I had a fabulous day out recently at the City Arts Centre in Edinburgh, in particular viewing the Scottish Arts Trust Landscape Awards exhibition. Before I write into that space, I’d like to mention a gallery I visited last month in Dundee (yes, I’ve been so slack, I’m only just getting around to post). Tartan, […]
The Extreme Pleasure of Being Salvador Dali
I meant to post this a while back. It is the monologue I read (performed?) in Nova Scotia earlier this year. After dithering about what to read, I stumbled across a wonderful photograph of Dali in the old Church we were staying at and decided it was a sign. In fact, I used the picture […]
A World Without David Bowie isn’t Quite Right
Christmas can be sad. But it doesn’t have to be. It’s up to us. Like any other time of the year, we make it what we can, what we will. Christmases with young children are the best. We adults have to put aside our own melancholy to ensure they have fun and, in the process, […]
I know what I like: Recent Reads
I no longer review books in the traditional sense, but I love to talk about authors and their books and, as in art, I know what I like. I’ve been reading via Kindle (the accessibility for a traveller makes it a necessity but I miss holding the real thing in my hand) and there are […]
Art, Stories and Poetry in Nova Scotia
As my time in beautiful Parrsboro comes to a close, I’ll give a brief wrap-up. In addition to the poetry events mentioned in my last post, I had a wonderful workshop morning with a group of local writers. I already knew that Canada produces some exceptional writers; now I know that a lot of them […]
The Poet Laureate amongst us
What do you call a collection of poets? Are we a Bunch? A Rumble? It could be a League, but that gives a notion of prior connection. A Roundup? A Gathering, perhaps. In ancient Rome, we might have been a Circle, given that there were philosophers and historians co-mingling. Someone suggested a ‘hoard of beatniks’. […]
Alice in Iceland
This photo I took at Jokulsarlon glacier lagoon last year goes perfectly with my story Alice … Incomplete, originally published in Forty South’s 2017 Tasmanian Writers Prize Anthology. Here’s the full story. Alice Incomplete As you can tell, Alice … Incomplete, pays homage to Charles Blackman’s painting, The Blue Alice. If you’d like to read […]
My New Site
Hello there friends, You have landed on my new Blog which is now part of my Website created in April 2022. I have copied a couple of old posts over to get me started but I’ve not worked out how to bring them all over with comments, etc. so, for now, I will leave the […]
Paper Women
I have been silent for too long My soft tresses pulled taut in a bun of compliance complicit? These are the opening lines from my poem ‘Hashtag’ which won the Blue Knot Foundation Award in the Hunter Valley Grieve Project in 2018. The poem came to mind again when I read about Amanda Firenze’s outstanding project Paper […]
Chesil Beach
Look at moi! Standing – in my usual awkward pose – “on Chesil Beach”. Ian McEwan is my Literary crush so, unsurprisingly, a tear or ten escaped soon after this pic was snapped. I was similarly moved years ago when I discovered I had followed in McEwan’s footsteps when visiting Bruny Island in Tasmania. I […]