain, but says she ‘skirted around’ her artistic self […]
Music is a powerful force, evoking strong emotions and reviving half-forgotten memories. I recall how, as teenagers, a friend and I walked along a road in our town, singing ‘Manic Monday’ by the Bangles. And I remember sitting on the edge of the town pool, feet dangling in the water, as the cast of the school musical […]
[NB: These are writing competitions for November and December 2016. Head to 19 Writing Competitions for Young Writers: July to December 2017 for the most recent list of opportunties.] If you’re a young writer (or know one) heading into the final weeks of the school year and wondering what to do as those warm […]
Welcome, once again, to Six Degrees of Separation, a literary meme in which Kate from booksaremyfavouriteandbest offers us the title of a book, and we link it to six others in any way that comes to us. Six Degrees of Separation often begins with books I’ve not yet read, but probably should add to my to-read […]
I have a social media rule: don’t friend someone on Facebook unless you know them in real life. I made an exception for poet and artist, S. Nagaveeran – or Ravi to those who know him. I ‘met’ Ravi after his poetry was shared online, and while he was still in immigration detention awaiting the […]
Home. That was the single word I intended to post on my Facebook page, as we waited for our luggage to appear on the carousel. We’d just landed after a fabulous trip to Italy, a mix of holiday and family reunion. I’d loved the time away, but it was also good to be home. Then […]