It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that I announce the death of my beautiful and beloved younger daughter, Anne Mari O’Callaghan (Annie). Born on 11 August, 1965, she died on 27 December 2021. She is survived also by her daughters, Renee Paige and Megan Jane Muhleisen, her grandson Bailey Muhleisen and her …
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Stressed by a litany of minor events, I’d been thinking about what I needed to do next to get myself back on track. Stress does dreadful things, not only to our minds and equilibrium, but also to our bodies. Time for a reset!
Too Much Lip, Melissa Lucashenko’s sixth novel, won the 2019 Miles Franklin Award, Australia’s most prestigious literary award. It was also short-listed for the Stella Award and several others prestigious awards.
Force of Nature, a suspense-filled novel by international best-selling Australian author Jane Harper, kept me in its grip from start to finish. The author skilfully maintains high levels of conflict, tension and fear through the story.
Orchids are not exactly my favourite flowers. They do fascinate me. For years I’ve tried to grow cymbidium orchids. Some years they bloom with festive joy. Other years they sulk. This has been a sulking year. My orchid plants have been neglected while I’ve been writing, rewriting, worrying. Not one bud has emerged.
Our Watch Awards for excellence in media coverage of domestic violence were inaugurated last week. These awards are a major step towards preventing family violence in Australia.
Housework may not assist creativity for everyone. Some people tell me they thrive on chaos. For me housework is itself a creative activity. I find it very satisfying. Every week, when my house is clean and pretty, I feel as if I’ve created a glimpse of a peaceful paradise.
Our family has a long-standing tradition of Christmas pudding making. It is a precious event in my calendar. I should have known that to write a blog about it would be difficult. There are so many memories, so much to say, that I’m afraid I won’t do justice to the custom. But our Christmas pudding …
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National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenges writers to write a novel during November. Begun in the USA in 1999, it is now an international event NaNoWriMo is a month-long challenge, when aspiring and established fiction-writers take to their computers in an attempt to write a 50 000 word novel in just thirty days. The idea is to write a …
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This is a review of Helen Garner’s Joe Cinque’s Consolation written for the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014 Helen Garner has done it again!
