In researching speakers and material for the NSW Writers’ Centre event Honouring: Randolph Stow I had the pleasure of not only re-connecting with Stow’s work but also discovering that he was not the person I had thought him to be. In 2014, the NSWWC introduced a new series of events, Honouring Australian Writers, to pay […]

In the title poem of Inside My Mother, we are immersed in the retching, garbled moments of someone between life and death. The narrator’s need to soften her mother’s hair with leaves is an intimate ritual that unfolds slowly—at times grotesque, other times clear and still. We feel we are witnessing something terrible, and sweet, […]

“In order to create, we draw from our inner well. This inner well, an artistic reservoir, is ideally like a well-stocked trout pond. We’ve got big fish, little fish, fat fish, skinny fish – an abundance of artistic fish to fry. As artists, we must realise that we have to maintain this artistic ecosystem.” – […]

Many years ago, Jane Messer rented a cubby-hole at the NSW Writers Centre to write in. She’s been a fan of the Centre ever since. She is also a lecturer in creative writing at Macquarie University, Department of English, and is a former Directer of the Australian Society of Authors. Her books include Hopscotch, Provenance […]

Reading is how writers are born, it’s how they hone their craft, it’s what happens when the writing’s done. You can’t have one without the other.

Some picture books aren’t meant to be read with a child on a sunny picnic blanket. In fact, some picture books aren’t meant to be read by children at all. Daydreams for Night (Simply Read Books, 2014) is one such book.   Better known as a singer-songwriter, Daydreams for Night is John Southworth’s first foray […]

Mark Mordue was the 2010 Pascall Prize Australian Critic of the Year. He is an internationally published writer and his book, Dastgah: Diary of a Headtrip was shortlisted for The City of Brisbane/Qantas Asia-Pacific Travel Writing Award 2002. He has just completed a novel, Things That Year,  and is currently developing a biography of the […]

The instant that Lucy Dougan cites Andrea Arnold’s 2009 film Fish Tank as a touchstone of her collection, I know I’m going to like it. The Guardians has all the austerity and noiselessness of Arnold’s film, thematically linked with brief flashes of wildness in suburban life. The Guardians is Dougan’s fourth poetry collection. Her first, […]

Emma Ashmere’s first novel, The Floating Garden, has just been published by Spinifex Press. Set in 1920s Sydney, it tells the forgotten story of the people whose houses were demolished when the Harbour Bridge was built. A thoroughly modern Australian love story, it is also about the universal themes of resilience, the hidden price of […]