After ten years of drafting, re-drafting, rejection and bottom-drawer lurking, my short story The Button Story found a home in the shortlist for the Deakin University/Geelong Regional Library’s inaugural Local Word writing competition. First prize went to Dani Netherclift’s sensational Telephone and Address Book which is a wonderful read. You can read Dani’s story and the rest of us shortlisters here.

After an extended period gathering cobwebs, I’m dusting myself off to run an exciting new workshop at the Geelong Library & Heritage Centre on 3 September 2022.

The ‘Rewriting Our Inner Critic’ workshop is a supported ‘self-help pep-talk’ session to help writers (or those too scared to call themselves a writer) overcome self-doubt and the mental roadblocks to putting pen to paper.

The session will cover common myths and barriers that get in the way of creativity, with supported activities to help participants turn down the volume on their inner critic and get creating.

More info and bookings here.

I’m proud to have worked with the World Health Organisation’s Western Pacific Region Office on their recent publication Celebrating Women’s Voices in the Western Pacific Region: Leadership, Diversity and Health.

I was honoured to interview women from across the region about their work and experience as leaders in health and wellbeing, and their contributions towards gender equality in health across the Pacific.

A few months ago I had the pleasure of speaking as part of a panel hosted by Women’s Health Victoria exploring engaging men and masculinities as part of gender transformative work. The panel was part of a full day forum that also included the launch of a resource I co-developed with the very talented Stephanie Rich for Women’s Health Victoria titled ‘Towards gender transformative change: a guide for practitioners.‘

You can watch a recording from the panel (in which I am sat directly in the way of the projector, thus transforming my forehead into part of the projection experience) below:

 

 

The wonderful Louise Allan has a great section on her website called ‘Writers in the Attic’ which I find incredibly inspiring and validating. Louise and I spent a week together at Varuna earlier this year and I was delighted she asked me into the attic. Here I am, talking about biscuits.

 

 

A few weeks back I tweeted a tweet about our refrigerator and that tweet went gangbusters. 43,000 likes later – this is the story of that tweet.

I’m jolly well delighted to be included in this year’s Going Down Swinging (which, by-the-by, is GORGEOUS to behold). My story ‘The Great Pretender’ was inspired by a research tangent I spiralled out on during research for The Book of Ordinary People. Rather than doing what I had planned to do, I spent a delightful day in the State Library of Victoria reading about the various pretenders to abolished or usurped thrones across the globe. It was something I’d never considered and was fascinated by: what would life be like for these would-be royals and what if one of them ended up in suburban Australia? Pretenders to the throne – they’re just like us!

Pigeonholed can be purchased on the GDS website.

Every so often a review comes along that makes you collapse onto the desk and happy cry. This is that review.

Nothing puffs out the chest like a nice review from an author you admire! (Even her reviews are exquisitely written…)

Thank you to Sam Still Reading for this lovely review of The Book of Ordinary People!