1. Scandal at the festival  Writers’ festivals have mushroomed in […]

No, ‘write about what you know’ wasn’t a restriction; it wasn’t a hobbling, as I’d thought it had been as a rebellious child — but I still had to reach that conclusion in my own pace, at my own time, and the way I’d got there had been enriching in itself.

Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes the unexpected happens. Somebody breaches the unspoken protocol by accident or design ... and then the veneer peels off, cogs fly off the well-oiled machine and veer off in all directions.

I remember the first time I picked up a Mary […]

There's a new Gold Rush apparently going on in the literary world in the USA, and though it hasn't quite reached Australian shores yet, echoes of it are already echoing across the Pacific to us.

The other day I listened again to the record that was one of the enduring musical milestones of my childhood, though it was recorded when I was scarcely two years old.

 Once upon a time, and not so long ago, there […]

The Strange Case of the Illyrian Emerald: A Christmas cracker

We love box-sets of TV series at our house, and the Christmas holidays is a great time to catch up on some you may have missed. Here’s some suggestions.