Meet My Character: Blog Hop
This is an unusual blog for me as I don’t often write about my books (a situation that will change as I am upgrading/changing my website soon – watch this space!) but the notion came via a lovely invitation from the wonderful writer, Josephine Pennicott, author of the fabulous Poet’s Cottage and Currawong Manor as well as […]
Book Review: Heresy by SJ Parris
This was a strange book in so many ways – and I mean that more positively than to infer the opposite – strange can be good, right? Ostensibly a historical novel that, while a work of fiction features real people – the main one being the lead character, the excommunicate Roman priest and humanist philosopher, […]
“This is true love… you think this happens everyday?”
Ten points if you can guess where that quote comes from… if you can’t, I will reveal at the end of the blog… So, here we are, another year. Happy New Year! I really hope that whatever plans you’ve made (even not making any), come to fruition and that you have many adventures, love and […]
Is celebrity gossip women’s domain?
I was drawn to write my column this week on this topic because of something Australian Today show host, Karl Stefanovich said during the segment “Girls on the Grill”. Discussing the recent Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes split, he made the observation that he didn’t know a single bloke who was interested in this story. That comment served […]
Book Review: A Necessary End, Peter Robinson
A Necessary End is no. 3 in the Inspector Banks series and as far as the others go (I am reading them out of order which is not a problem), it lacks the tight pacing of both the two previous books and later ones. Commencing with an anti-nuclear demonstration in which a policeman is killed, […]
Acceptance Speech Norma K. Hemming Award
The Norma K Hemming Award was announced on June 11th in Melbourne, at the Continuum conference. Sara Douglass was a joint winner for her book The Devil’s Diadem. For health reasons, i was unable to be there to receive it on her behalf, but I did write the acceptance speech which I know would have […]
Illumination news
I’ve decided I’m not very good at putting up info about my books. I must get better at it. I also have to update my website – and I will. After Illumination comes out. See, that’s my problem. At the moment, my year is divided into two halves: BI and AI – Before Illumination and […]
Sexiness fails to raunch in music videos
This is the unedited version of my column that appeared in the Courier Mail, Wednesday 23rd May 20102. Music mogul, 60-year old Mike Stock, who was part of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, the trio responsible for producing many hits in the 1980s and 90s, and for launching Kylie Minogue’s career, has publicly condemned the risqué […]
Double standards for women in the workplace
This is the unedited version of my column which appears in the Courier Mail, 16 May 2012. If there’s one thing our culture is absolutely superb at, it’s promoting double standards. Over the last few days, this has become more than apparent, once again, in the area of women’s appearances. First, there was the […]
Book Review: Kate Forsyth’s Bitter Greens
Recuperating from pretty awful surgery has given me the chance to indulge in my absolute favourite past-time: reading. I read a great deal anyhow, particularly when researching my novels and for my newspaper columns, but for sheer joy doesn’t happen often enough. One of the upsides of being unwell is that it’s given me an […]