Strike me pink, it’s TODAY

So, I’m at the beach playing Masters and Slaves with my kids. We’re having fun (as we like to remind ourselves, there’s no winners and losers in this family…..just losers). But eventually I need a break from loserdom and check facebook … and nearly topple off my perch. Egad, it’s today! The day that has [...]

Flippin’ busy

Lately I’ve been feeling like a one-armed woman in a phone booth with a swarm of bees. Too many things coming at me at once. Talks, deadlines, workshops, Mum in hospital, hubba hubby overseas (on a Brokeback Mountain-biking week, no less  – better bring back some fish!), a crescendo of kids’ sporting commitments, an unfinished [...]

Mum, there’s a little thing I need you to do….

You know that old cliche “Never in my wildest dreams”? Well, I never say that. Because as we all know, good writers avoid cliches like the plague…and in my wildest dreams, I’m usually fighting a one-woman guerrilla war against Columbian drug lords, or facing down a serial killer threatening a library full of school children [...]

Books for Xmas (Part One)

If, like me, you plan to end the year skidding in sideways with a book in each hand, then read on for this year’s hot Xmas pressie ideas for family and friends… For the Teen Miss, it would be hard to go past Shift by Em Bailey.  A genre-busting, riveting gallop of a read that [...]

Days like this

I have man flu. My usual nocturnal purr has become an alarming rafter-rattling snore that has destroyed my vocal chords. I cough, I splutter, I spend a day in bed reading Melina Marchetta’s mesmerisingly brilliant Froi of the Exiles. I graduate from no voice to man voice. Telemarketers ask if my wife’s home. I need [...]

Girl’s stories vs boy’s stories

As a kid, I loved reading Zane Grey westerns and Jack London adventures I’d ride horses bareback and fight boys with sticks, then retire to my room with my uber-Barbie (the one with the swivel waist and the bendable knees). I devoured Jane Eyre, Ann of Green Gables and Little Women with the same avid [...]