Moeroa didn’t really need a coat. She was only crossing the road. But a coat made it official: Tonight she would be paid for her work. She’d secured a real, official, proper, actual job.
How do Australian authors describe Australian landscapes, making it fresh every time? Here are some examples.
Jobst Schuster did not believe in magic. He wished he did. If he believed in magic, he might not think he was losing his mind.
Autism Awareness (TM) is starting to impact reader interpretations of texts which seem to star Autistic main characters.
I will meet my husband tonight. I’m not yet sure what he looks like. But, like the perfect pair of shoes, I’ll know him when I see him. I’ve met him in my mind, in these daydreams I call ‘flash forwards’: a hazy, pale face with brownish hair. Well, that narrows it down. Tonight is…
Is it possible to become an ethical psychopath? Charlie wrestles with her urges to create havoc by puppeteering her peers.
“Mrs Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat” is a misogynist short story by British author Roald Dahl, and an excellent example of Hate Your Wife humour. You’ll find it in Dahl’s 1959 collection Kiss, Kiss. I call this story “Mean-spirited Gift of the Magi”. WHERE TO LISTEN You may be able to unearth the BBC dramatization…
A fairytale re-visioning and reclamation of the old tale Little Red Riding Hood, which the Grimm Brothers repurposed to keep women and girls in their place.
How many drafts do fiction authors really write. Also: what counts as a draft?
Did the 2020 efforts towards diversity and inclusion in the wake of George Floyd impact the systemic racial bias in publishing and reviewing?
Here’s an example of the floating camera technique opening a novel by Marian Keyes: June the first, a bright summer’s evening, a Monday. I’ve been flying over the streets and houses of Dublin and now, finally, I’m here. I enter through the roof. Via a skylight I slide into a living room and right away…
Well, that’s Mondays for you. I haven’t been at my workstation five minutes when I get the curly finger come-on. Oh Mary, Mary. You do things to me with that red-polished index finger of yours. I always know I’m *In Trouble* when you summon me into the boardroom for another of our private meetings. I…
A man stops to pick up a teenage girl hitch-hiker on a foggy New Zealand highway one night. Why does he do these things when he’s shown no gratitude?
“The Wind Blows” is a short story by New Zealand Modernist writer Katherine Mansfield. Below I share my re-visioned version which uses similar structure, plot points and Mansfield-esque language techniques but I have set my version in contemporary New Zealand.
Allegra Joy lives in regional Australia, where suitably Goth boyfriend material is sorely lacking. One day she meets a mysterious stranger.