A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes one thing (person, place, mood etc) by mentioning another, thus, inviting the reader to make a comparison between the two. (Sometimes they are differentiated from similes—which contain the word like—but for the purposes of this round-up I am including similes as a type of metaphor). The word metaphor is derived from the Latin metaphora which means ‘carrying over’, in other words, the meaning of one thing is carried over or applied to a different thing.

Of all the figures of speech one finds in literature, metaphors are perhaps the most egregiously misused, in the sense that there are so many awkward or incompatible comparisons made, but also because they are one of the areas of writing where people are most likely to collapse into cliché. Or to put it another way:

Coming up with a fresh metaphor is like getting blood from a stone — you dig deep, but the well ran dry long before you got there. You want your image to hit like a bolt from the blue, but more often than not it lands flat as a pancake; true originality is like catching lightning in a bottle.

For this reason, I started keeping a spreadsheet of metaphors that felt fresh or striking, as a resource for teaching. Reading through this collection recently, I was struck by the many different ways metaphors can be used.

Metaphors for Characterisation

Describing character’s faces is something I tend to avoid in my writing, partly because it’s difficult to find ways to describe a human face that somehow convey the distinctiveness of that face. Simply describing hair or eye colour, or a prominent nose doesn’t quite get the job done, and the description can often feel hackneyed, especially if the person is beautiful. Here is where metaphors can come in:

I know what my face looks like. I know what it means. My eyes droop like I’m fucked up, like I’m high, and my mouth hangs open all the time. There’s too much space between each of the parts of my face—eyes, nose, mouth, spread out like a drunk slapped it on reaching for another drink.

There, There, Tommy Orange

I looked like something that had dropped off a spoon too quickly before it had time to set.

Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney

What I like about the above metaphors is what they reveal about the narrator’s sense of self: in each there is an uncomfortable self-awareness about the way they appear to others, which is far more revealing than a description of features.

He had a slightly lazy eye, which would stray only when he’d been staring at you for a long time, as if the eye were done with the conversation and was hinting at the rest of him that it was time to go.

Fleishman is in Trouble, Taffy Brodesser-Akner

I told him he had the brilliant eyes of a Victorian child who would die the same night of Scarlet fever.

Sorrow and Bliss, Meg Mason

This description takes a specific physical quality (brilliant eyes) but filters it through the playful, irreverent lens of the narrator, thus giving insight into both the narrator and the person she is describing.

Metaphors are not only useful for describing a character’s appearance. They can also be used to powerful effect to describe specific personality traits:

He laughed with real enjoyment, as a child laughs at a good lie.

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin

And also to describe the overall sense of a person:

I think about my older sister. Raucous laughter and bewildering silence, like my father. Two gears, first and fourth, my mother said.

A Truce That Is Not Peace, Miriam Toews

[She] had struck him as dark. Not depressed, or Goth, more what’s called saturnine. She seemed to occupy, helplessly, a square of Earth plagued by an excess of gravity, or shaded by a tiny storm cloud…It wasn’t a thing she had the power to decorate or disguise.

The Arrest, Jonathan Lethem

In addition, they can be used to shed light on relationships between characters:

Harris and I are more formal, like two diplomats who aren’t sure if the other one has poisoned our drink.

All Fours, Miranda July

Metaphors for Dialogue Attribution

Sometimes a writer grows weary of describing the way a character delivers a line of dialogue using:

• EXCITING verbs (she growled, he wailed, she screeched, he whispered etc) OR

• EXTRAVAGANT adverbs (languidly, beseechingly, angrily, nonchalantly)

Metaphors can be a fresh way of descriing how a character is speaking:

He had told me that he loved me. He said it very simply. As if he were carrying a bag of brown coal up from the cellar.

The Man Who Saw Everything, Deborah Levy

[She] spoke with finality, a rubber band snapped against the fingers.

Our Country Friends, Gary Shteyngart

She recited this in the green tone of something freshly learned from a book.

The World Without Us, Mireille Juchau

Action Metaphors

In the same way that readers don’t want to know only what’s being said but how it’s being said, readers also want to know how characters are performing actions, as the how can reveal how the character feels about the actions they’re taking:

Slow, shambling little figures, they worried the big beam along like a lot of ants with a dead caterpillar.

The Word for World is Forest, Ursula LeGuin

He is swaying with the movement of this train as it moves through the spruce woods and farmland, almost as if he’s a working part of its mechanical structure.

Autumn, Ali Smith

He touched me cautiously, like a deer touches things with its face.

Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney

We hugged each other like two people who had no practical experience of embracing, had only taught themselves the theory from a poorly worded manual.

Sorrow and Bliss, Meg Mason

Metaphors for Inner States

Inner states are complex, layered things. They can’t always be summed up in one or two adjectives: she felt agitated; he was contented. Sometimes a metaphor can evoke a great deal more about a character’s inner state:

Unhappiness grows slowly. It lingers inside you, silently, surreptitiously. You nourish it, feeding it scraps of yourself every day—it is the dog kept locked away in the back patio that will bite your hand off if you let it.

Lost Children Archive, Valeria Luiselli

In the wakeful hours between midnight and dawn, it was as if he himself was looking for a path across the river, a perfect beat of stones that would carry him to the far bank without washing him downstream. The river was not kind or helpful. And sometimes there was ice all around him and he was cold. The forest was death overgrown with life.

The Museum of Modern Love, Heather Rose

My body felt completely disposable, like a placeholder for something more valuable. I fantasised about taking it apart and lining my limbs up side by side to compare them.

Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney

I was glowing and the heat in me radiated outwards. I felt as if bellows had been placed between the bars of my ribcage and the coals of me blown into full flame.

Daughters of the North, Sarah Hall

Metaphors for Setting Description

A good setting description conveys not simply what a place looks like, but how a place feels for the characters who are within that setting. Metaphors can make a place description more clear and precise, or they can help create a mood:

I am now above the roofline of the house, the chimneys poking through the damp cloth of steaming rain like the ears of a giant animal.

Frankisstein, Jeanette Winterson

For days we laboured through the milk soup of a jellyfish bloom—millions of alien blobs crowding the water like malignant cells, their tentacles strung with debris, dragging at the hull.

The Trespassers, Meg Mundell

The energy in the room was warm and loving, like that plate of food your mom brings back for you from a party at your aunt’s house.

Juliet Takes a Breath, Gabby Rivera

Sometimes setting is not simply describing a place or establishing a time-period, but is providing a sense of context for the action in which a whole story will unfold:

All across the country, what had happened whipped about by itself as if a live electric wire had snapped off a pylon in a storm and was whipping about in the air above the trees, the roofs, the traffic.

Autumn, Ali Smith

Weather Metaphors

It is nearly impossible to say anything new about weather! Every kind of weather has been described a zillion times. And yet, somehow, some writers manage to do it, with the help of—you guessed it—metaphor:

The light down here was reddish, like the inside of a whale.

The Trespassers, Meg Mundell

The sun conducted itself like a timid visitor, entering my rooms hesitantly and fleeing in haste.

Scary Monsters, Michelle De Kretser

Extended Metaphors

While most metaphors are contained within a single sentence, an extended metaphor builds a multi-layered, detailed parallel between two seemingly dissimilar things to provide deeper insight. Sometimes an extended metaphor can operate at a symbolic level throughout an entire story:

The liver was unique in the way that it healed. It was full of forgiveness. It understood that you needed a few chances before you got your life right. And it wouldn’t just forgive you; it would practically for-get. It would allow you to start over in a way that he could not imagine was true in any other avenue of life. We should all be like the liver, he thought. We should all regenerate like this when we’re injured. On the darkest days of his marriage, Toby attended to his hospital business, and out of the corner of his eyes was always the liver, whispering to him that one day, there would be not much sign of all of this damage. He would regenerate, too.

Fleishman is in Trouble, Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Meta Metaphors

And finally, from the brilliant British writer Ali Smith, a sly reference to the use of metaphors:

The sycamore seed hits the glass in the wind like—no, not like anything else, like sycamore seeds hitting window glass.

Autumn, Ali Smith

Are you stuck in a rut with the way you use metaphors? Which of the types of metaphors above do you tend to gravitate towards? Do you need to think outside the box and experiment with some new ways of incorporating metaphors into your writing? Let me know in the comments.

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Recently, I saw a man cycling through the streets of Northbridge, talking animatedly to himself while pushing along a wheeled-suitcase, with a dog on a lead trotting beside him. He was clearly mentally ill, but he was also achieving things which I could only dream of—I can barely ride a bike, and if I attempted to add a suitcase and an animal into the mix I would almost certainly end up in an ambulance. I was struck by the combination of competence and dysfunction he displayed simultaneously.

I found myself pondering whether in a sense—though perhaps to a less obvious extent—this is how we all move through the world: juggling competence and dysfunction. For example, in social situations, in my job as a creative writing teacher, or when performing in To Whom It May Concern: Complaint Letters Live! I might appear confident, capable and composed (I hope!) Meanwhile, in private, there are times when I find myself completely overwhelmed by seemingly ordinary challenges. My dysfunction doesn’t negate my competence in other areas; alas, nor does my competence eliminate my dysfunction! Instead, they coexist within me, taking turns to steal the limelight.

Overwhelm and Baby Steps

Lately, due to a combination of factors—including menopausal symptoms; my long-term depression rearing its head; gut health issues, and a nasty rash, and working really hard on my disordered eating with no visible results—my dysfunction seems to have been winning the battle against my competence. The best word to describe how I have felt the last few weeks is overwhelmed.

Overwhelm comes from an archaic word for being engulfed or submerged—a perfect metaphor for the feeling. When I fall into a heap in which almost everything feels too difficult, I rely on a mantra I borrowed from the Scouts: leave the campground better than you found it. If my kitchen is a mess of used cups and plates and dirty benches, I don’t have to tidy up the whole room, I just have to leave it better than I found it, and that could be as simple as putting a banana skin in the FOGO bin.

This approach also works for me when it comes to exercise. When I am bombarded with messaging about walking 10,000 steps a day, and doing 5 x 30 minutes of aerobic exercise per week, plus muscle strengthening exercises, and I’m tired because menopause has affected my sleep, and I have no energy because I’m iron deficient, and my back, neck and shoulders are stiff, going to the pool to swim laps is the last thing I feel like doing. Swimming 600 metres falls so far short of what I should be doing that it feels pointless. However, if I don’t do anything at all, I am falling victim to what Voltaire called ‘letting the perfect be the enemy of the good’.

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The magic of gentle encouragement

Recently, I was talking to my friend Maggie and her dear little boy, Francis, who hates daycare, and has just been moved to the ‘big kids’ room - a large transition for a small person who was already uncomfortable.

Francis was very brave today, weren’t you? Maggie said to him.

I was brave, he confirmed.

You did really well in the big kids room, didn’t you?

Yes, Francis, said uncertainly.

My heart felt so warm listening to this exchange. It reminded me of a quote I read from The Talmud.

Sometimes I need an angel bending over me, whispering words of encouragement. Or, I need my friend Maggie talking to me as though I am two years old. The bad news is that no one is going to do this for me. The good news—according to the therapy I’ve been doing—is that I can be my own whispering angel.

You’re being so brave today, Annabel! You went to the pool even though you felt like lying on the couch. You moved your body, and oxygenated your blood. You left the campground (your body) better than you found it. You did so well!

How this applies to writing

Gentle, encouraging self-talk and choosing to take baby steps are strategies that also work really well for writing—or any creative practice. When I was getting started as a writer, I read lots of advice that said, you must write every day. My circumstances didn’t permit me to do that, which meant I didn’t get started with trying to be a writer; a classic example of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. If you find yourself saying things like:

• I need a chunk of a few clear days to edit my manuscript in one go

• There’s no point writing unless I have at least half a day to get stuck in

• Anything less than 500 words and I may as well not bother

I encourage you to reconsider. Your writing practice doesn’t need to be perfect, or to wait for the circumstances to be ideal. All you need to do to is to leave the campground better than you find it. This could be an action as small as:

• Tidying your desk so you can hit the ground running the next time you have an opportunity to write

• Writing for 10-15 minutes if that’s all you have

• Correcting one small error in your manuscript

Over time, these small actions keep you moving in the right direction, instead of feeling completely stuck and frustrated.

What is one small action you could take this week to leave the campground better than you found it?

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Things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• TV | For All Mankind This show is a slow burn, which gets better and better. I love the exploration of how politics affects space exploration, and the complicated dynamics of the relationship between the US/Russian space programs.

• Books | Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. Yes, I know, I am really late to this! Her evocation of people’s inner states is honestly astonishing.

• Substack | ‘So Recently I had an Actual Nervous Breakdown’ by Jameela Jamil. Incredibly vulnerable piece about a man attacking her and the impact on her nervous system.

• Opinion | ‘People once cited romcoms to describe the love they hoped for. Now the doomscroll has replaced the meet-cute’ As a person who did a lot of dating in my mid to late 40s, this article resonated: “Romcom love is for hot people. The dating apps are for the rest of us.” If you have single friends, I very much recommend reading this, as an insight into what they might be going through.

What’s the story with that ugly teddy bear? I asked her, once I knew her well enough to be frank. She said her daughter had made it, and though she knew it was ugly, she felt compelled to display it, encouraging her daughter’s efforts.

Would you like me to accidentally knock it off the wall, and break it for you? I asked. She declined.

As a creative writing teacher, a significant part of my job is marking. Many of my students are very young, have had relatively little life experience to draw on, and much of their own reading is generic, and mediocre. As a result, the stories they submit for assessments can often be wildly implausible, or clichéd and derivative. Often, they try experiments they can’t pull off, featuring extended metaphors (a relationship as a train journey; life as a series of rooms off an endless corridor etc). At some point, some bozo spread the idea that every good story has a twist, and boy did my students embrace this advice!

Newsflash: A really good short story does not need a twist.

As I read my eighth story featuring a moody undergrad falling into a forbidden romance while brooding poetically about despair, in which a tragic ghost and a vague magical curse mirror their sadness, I have to remind myself of the bigger picture (a clichéd metaphor I would slam them for using!).

I am not simply marking assessments; I am doing so much more than that. I am mentoring people who are exploring their creativity, contemplating lives in which their creativity may play a central role, or, who want creativity to be part of their lives—even if their careers lie in psychology, or youth work, or politics.

I believe, very strongly, that creativity is vitally important to us as human beings; that by expressing ourselves creatively, in any way, we have a chance to live richer, more fulfilled lives. Even if the creative work we do is not our ‘career’; even if we never make any money from it at all; even if it’s just for ourselves, I believe it still has inherent value and meaning.

In Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about the ‘art scars’ many people carry—formative experiences of having their creative efforts belittled, mocked or ridiculed—which led to them abandoning their creative dreams. With this in mind, despite the exasperation I feel each time I encounter the same old hackneyed tropes in my students’ stories; despite the temptation to write something scathing, I do not want to be the person who crushes someone’s creative dreams.

The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.

Mary Oliver

The prevailing wisdom around how to deliver negative feedback uses the metaphor of the shit sandwich. Something positive (bread), followed by what’s not working (shit), followed by another positive (bread). Of course, even in a shit sandwich, you can still taste the filling. The flavour is not as strong as eating it with a spoon, but there’s no mistaking it for peanut butter. The overall palatability will also be impacted by the quality of the bread. If the shit is sandwiched between two rustic slices of artisan sourdough, you will still know you’re eating shit, but it will be less horrendous than if it is spread between two thin slices of TipTop. Ratios also matter. If the bread is thick and crusty it can support more filling. You get the picture. So what does this mean for my students?

1. Make the bread thick and crusty i.e. give them as much positive feedback as possible. Focus on any aspects of the writing that are working, and slather on the praise.

2. Spread the shit thin i.e. tell them what’s not working, but say it in the nicest possible way, and make it as constructive as possible.

I don’t have to display my students’ artworks on the walls of my home—thank god—but I don’t want to knock them to the ground and break them either. My goal is to be as generous as I can in order to nurture their fledgeling talent, interest or curiosity about inviting more creativity into their lives. Because our world needs creative people, especially young people, to face the challenges that lie ahead of us here on planet earth, to envisage brighter futures, and to make works of beauty and awe which give us solace during the dark times.

I didn’t know him well—he was not one of my son’s closest friends— and I was surprised by the extent of my grief. I found myself crying almost every day, every ordinary thing my son did a reminder of all the things Ben would never do again. I didn’t know his family, but I couldn’t stop thinking about his mother, his younger brother—how nothing in their lives would ever be the same.

I worried that my son did not appear to really be grieving. He and his friends pulled together, seeing each other every day in the week that followed; one night they visited Ben’s mother with flowers; sat with her and told funny stories. I asked him repeatedly how he was feeling, but he said he didn’t know, that he didn’t have words for it, that he didn’t really want to talk about it anyway.

When I was 22 one of my closest friends died. It was shocking, because she was so young, but it was not unexpected, because she had cancer. Jemma was 19 when she was first diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins lymphoma. After chemotherapy she went into remission, but later, the cancer resurfaced, more aggressively, in other parts of her body. She had more chemotherapy, and other, newer experimental treatments. Nothing worked. But through all this, we had time to prepare. We had time to contemplate a life without her, and, most preciously, we had time to say goodbye.

When she went into hospital for what her parents understood was the last time, they invited her dearest friends to be present. Also present were her cancer support counsellor, Charmaine, and a young man named Alain who had become something of a spiritual guide for Jemma after she had become interested in Native American spirituality. For hours and hours we sat on hard plastic chairs in the corridor outside Jemma’s room, and we talked: to her mum and dad, her brother and sister, and each other, as well as Charmaine, who had made herself available for any of us who felt we needed her support. What a gift her family gave us, to be together, not only in her death but in her dying; to share the experience and make sense of it together, instead of alone.

At one point all of us were in the small room at the same time, around Jemma’s bed. We formed a circle around her, holding each other’s hands. There was so much love in that room—it is one of the saddest and most beautiful things I have ever experienced.

[I wrote a story about my loss, called ‘Running Bear’, one of the first stories I ever had published.]

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I feel blessed that my first experience of grief was so supported and supportive. I also feel lucky that as a woman, it was normalised—even expected—for my grief to be visible. I worry that my son and his friends felt pressure to hide their grief, to be cavalier and robust.

After watching Louis Theroux’s documentary Inside the Manosphere, I’m feeling like it’s never been more important to encourage the young men in our lives—children, grandchildren, siblings, nephews, neighbours, students—to express their feelings in healthy ways, rather than channelling them into misogyny and …cryptocurrency.

I hope one day we might all live in a world where an experience of grieving like the one I had is the norm, not the exception.

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Exactly at the right time, I recently read Burntcoat, an astonishing novel about love and loss:

The dark burning river. The turning tide; everything loosening beneath tight forces. None of it was happening and it was all unstoppable. Closing the door when we got back, and promising each other we would be alright. All we had was love, its useless currency, its powerful denial.

Sarah Hall, Burntcoat

What I Ate in One Year

My new substack, inspired by Stanley Tucci’s gorgeous book of the same name, in which I muse about food and its meaning in my life.

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Other things that have intrigued me lately

• NOVEL | Whidbey by T Kira Madden - a brilliant exploration of surviving childhood sexual abuse, and the ways trauma is commodified for profit

• MOVIE | Project Hail Mary - utterly implausible but completely wonderful and heartwarming, funny and a tearjerker, an absolute delight

• TV | The Expanse Epic space opera/action/mystery/conspiracy

• ARTICLE | ‘Life is Hard, Savour Your Joy’

• ARTICLE | ‘Why You Need More Transition Time Between Tasks’

• ARTICLE | ‘Do we have to keep talking about AI?’

One of my biggest challenges last year was a reconnaissance trip I took to Edinburgh Fringe Festival, to investigate the possibility of taking my Complaint Letters Live! show there. I was lucky enough to receive a grant for my flights and accomodation from what Americans call my alma mater and what Australians call my old school. I was very excited about the trip, and imagined my triumphant return next year, taking the festival by storm! (Have I mentioned my delusions of grandeur?)

Alas, the trip was not quite what I imagined. Edinburgh is a stunning city, the Fringe festival is on an epic scale, and I saw some outstanding shows that had me both laughing and crying. But I didn’t enjoy myself at all. I felt anxious, lonely and overwhelmed by the busyness of the city. I realised putting on a show there was a challenge I wasn’t up for, and I felt foolish for underestimating what was involved in such an undertaking. After only one day, I abandoned my ambitious sightseeing plans, and retreated to a cafe, where I sat and read a book for a few hours, to decompress. (An absolute amazing book—Liars by Sarah Manguso). Part of me felt guilty for missing out on the opportunity to see everything the city had to offer. But a wiser part of me knew that the first order of business was to calm my nervous system. I kept thinking about a quote from Ocean Vuong: loneliness is still a way of being in the world. Reading in a cafe is still a way of being in Edinburgh, I told myself. I read a lot of books! And I learnt a lot about the kind of adventures that do and don’t work for me at this stage of my life.

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Complaint Letters Live at Fringe Festival | Jan 29th & 30th

After last year’s sell-out season, we’re delighted to be back at FringeWorld Perth with THREE fantastic shows at Moana Hall, Hay Street Mall:

• Thursday, January 29th at 7.30pm

• Friday, January 30th at 6pm

• Friday, January 30th at 8.30pm

Get your tickets right this minute!

We have an absolutely stellar line-up for you, featuring Fremantle Press’s Georgia Richter, who delighted audiences at Totally Lit Festival with her punctuation pedantry; fan favourite Ryan Steed, with a never-previously-aired grievance; the brilliantly dry Clinton Bell, bringing back his complaint letter to Batman himself; former skimpy barmaid Nadia Heisler-Walpole, with a letter to her skimpy alter ego; and seasoned storyteller Ange Yang, with all manner of issues about corporate breakfasts. PLUS, yours truly, with a brand new rant about the goings on at my local swimming pool.

My Favourite Reads of 2025

My favourite reads of 2025, not necessarily published in 2025, were:

• A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar | A truly thrilling story about the lengths people will go to to escape their circumstances, in a near-future society ravaged by climate change.

• La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman | a fantastic YA adventure which is a prequel to the His Dark materials trilogy.

• Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood | a meandering memoir about the author’s experiences of long Covid, super weird and filled with brilliant experiments with language; not for everyone but I loved it.

• The Mercy of Gods by James SA Corey | I think this is what’s called space opera? It was a very exciting sci-fi; well told (a rare combo).

• Liars by Sarah Manguso | An absolutely excoriating novel about wifehood and motherhood and how these things intersect with trying to live a creative life.

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Other things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• TV | Stranger Things Loved the finale! Joyce with the axe! I believe in Mike’s ending.

Walking outside my creative writing class for the last time, one of my students noticed a tinkling sound coming from some metal tags which had been hammered into the trees around us. On closer inspection we noticed the tags were numbered.

The trees, we understood, had been inventoried; probably their numbers were in a spreadsheet, and it was someone’s job to decide which of them were worth saving, and which would be destroyed. I feel sad for the person who had been given that task, but sadder for the trees that won’t be chosen—too old, too young, too spindly, too crooked.

After this wrenching realisation, I spent some time walking the campus and taking photos, to ‘get a goodbye’. ‘Getting a goodbye’ is a phrase I thought I remembered, from the opening of The Catcher in the Rye; which turned out to be not exactly right, but close enough:

What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-by or a bad goodby, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse.

JD Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Walking the campus, getting my goodbye, I saw a hoya which had been carefully trained to grow up the wall of Building 14, a wall which will soon be bulldozed, along with anything growing up it. Reader, I rescued the hoya. It will be a souvenir of a place I have been coming back to for 25 years.

I began my PhD in Creative Writing at ECU Mount Lawley, in 1999, in a demountable office, since converted to a prayer room. (I imagine it might be difficult to feel close to God in that space, but what do I know?) Within the space of a few months I had moved into my first share-house, fallen in love, and been given what seemed (and still seems) the astonishing fortune of being paid for three years to write a book—and on top of this a room of one’s own—a space to write. I felt my ‘adult life’ was beginning, and did not bemoan the metal walls or the one mean window, features which would have made it well-suited as the setting for a short film about a lowly bureaucrat in Soviet-era Russia.

I don’t have any photos from the months I spent in that office, wondering what had possessed me to think I could write a novel; all I remember is a photocopy of a poem blu-tacked to the wall above my functional MDF desk, though I no longer recall what the poem meant to me at the time, or why it seemed important for it to be something I looked at each day as I attempted to bring words of my own out from within:

This is the plum season, the nights

blue and distended, the moon

hazed, this is the season of peaches

Margaret Atwood, ‘Late August’

A decade later—an eventful decade in which I finished my PhD, moved from Perth to Melbourne and back again, had my first novel published, married and had a baby—I returned to ECU Mount Lawley, this time as a teacher, teaching English as a Foreign Language to international students. For 7 years I taught students from Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam, Colombia, China and Japan, India and Pakistan. I learnt about their cultures, and how to motivate them to learn; when to raise my voice, when to cajole; how to comfort a young bride whose husband would be delayed from joining her because his visa was dependent on her academic outcomes.

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Eight years later—an eventful eight years in which I wrote and published my third novel, The Ark, raised a child, divorced, wrote two more (as yet unpublished) novels and worked for a stint in a disability theatre company—I returned to ECU Mount Lawley once again, this time to teach Creative Writing. I have taught a cohort of students who are dorky and cool, introverted and outspoken, shy and awkward, queer and neurodivergent; young people who are full of animation about the things they are reading and watching and listening to. Yesterday, in our last class together before they graduate, and I go off to teach in the shiny new campus in the city, they took turns to read aloud from pieces of writing that are precious to them, poems and graphic novels and compilations of letters, while we shared popcorn and debated the merits of cream-filled biscuits. I felt such tenderness and excitement for them I found it difficult to let them go.

Architecturally unremarkable, the Mount Lawley ECU campus can’t compete with the sandstone grandeur of UWA, nor the showy contemporary architecture of the Joondalup campus. But it has been a formative place for me: a place for discovering, growing, connecting; a place whose ordinary buildings have changed the course of people’s lives, including my own. I guess I got my goodbye.

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Sorry for the radio silence for the last couple of months; I’ve been wading through a prolonged period of feeling very much under the weather and everything non-essential has fallen by the wayside.

My adventures with ill-health started with what appeared to be a possible heart attack, but after a long night in emergency, turned out to be my gall-bladder acting out. Phew! Not life threatening, but also, oh my god, the pain was unimaginable. I felt like someone had tied a piece of washing -line around my chest and was trying to cut me in half by pulling it as tight as they could. The strongest of opiates barely took the edge off. The only thing I could compare it to was childbirth, but at least when you’re in labour (you think) you’re getting a prize for your efforts. I felt the most enormous gratitude to the ambos, doctors, nurses and orderlies who managed to make me feel safe in a situation where I was in the most immense discomfort. Our health system is not perfect, and definitely needs more funding, but also…our health system is amazing.

Next, I got para-influenza, which is NOT influenza; it is an influenza-like virus. Other than the swine flu, (during which for ten days I felt like my brain had been beaten with a meat cleaver) no virus has ever gripped me so tight and for so long. I was properly ill for three weeks, and then even when i was ‘better’ I could barely function. No amount of sleep could replenish my energy and the brain fog was…what was I saying?

BUT because I am a casual academic, and don’t receive sick pay, I had to keep marking essays and delivering lectures and answering emails because if I didn’t do those things I would end up living in my car (and I only have a hatchback). So, as a result of continuing to push my poor depleted body when I should have been lying down watching Star Trek Next Generation (yes! I am a Trekkie now!), I developed symptoms that were so weird and scary my friend thought I was having a stroke, so it was back to emergency for me, but luckily, another false alarm: it was only a horrible horrible migraine.

Beautiful Young People

One of the things that kept me hanging on during this challenging time was my students, in particular the cohort for an undergraduate speculative fiction unit I’ve been teaching at Edith Cowan University.

[Side-bar: What is speculative fiction? I hear you ask. It is anything that is not-realist, and no, it is not just robots and aliens; it is also Frankenstein, and 1984 and feminist re-tellings of fairy tales, and climate apocalypse and so many fascinating things. It is my novel The Ark, now a decade old.]

I hear a lot about how Gen Z are lazy and entitled, but I couldn’t have been more inspired by this delightful group of students, who were so engaged by the world they live in. Our discussions encompassed sex, power, queerness, disability, and so many issues facing us today, and it was a perpetual delight and privilege to hear their perspectives.

Creative Catch-Up

Last month I attended an event at Bracks Library where Lorraine Horsley chaired gorgeous Wiradyuri writer Anita Heiss talking about her newest novel Red Dust Running, alongside local author Sara Foster, whose new novel When She Was Gone is a ripping page turner! The three of us first met at a quiz event at Perth Writers Festival more than ten years ago and have always stayed in touch, so it was lovely to have dinner with them and to talk about writing and life. No one outside the writing world really understands the highs and lows of this life we have chosen so it’s always special to spend time with people who get it (especially when you spend the whole time laughing).

Complaint Letters Live! July 10th | The Rechabite

My next monthly Complaint Letters Live! stars Fremantle Press author Jay Martin; crowd favourite Clinton Bell, whose ‘selfish Batman’ complaint letter brought the house down at Beaufort Street Books last year; food writer and Barefaced storyteller Ange Yang, and jack of all trades, master of one (writing, we hope): Raihanaty Jalil. PLUS a mystery guest! Come join us on July 10th at The Rechabite in William Street, Northbridge.

There are still earlybird tickets available for $25 so get in quick! Concession tickets are the low low price of $15 as always.

Buy tickets this very minute!

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Other things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• Book | Reading and LOVING Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s new novel Dream Count

• Film | Wes Anderson | The Phoenician Scheme Not his most heartfelt work and the plot felt unnecessarily convoluted, but I swoon over his art direction and watch his films in a trance

• TV | The Studio was a romp, especially if you are a film lover

• Substack | Erica Berry | I Love Your Mediocrity I don’t know who this author is or how I ended up subscribed to her substack but her musing on how ‘the parts of my selfhood I struggle with most are intermeshed with the parts I hold most beloved’ was thought-provoking and resonant for me

• OP Ed | Lyz Lenz| I'm a Great Cook. Now That I'm Divorced, I'm Never Making Dinner for a Man Again

Last year, WA author Emma Young bravely posted the photo and caption below on Instagram.

Here is me smiling bravely on the night I heard I didn't win the potentially life-changing $60,000 WA Premier's Award I was shortlisted for. And that was by no means the worst emotional hammering of the year, though it was certainly up there. In fact this year I have received four crushing professional blows, each more devastating than the last. ⁠

I admire Emma’s vulnerability and authenticity in sharing these feelings so publicly, and I very much relate to her comments about crushing professional blows. I’ve certainly had my share of those, the most significant of which is spending 8 years completing 2 novels for which I haven’t managed to find a publisher.

Emma followed up with a series of questions for fellow creatives that I found very thought-provoking, and have been wanting to answer ever since. 6 months later, I am finally getting round to it!

• How do you balance the need to use social media with the need to protect yourself from toxic envy of other writers' achievements? ⁠

• How do you deal with the cognitive dissonance that comes from only publicly representing the positive parts of your career, and knowing in so doing you're probably causing others to feel toxic envy for you in turn? ⁠

• How do you communicate your setbacks and the financial reality of being a writer to make all that media a bit realer, without being unprofessional and potentially alienating the system and organisations you are a part of? ⁠

• How do you maintain a focus on remembering, being proud of and celebrating the achievements that preceded the failures?⁠

• How do you protect and heal yourself from the disappointment of rejection and failure professionally and maintain the spirit to continue applying for things and pushing, over the long haul (years and decades)? ⁠

• How do you practice acceptance of the state of the creative industries in Australia and WA, and your own powerlessness to change this? ⁠

• How do you back away from it all and create the space to write, but maintain the online presence (and physical networking/socialising presence) you need to keep your career moving forward and your books selling? And while maintaining your presence within your family and friendship circles? ⁠

I’m going to give my answers to these questions below, but first, a small promo.

Complaint Letters Live! April 17th | The Rechabite

My next monthly Complaint Letters Live! starring Nadia Heisler-Walpole, Sharron Booth, Shannon Meyerkort and Katherine Allum, is April 17th at The Rechabite in William Street, Northbridge.

There are still a few earlybird tickets available for $25 so get in quick! Concession tikets are the low low price of $15 as always.

Buy Tickets

My Reflections on Emma’s Questions

• How do you balance the need to use social media with the need to protect yourself from toxic envy of other writers' achievements? ⁠

I spend very little time on social media. I log on, post what I need to, read the few posts that are on the front page of my feed, and then log off. I don’t have social media on my phone so I have to sit at my desk to use it, which massively reduces the temptation to doom scroll, and exposure to other writers’ success posts, which, in turn, reduces my envy of and preoccupation with other writers’ success. Twitter was probably my biggest source of professional envy, and thanks to Voldemort, I no longer use Twitter so that has helped a lot. I unfollow anyone who makes me feel toxic envy, even if my envy of that person might not seem rational to anyone else.

• How do you deal with the cognitive dissonance that comes from only publicly representing the positive parts of your career, and knowing in so doing you're probably causing others to feel toxic envy for you in turn? ⁠

Many years ago I wrote a blog post titled On Not Making a Living from Writing, in which I shared my pitiful earnings for the financial year. This post received significantly more views, shares and comments than anything I had ever written, and it made me realise these were the stories people really wanted to hear. It gave me the courage to be authentic. From then on, I have tried to share the challenges and frustrations of my writing life, as much as my successes. I tend to unfollow writers who only share the positive side of writing, as I find it inauthentic and irritating.

• How do you communicate your setbacks and the financial reality of being a writer to make all that media a bit realer, without being unprofessional and potentially alienating the system and organisations you are a part of? ⁠

This is a tougher question to answer. Because I haven’t had a book out for ten years (did I mention that?!), I haven’t had to worry about how being honest about my disappointments in my writing career might reflect on my publisher/agent etc. I’d be very interested to hear how other writers manage this. Leave me a comment!

• How do you maintain a focus on remembering, being proud of and celebrating the achievements that preceded the failures?⁠

I believe this is something we have to be very intentional about. I think keeping a list that you add to whenever something happens that you feel good about is a valuable strategy, because that is something you can go back to when it all feels hopeless. Recently, I’ve been sharing daily ‘glimmers’ with a friend via text. Glimmers are the opposite of triggers—moments that bring us joy, pleasure, connectedness or other good feelings. It could be a good idea to keep a glimmers diary for writing or even to have a glimmer buddy you share the small, enlivening moments with. (NB: Make sure your buddy is not someone whose glimmers might be things like, Hit the NYT bestseller list!, and more someone who might share, Finished a motherf*cker of a scene today! Flex emoji).

• How do you protect and heal yourself from the disappointment of rejection and failure professionally and maintain the spirit to continue applying for things and pushing, over the long haul (years and decades)? ⁠

For me, this is partly about time. Sometimes after a painful rejection, or series of what feel like rejections (e.g. missing out on grants etc), I have to take a break from putting myself out there, because I know I don’t have the resilience to cope with any further rejection. I wait until my skin thickens again, and then—to mix a metaphor—I get back on the horse. Sometimes it can take months and at the back of my mind are all the opportunities I’m potentially missing out on during that time. But I’ve learnt to let go of that. There will always be new opportunities and I’ll apply for them when I’m in the right headspace and my bruised soul has healed a bit.

But the other part of this question concerns the idea of ‘professional failure’.

I believe it is vitally important for creatives to differentiate between creative success and public or commercial success.

We tend to equate success with the ways our work is valued in the wider world—through awards or sales or publication deals etc. But if I am writing work that I believe in, and feel proud of; work that is the very best work I’m capable of, that, to me, is still creative success, even if it’s not recognised externally as such. What has been helpful to me is to create my own definition of success, and to remind myself of that when I feel like a ‘failure’ because my work is not being valued by grant panels, critics, readers etc

Sara Foster wrote a great post on this topic, in which she differentiates between intrinsic value, cultural value and marketplace value, and I found this a really helpful way of considering the question of professional success.

The Resilient Author

Three different, essential ways for us to value our creative work

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the different values we place on creativity, especially as there’s so much brilliant and honest work here on Substack about both the joys and struggles of the author journey. It can be hard to continue to value what we’re doing when we constantly have the unforgiving marketplace and online spaces reflecting distorte…

Read more

2 years ago · 9 likes · 2 comments · Sara Foster

• How do you practice acceptance of the state of the creative industries in Australia and WA, and your own powerlessness to change this?

I try to think about it as little as possible. Reducing time spent on social media helps with this. If I’m not always reading about it, I’m less likely to worry about it. But if book sales make a huge difference to your income, then the state of the industry is going to be an ongoing source of stress. So for me, the biggest piece of this particular puzzle has been accepting that I’m probably never going to make a living from writing. It took me a long time to arrive at that acceptance. Like most writers, my early success gave me hope that my sales were going to grow continually, to a point where I could make a reasonable living from my books.

It seems a common assumption among writers, that each book will sell more than the last. But I think, for a very large proportion of writers, it is simply not what happens.

Letting go of the expectation of that has been helpful.

• How do you back away from it all and create the space to write, but maintain the online presence (and physical networking/socialising presence) you need to keep your career moving forward and your books selling? And while maintaining your presence within your family and friendship circles? ⁠

There is very little evidence that online presence equates to book sales, so I don’t invest too much time in social media. I do it when I’m in the mood, and am quite irregular about it. I’m sure that affects my statistics but it protects my sanity - everything’s a trade-off! I do very little networking and feel completely out of the loop in WA writing circles. I have become introverted in middle-age and only go to writing events I feel genuinely excited about. And, as much as possible, I try to avoid putting pressure on myself around my writing goals.

I remind myself that in the beginning, this is something I chose to do because I loved it. The more pressure I put on myself, the less I’ll enjoy the process.

My books take forever to write, and for now, I’m okay with that.

I would love to hear other writers’ responses to Emma’s questions.

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Other things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• Film | Anora I loved the vulnerability of this film and the fearlessness Mikey Madison brought to her character; more female heroines like this, please!

• TV | Severance This show had so many things working for it: an intriguing sci-fi premise, great performances and incredible production design. But the pacing was agonising and I often felt bored and frustrated. It was hamstrung by their focus on aesthetic and mood at the expense of story progress.

• Substack |Why are Men Still So Dangerous? Jennie Young’s conclusion to this question is 1. Because they want to be and 2. Because they’re allowed to be, and honestly, that makes me so sad and tired.

• Op Ed | Yotam Ottolenghi: I tried intermittent fasting, and hated it. I know intermittent fasting works for a lot of people, but for me, it exacerbated an existing eating disorder and ultimately made me gain significant weight, so this piece resonated.

This interview series is based on an early short-story by Lorrie Moore called ‘How to Become a Writer’, a wry account of all the seemingly random events, choices and missteps that led a young woman to dedicate herself to a life of putting words on paper. This is a subject I’m fascinated by. Whenever I talk to authors, read their interviews or hear them speak, I’m struck by the enormous variety of routes there are to the same end-point.

There are those who come to writing through study, others are self-taught; some begin early while others are ‘late-bloomers’; some are lucky enough to find mentors, others go it alone; some begin as teachers, editors or in other word-related professions, others come from lives as accountants or sheep shearers. I take tremendous comfort in knowing there’s more than one way to pack a sack; that just because you haven’t done certain things (like gone to university), doesn’t mean you can’t become a writer; we must each find our own path to the writing life. On the eve of the publication of her first book, writer and performer Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa shares her path.

About Sukhjit

Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa OAM is a writer, performer, producer and cultural leader based in Boorloo (perth). Her passion for storytelling began with slam poetry, when she was a finalist in the Australian Poetry Slam (2014), semi-finalist on Australia’s Got Talent (2016) and winner of The Moth GrandSLAM (2019). Sukhjit premiered her sell-out theatre show ‘Fully Sikh’ with Barking Gecko Theatre Company and Black Swan Theatre Company (2019). Since then, she has been developing her comedy series ‘What Would Suki Do?’ with support from ABC TV and is currently producing ‘A Hairy Tale’, a documentary exploring female body hair.

Sukhjit and her partner, Perun Bonser, were selected to develop their rom-com series ‘One of the Good Ones’ at Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s talent lab, Impact Australia (2020). They premiered their video installation work ‘Between Breaths’ at Goolugatup Heathcote Art Gallery (2022) and the work toured in 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art’s exhibition ‘Bush Diwan’ (2022-23). Sukhjit was a story-telling trainer at the Centre for Stories (2018-23) and her debut hip-hop single ‘Collectables’ is now streaming on global music platforms. Sukhjit was selected to participate in a Broadway producing program with Theatre Producers of Colour in New York (2023) and her debut book Fully Sikh: hot chips and turmeric stains (Upswell Publishing) is available now. Sukhjit is the Executive Director of The Blue Room Theatre and has been selected to be in Creative Australia’s 2024-25 Creative Leadership cohort.

What are your early memories of books and reading?

I read soooooo much as a kid, I used to win Angus & Robertson gift vouchers from the Summer Reading Challenge. I spent school holidays at Bullcreek Library. Our book collection at home was MASSIVE. The only room that didn't have a bookshelf was the toilet. I still don't get why that's a thing? Poo hands on your books?! No thanks. I was read to by my primary school teachers and my favourite memory is Mr Wheatley reading Louis Sachar books to us in Yr 6. He also introduced me to Norah Jones! Random combo.

What were your early experiences of writing?

I started writing plays at 4 years old! I wrote cringy poetry in both primary and high school. And my favourite subject was Literature. I loved writing stories. I recently found some weird files on an old harddrive that involved me typing my first stories and using Paint to draw an accompanying image. Take that Rupi Kaur, you weren't the first to come up with that concept! This would have been when we got to have computer time in primary school once a week and print out an anecdote from the weekend.

Was there someone particular who encouraged you along the way?

My teachers Michael Wheatley, Isobel Lacy, Marisa Lovatt - my heroes.

Did you do any formal study towards writing?

I did some creative writing units during my Political Science and International Relations degree. But they were a bit discouraging, I didn't enjoy the vibes of UWA and the entitlement.

When did you have your first ’success’ as a writer?

After I was a semifinalist on Australia's Got Talent [with a slam poem], a teacher contacted me asking if they could use my poem in their Yr 9 curriculum. That was a nice feeling. And I guess fast forward to today, my very own book has been published - so that's a milestone I'll never forget!

To Whom It May Concern: Complaint Letters Live!

After a sell-out season at Fringe Festival, I am absolutely thrilled that To Whom It May Concern: Complaint Letters Live! will now be a monthly event at The Rechabite, Northbridge. The first event is on Thursday, March 20th. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram to stay updated!

Complaint Letters Live! Facebook

Complaint Letters Live! Instagram

Other things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• Book | The Mercy of Gods by James SA Corey | A fantastic space opera, imaginative and really well written.

• TV | Silo | I have finally finished hate-watching this dire adaptation of High Howey’s fantastic books, and continue to be baffled and outraged by all the rave reviews. It’s mostly boring with moments of irritating melodrama; one of the worst adaptations of all time!

• Book | Briefly Very Beautiful by Roz Dineen | An all-too-real slow-apocalypse story which I loved.

• Op-Ed | Why Sex-Positive Feminism is Falling Out of Fashion Fascinating piece about how sex-positivity was somehow turned into yet another tool of oppression via the patriarchy. It’s behind a paywall but I managed to read it on my phone; I’m not sure how!

• Op-Ed | The Female Price of Male Pleasure | What is ‘bad sex’ and why is it different for men and women?

I would love to hear from you! Any little thought that pops into your head would be so welcome in my inbox.

Leave a comment

I hope the Christmas season has been a heart-filling period for you, with plenty of time for reading! I have been reading, resting, reflecting, eating, drinking, dancing, swimming in the ocean, and spending time with people I love.

My favourite reads of 2024

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, a frighteningly realistic depiction of one family torn apart by an oppressive regime which comes to power in contemporary Ireland. Devastating and powerful.

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney, a compassionate and insightful novel about the complexities of human relationships.

All Fours by Miranda July, hilarious, original and refreshing novel about love, marriage, parenthood, art, sex and menopause.

Gliff by Ali Smith, a tender, disturbing story about siblinghood, community and resilience in dark times.

Complaint Letters Live at Fringe Festival!

My next Complaint Letters Live! event is January 17th, 18th and 19th at The Rechabite in William Street, Northbridge with a fantastic lineup of fan favourite letters from the last few years. I am so excited to have my show be part of Fringe Festival and hope to see some of your faces in the audience!

Buy tickets!

Other things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• Book No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. How did I miss this? This is an incredibly smart, witty and also deeply moving book.

• Op Ed Acclaimed Author Says AI Is Accelerating Book Publishing’s Decline Yes! Ugh.

• Op Ed From the Baillie Gifford to the Giller: can literary prizes survive protests against sponsors? Writers have been coming out against companies that fund awards to distract from problematic corporate activities.

• Op Ed ‘Envy, ego, pride and pain: what I learned from publishing my first book’

  Hamilton Nolan Years torturing yourself before a blank page are followed by months of scrambling for publicity, followed by oblivion. Great little piece, not as dark as it sounds!

I would love to hear from you! Any little thought that pops into your head would be so welcome in my inbox.

Leave a comment

My next Complaint Letters Live! event is next Wednesday, November 13th at The Bird, William Street, Northbridge with a fantastic lineup including poet Scott-Patrick Mitchell, and local authors Meg McKinlay and AJ Betts.

Book Now!

Tickets are $28/$15 concession. The last event sold out so book as soon as you can to avoid disappointment!

Overcoming Self-Doubt & Procrastination Workshop

I had a wonderful time exploring blocks to creativity with a lively group of writers and visual artists at Clarkson Library in October. Here they are, sharing how they felt at the end of the workshop. Empowered, challenged, inspired, hopeful, kinder to myself…I think my work here is done!

Other things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• Book Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. After a bumpy start as I adjusted to the style, I loved everything about this novel. Rooney writes with such compassion and insight about the complexities of human relationships.

• Book All Fours by Miranda July. Hilarious, incredibly original and surprisingly moving. July loves to explore taboo subjects and I find it delightfully refreshing.

• TV Succession I’m late to this, because I didn’t want to watch another show about rich white people behaving badly, but when the writing and performances are this good, it makes for incredible TV.

• Substack The Sit Spot by Maggie McKellar. For me, these posts are almost like reading poems. There is a dreamy, musing quality to them which is soothing and beautiful.

• Op Ed Elif Shafak on The Power of Literature and Being a Writer in the “Age of Angst (see the quote below for a taster of this thought-provoking read).

  Snippets of information rain on us every single day…we have no time to process what we see. No time to absorb or reflect or feel…For true knowledge we need to slow down. We need cultural spaces, literary festivals, an open and honest intellectual exchange. We need slow journalism. We need books. And then there is wisdom. For wisdom we need to bring the heart into our work and into our conversations. We need to build emotional intelligence. We need empathy. We need literature.

I would love to hear from you! Any little thought that pops into your head would be so welcome in my inbox.

Leave a comment

In the meantime, some super exciting news—To Whom It May Concern: Complaint Letters Live! is going to be a Fringe Festival show! Woot! I am putting together my dream team of performers for January 2025 so watch this space for updates. If you are jonesing for some more Complaint Letters Live before then, my next show will be at The Bird, Northbridge, on Wednesday, November 13th. Save the date; details to follow.

Annabel x

PS Check out this rad video of the Beaufort Street Books human conveyer belt, starring yours truly.

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Overcoming Self-Doubt & Procrastination Workshop

Clarkson Library | Saturday October 19th 1.30 - 4.30pm

This workshop is so dear to my heart! We do some deep sharing about the things that hold us back from living our creative potential. It is wonderfully collegiate and supportive and always gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling to see people having breakthroughs. Come and join us for your own creative breakthrough!

Tickets are FREE (libraries are amazing!) but bookings are required.

Book Now

Beaufort Street Books Inaugural Book Nerds Quiz Night

Last Friday evening I had the privilege of MCing the inaugural Beaufort Street Books quiz night and it was a hoot! St Albans Hall was packed with readers, publisher’s reps, librarians… and that one guy whose wife told him it was a sports quiz!

Local authors Brooke Dunnell, Emma Young and Julia Lawrinson were mystery guests, moving from table to table to help teams out. The winning team, who got to choose from a gorgeous selection of books, was the Dewey Decimators (killer name) starring author Emily Paull and her librarian gang. Librarians really are the best!

If you missed out, never fear; it was such a success it is going to be an annual event so watch this space.

Subscribe now

Other things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• Book All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker. I absolutely loved this! I read it in one day. It’s such a page-turner but also a wonderful coming-of-age story.

• Book Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange. Longlisted for the Booker prize, this functions as both a prequel and a sequel to his debut There, There, illuminating both the trauma and resilience of contemporary Native Americans. He is a wonderful storyteller, but sometimes I wish he would stay longer with one character, rather than creating ensemble stories.

• TV The Perfect Couple Rich white people nonsense. I was going to rant about it but then I saw someone describe it as ‘Temu White Lotus’ and that is all I need to say

• TV No One Wants This Even more rich white people nonsense; a tale of horrible people behaving badly in which obnoxiousness is confused with wit. Rabbi guy is hot though.

• Blogpost My First Novel Was a New York Times Bestseller. I’m Self-Publishing My Third Novel Today by Cynthia Swanson. Great article about how the publishing journey is not always a smooth upwards trajectory.

I would love to hear from you! Any little thought that pops into your head would be so welcome in my inbox.

Leave a comment

Cartoon by Tom Gauld

I feel like a pleb admitting this. Believe me when I tell you I have struggled against my aversion, trying my darndest to learn to love the short story. I have taught writing craft using short stories in workshops and university courses. I have judged short story competitions. I have even—a long time ago—written short stories. I have trawled the archives of the New Yorker podcast, in which authors I admire read aloud short stories they admire, and discuss them with the smart and erudite editor. I have read short stories by authors whose novels I have adored. I have read prize-winning, anthologised stories, selected by experts; stories by authors widely believed to excel at the form. No matter how acclaimed the story or its author, I am, almost always, at best underwhelmed, and at worst, entirely baffled.

When breaking a story down, I can recognise what is supposed to be a breakthrough, a revelation, a moment of epiphany, but I never feel it. I am never moved by it. No matter how skilful the writing, I simply don’t care about characters I’ve known for less than five minutes.

I’m not sure why I am sharing this now. Perhaps, aged almost fifty, I have finally admitted to myself that no amount of trying is going to change my relationship with the short form. Perhaps I am hoping that other secret story haters will emerge from their burrows and admit to just not understanding what all the fuss is about, so I won’t have to feel so alone. Perhaps I just love the drama of getting hate mail!

So tell me, are you with me? Should I keep persevering? Or should I be ashamed to call myself a writer?

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Beaufort Street Books Inaugural Quiz Night

I’m excited to be MCing the inaugural Beaufort Street Books quiz night on Friday, September 27th, which is going to be all kinds of nerdy fun, with a best costume competition, guest authors helping teams out, and of course, fantastic prizes for the biggest book nerds. Questions will cover Australian favourites, classics and kids books, and of course, our fantastic West Australian authors; something for everyone. You can put together your own group or book a single ticket and meet some new friends.

Book Now

6.00pm for 6.30pm | St Albans Hall | 423 Beaufort St, Highgate

Single tickets $30 ($20 students/underemployed) | Tables of 8 = $210

Pizza can be ordered on the night for delivery to your table or BYO your own picnic.

To Whom It May Concern | A Night of Complaint Letters

Photos by Alireza Zamani

On Friday, August 30th, local authors and creatives Julia Lawrinson, Laurie Steed, Paula Hart, Clinton Bell and Kate Page aired their grievances over matters from the petty—Guinea pig noise complaints—to the lofty —why Batman only defends Gotham when there is suffering everywhere! Anita Emor and I also dazzled/confused punters with the world premier (aka test run) of The Wrong Song Salon, in which we apply a woke lens to songs with questionable lyrics, starting the proceedings with Olivia Newton-John’s Physical, which certainly doesn’t fit contemporary definitions of enthusiastic consent. We had a record breaking audience of 103 complaint lovers, squeezing themselves wherever they could sit or stand in Beaufort Street Books’ fabulous new premises, (plus one complaint hater who wrote an email afterwards to say this ‘book event’ was a ‘dud’. Next time, read the box, Karen!)

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Other things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• Book In Ascension by Martin McInnes. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, with an intriguing sci-fi premise, this book has been a great disappointment, with a main character so bland, she seems barely human.

• Podcast | The Emotional Toll of Dating Apps A year ago, I quit dating apps forever because of the toll they took on my mental health, and this research-based podcast was relatable and informative. If you have friends who are single, I highly recommend this as an insight into what it’s like ‘out there’.

• TV | Mr & Mrs Smith Glossy action comedy featuring Donald Glover looking unbelievably good in short shorts and muscle shirts (see above).

• Blogpost | 9 Easy mantras to crush your loneliness I hate this click-baity title but as someone who suffers from loneliness, there were some really fresh perspectives in this article.

I would love to hear from you! Any little thought that pops into your head would be so welcome in my inbox.

Cartoon by Tom Gauld

Some years ago, a writer I know was shortlisted for a non-life-changing but respected literary award for her debut novel. She didn’t win but afterwards she shared an upbeat blog-post about the ceremony, warmly congratulating the winner. Some years earlier, when I had been shortlisted for the same award, I had gone around for days afterwards trash-talking the winning book (which I hadn’t read but hated on principle, because it was about farming, and I was contemptuous of how much literary Australia seemed to froth over books about regional life). After I commented on this other author’s post to tell her how impressed I was by her magnanimity, she emailed me to admit that she actually felt bitter and devastated; that in fact she had gone home, drunk too much wine and cried.

I appreciated her being privately honest with me about her true feelings; (her confession made me feel slightly less ashamed of my own bad behaviour). I was, however, interested in the pressure she had felt to perform a generosity of spirit she didn’t feel; to pretend that missing out on winning a literary award was something she could easily take in stride.

My writing colleague’s blog post was a perfect example of the idealised online identity Naomi Klein explores in Doppelganger: ‘virtual versions of ourselves that represent us to others’. She writes of ‘the imperative to create a consumable, public-facing identity…an acute consciousness of having an externalised double, a digital double, an idealised identity’ that we must ‘perform for the benefit of others if [we] are to succeed.’

As writers, many of us have internalised this idealised online identity by watching it performed on social media for years. The ‘consumable’ writer is collegiate and congratulatory; rolling with the punches; accepting rejection with self-deprecating humour. To reveal jealousy, bitterness or despair is unpalatable.

And yet, all these idealised versions of writers only serve to make the rest of us feel worse, beating ourselves up because we can’t be more graceful in defeat, like @IdealisedWriterX, or more productive like @IdealisedWriterY, or at least, more hilarious about our neuroses, like @IdealisedWriterZ. If we spend too much time on social media, it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that every single solitary writer in the whole wide world is more successful than we are.

Our idealised online selves are engaged in what sociologist Brené Brown calls ‘hustling for worthiness’:

• pleasing (gushing over other writers and their work);

• performing (pretending to be something other than we really are, or to feel other than we really feel);

• perfecting (only showing our best side, or our successes)

• proving (desperately trying to convince others of our success, or our talent)

While hustling for worthiness might bring short-lived dopamine hits, it never truly fills the hole in our soul. As my dear friend Beth said to me about dating, ‘you can’t go looking for validation from random dudes you meet on the internet.’ At some level, most of us know (but somehow forget) that the real satisfaction of writing does not come from external validation; that the satisfaction is mostly in the process itself: of crafting a sentence that perfectly captures a character, of finally finishing a difficult scene, of seeing patterns and making connections amidst the mess of our ideas.

A decade ago, I published a blog post called On (Not) Making a Living from Writing, in which I revealed how much (or should I say, how little) I had earned from writing since the publication of my second novel, Whisky Charlie Foxtrot. In the writing world, speaking about earnings is taboo. No one admits to how much money they are making, and the only press is about the ‘six figure deals’, which makes it easy to feel like a failure if you got a ‘four figure deal’ …or even no deal at all. My post went viral, (by my modest standards). It attracted thousands of views, dozens of comments, and generated a great deal of discussion on Twitter, leading to me writing a follow-up piece for The Wheeler Centre. And one of the most common themes that came through in the feedback on this piece was how reassuring it was to hear how little money other authors were making. Instead of ‘performing’ success, I admitted to feeling like a failure, thereby making space for others to come forward and share their own struggles. I felt less alone; they felt less alone.

So let’s share more days when we didn’t manage to write, or when all our words seemed terrible; more rejections and paltry royalty statements, more messy desks and abandoned projects, more self-doubt and existential crises! Let’s stop hustling for worthiness, and whenever possible, try to remember that the satisfaction is in the writing itself.

To Whom It May Concern | Friday, August 30th

I am excited to be hosting another night of juicy complaint letters night at Beaufort Street Books on Friday, August 30th, featuring a fantastic line-up of local authors.

Here’s what people said about the last event:

Hilarious and heartwarming too - one of the best nights out I’ve had in ages - Melanie

A smorgasbord of wordsmithing goodness. Heart and mind both full and my face hurt from smiling! - Susie

And if you are a visual person, here is photographic evidence of people aghast and amused in equal measure at the May event:

Photo by Alireza Zamani

Book Your Ticket

Beaufort Street Books | Community Conveyer Belt

On Saturday, July 20th, I was privileged to take part in a fantastic event in which more than 150 book-lovers gathered to help Beaufort Street Books move their stock to their new shop, 3 doors down! Community members formed a human conveyer belt, passing boxes of books from hand to hand, while others waited to unpack them in the new store. Armed with a microphone, I was hype girl for the event, but truthfully, the crowd provided their own hype; there was a wonderful atmosphere among the all-ages crowd, enhanced by the amazing baked goods provided by other fans of the beautiful book store, and as a team we moved 14,000 books in one hour! The new store—on the corner of Beaufort Street and Vincent—is looking beautiful, so pop in and show your support for this wonderful local business. Better still, buy a ticket for my complaint letters night on August 30th!

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Cartoon by Grant Snider

Thank you!

I want to start this week with a huge thank you to everyone who reached out to me after my last newsletter. I received so many encouraging and helpful emails, as well as tangible support in the form of subscriptions. It really meant a lot to me to feel so supported by my readers and fellow writers.

An Interview with Creativity Coach Clare Travis

Five years ago, after my marriage ended, everything felt difficult and strange; I felt lost in my own life. Unfortunately, I am not one of those writers who can transcend those times and keep writing anyway, or even somehow transform all that dark material into something brilliant (Sylvia Plath comes to mind). I am one of those other writers, the ones who stop writing when the rest of my life gets too difficult, thereby adding fear of never writing again to my teetering stack of worries.

Around this time, I stumbled across coach Clare Travis of Create Clarity. In the course of one session, she helped me regain my focus and work out my next steps. I couldn’t believe it! One session! Since then, I have continued to work with Clare whenever my creative life has felt unfulfilling/overwhelming/disappointing/confusing or [insert other adjective]. I’ve also attended a couple of her workshops which were a great re-set. How does she do her magic? It’s quite hard to explain actually, as it feels like a mysterious process in which nothing seems to happen and yet suddenly, boom! As I am very bad at explaining it, I invited Clare to explain it herself.

• What exactly does a creativity coach do? 

I like to call myself a career and mindset coach for creative practitioners.  As we both know, having a fulfilling and sustainable career as a creative professional often isn't an easy thing to achieve!  So what I do as a creativity coach is help people who may be at a crossroads in their career or experiencing some kind of crisis. 

More than anything, I'm there to hold a safe space where a creative client can start to explore and articulate what they want next in their career, anything that might be holding them back and what actions will be most impactful to help bring about change. And while it doesn't shy away from the hard stuff, there is often a lightness about the process, a kind of freeing that gives creatives permission to get out of a ruminative space and start genuinely thinking about what they want for themselves and their career.  And I've seen that that can be a really powerful thing.

• What drew you to working with creatives?

It happened a bit organically, to be honest! A few of my first clients were creatives and I noticed that the work we were doing together was often very fruitful.  And then I realised that it made perfect sense, because as a child and teenager, I was very invested in creative work, especially writing fiction and poetry.  And several of my family members are also very creative.  So the language of creativity was familiar to me and working with creatives resonated with me, because I do believe deeply in the importance of artistic expression and story telling to our shared human existence. 

• What sort of outcomes do creatives get from working with you?

I'm happy to say that most creatives I've worked with have had a really positive experience.  Whether it's been finding a publisher for a manuscript, or finding retail outlets to sell their work, or moving into a new role, or receiving funding to work on new work, there have been some pretty substantial outcomes.  And in some cases, it's been more about a client rediscovering their passion for creating art, which I think is just as important as the external signs that things are changing.  

• What is your favourite part about being a creativity coach?

It's hard to choose just one thing.  But I'm going to say it's the privilege of working with super talented people and seeing the difference that having someone in their corner makes to them.  Gets me right in the feels!

• Tell me about the self-care workshops you run for creatives. 

So I've run several of these workshops now, in different iterations, and they always seem to have an impact. The reason I run them is because there is such a need in the arts right now for some more self-compassion and self-care. Times have been tough for a lot of people and although Covid made it impossible to ignore that some things needed to change in the arts, I don't think we've successfully come up with sustainable solutions just yet. 

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I've had participants describe my workshops as nourishing and inspiring, and that's certainly the kind of environment I aim to create.”

Upcoming Workshop: Self-Care for Writers

Clare’s next workshop is at KSP Writers Centre on Saturday July 27th. You may also like to sign up for her newsletter.

Jeremy Allen White as Carmy, The Bear

Love is a Verb: The Bear, Season 3

(Very minor spoilers ahead). Those who have watched the first two seasons of this show in which haute cuisine meets dysfunctional family dynamics will know it is not always an easy watch—that Christmas episode, phew!—and Season 3 starts out with the same stressful intensity as Season 2 ended. Watching these characters struggle with themselves and each other brought to mind a quote I first heard from self-help guru Steven Covey: love is a verb. The characters in The Bear can often be heard telling each other, I love you, and yet continuing to act in the most unloving ways. Most interactions are a masterclass in what not to do if you want to communicate successfully: screaming, swearing, making unilateral decisions, and re-opening old wounds are all in a day’s work for Carmy and the gang. Carmy’s list of non-negotiables really had me shaking my head. Non-negotiables have to be negotiated, Carmy! However, there are also some glimmers of progress, including some touching moments between Richie and his ex-wife Tiff, and a particularly moving scene between Sugar and her mum, (who is, let’s face it, a nightmare).

It’s an introspective season for Carmy, and there is more of his back-story as an apprentice chef, both his wonderful experiences and his truly awful ones. There is a gorgeous scene from his very first day in a kitchen, where a wise and kindly chef shares his philosophy that cooking for others is a form of nurture. Nawww. These contrast sharply with other scenes in which Carmy is insidiously bullied by a high-profile chef. I found it quite heartbreaking when Carmy articulates that working under that particular chef made him mentally ill; he does not quite seem to have realised that his family are undoubtedly a massive contributing factor to his mental health. However, it does seems to be dawning on him—albeit very slowly—that the culture he is creating in his own kitchen may unfortunately not be nailing the cooking is nurture vibe; it may, in fact, be the kind of culture that is going to give his team PTSD.

My biggest criticism of this season is that there was perhaps too much introspection and tangential storytelling, and not very much actually happens, especially in the conflicts in some of the central relationships, namely Carmy and Claire-Bear, and Carmy and Richie. Please let Season 4 be the season in which the Berzattos and friends seek therapy!

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Writing Prompt

She hates words like modern and creative and sexuality and she hates acronyms. 

Miriam Toews, Fight Night

PROMPT: S/he hates words like… and… and … and s/he hates…

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Other things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• MOVIE The Fall Guy

  A rom-com that was both very very funny and romantic, five stars!

• NOVEL The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley.

  I liked it, especially it’s ideas on colonialism and time-travel, but I can’t quite understand what all the fuss was about. I’ll probably honestly never think about it again.

• ESSAY Tell Me How it Ends by Valeria Luisella

  Luisella is a Mexican-born writer who worked as a translator for children seeking asylum in the US after fleeing gang violence in Central America. A sobering, thoughtful read, beautifully written.

What have you been reading, watching and listening to?

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I often deliver a talk called How Writers Make Money, which I begin with a joke: they don’t. But the near-impossibility of making a living as an artist is not really a joke.

A few weeks ago, I lost my job. Well, not technically; I’m still employed but have had my hours cut by 80% due to changes made by the federal government to student visas, resulting in a massive decline of enrolments from international students.

Like many writers—who make very little money from writing books—I was teaching at university; and like many academics, I was casually employed, which means that my hours can be cut without notice.

As a single person, my income is the only income supporting my household, and right now, that income is not even enough to cover my rent, let alone food, bills or other necessities for myself and my son.

Creative Australia’s recently-published Artists at Work report, which analyses economic and working conditions across the arts sector in the last five years, found that working artists earn an average income of $54,500 a year, 26 per cent below the national average.

Professor David Throsby, the report's lead researcher and co-author noted that "In terms of education … training and experience, [artists] have the same level of qualifications as managers and professionals in the workforce, but they earn about half as much as other professionals."

A spokesperson for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts acknowledged “that artists and arts workers often face difficulties in making a living, including insecure and intermittent work, and the challenges of working multiple jobs.” No shit!

The loss of most of my income during a period when the costs of living are sky high sent me into a panic. I frantically updated my CV, set up job searches on Seek, and pestered my academic contacts in courses less affected by the downturn in international students. Following this initial anxiety-induced flurry of activity, I sank into a depression. I feel so very very tired of trying to make a living as an artist, of working in the ‘gig economy’, of cobbling together an income from bits and pieces; of having no job security, no sick leave, no holiday pay.

The sacrifices I have made in order to pursue writing might seem more worthwhile if I was having success in my writing career. But it is now a decade since my last novel was published. I spent four years writing a novel which attracted a high-profile agent, who encouraged my to write a prequel. After writing the prequel—a further four years’ work—the agent was no longer interested. Eventually, when I signed with a top US agent, I thought my big ‘break’ had finally come. But my agent was unsuccessful in selling the novels I had spent eight years writing.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.*

~Rita Mae Brown, civil rights campaigner and feminist writer

*A quote often mistakenly attributed to Albert Einstein

For most people, investing almost a decade in a project which never saw the light of day might be a sign to give up and try something else. But many artists—myself included—embody the definition of insanity above. Despite my failure to find a publisher for my two manuscripts, I started writing a new novel.

Last week I read an interview in the LA Times with an actress called Julianne Nicholson reflecting on finally getting her big break after more than thirty years:

Around 2011, the [acting] parts started drying up. She was in her early 40s, fearful she’d been on the wrong path all along. She looked at her body of work and found it wanting.

“I totally messed up,” she remembers about that uncertain period and how she was thinking about it. “I gave all this time to something that’s not going to ultimately be the thing I hoped it might be.”

This quote really resonated with me. For twenty years I’ve made my writing the focus of my career, at the expense of other opportunities. I’ve always felt that eventually it will ‘pay-off’ in some way. But in the face of this latest debilitating blow to my financial security, I have started to seriously question my urge to keep writing in the face of failure. How many unpublished manuscripts; how many more years of living hand-to-mouth will it take before I decide I’ve had enough?

I asked Google: why do artists persevere despite failure? I was offered blog posts and articles full of platitudes about persistence, endurance, leaning in, pivoting; about failure teaching us more than success; about never giving up. But surely, there’s a point when it’s time to stop doing the same thing and expecting different results; to admit defeat? How do we know when that time has come?

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Do you use writing prompts? They can be a fantastic way to overcome the fabled ‘terror of the blank page’, and can also allow us to experiment with new approaches to writing. When I’m reading, I often comes across lines which I think would make stimulating writing prompts, and moving forward I’ll be sharing some of those here. If you try them out, I’d love to hear from you about how it went.

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Her drug of choice: terrible news. Nothing gave her mother more pleasure than hearing about the worst thing that ever happened to you, preferably in exhaustive detail, the more visually disturbing the better. The only metric she used to judge someone’s worth: had they suffered enough?

Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

Prompt

Nothing gave [character] more pleasure than (hearing about)…

The only metric she used to judge someone’s worth: …

Other things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• NOVEL Hurdy Gurdy by Jenny Ackland: a fantastic Australian speculative-fiction about violence against women and how women support each other in desperate circumstances

• TV Dark Matter Mediocre science-fiction exploring the road not taken

• INTERVIEW Ann Lamott on love, sobriety and reaching 70 Loved this!

• SUBSTACK George Saunders: Poetic vs Prosaic George Saunders’ substack is a treasure trove. He is incredibly generous in responding to writers’ questions, and his answers are detailed and insightful.

What have you been reading, watching and listening to?

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This series is based on an early short-story by Lorrie Moore called ‘How to Become a Writer’, a wry account of all the seemingly random events, choices and missteps that led a young woman to dedicate herself to a life of putting words on paper. This is a subject I’m fascinated by. Whenever I talk to authors, read their interviews or hear them speak, I’m struck by the enormous variety of routes there are to the same end-point.

There are those who come to writing through study, others are self-taught; some begin early while others are ‘late-bloomers’; some are lucky enough to find mentors, others go it alone; some begin as teachers, editors or in other word-related professions, others come from lives as accountants or sheep shearers. I take tremendous comfort in knowing there’s more than one way to pack a sack; that just because you haven’t done certain things (like gone to university), doesn’t mean you can’t become a writer; we must each find our own path to the writing life. Today, WA author Julia Lawrinson shares her path.

A reverence for reading and language

I grew up in a working class family with very few books, but with a reverence for reading and language.

My mother read to me, and my father used to make up bedtime stories featuring a girl like me and her adventures down the creek at the back of our house. As soon as I could, I read everything I could lay my hands on – from the Bible to Enid Blyton books to Readers’ Digest condensed novels to my mother’s old medical encyclopaedias. I learned many interesting and quite random things this way, including what to do if you are struck down with polio, why bad things happen to good people (sins of the fathers and all that), and how Marie Curie extracted radium from pitchblende.

The realisation of how it could be done

Something happened to me in year five which suddenly made me delight in writing – I remember suddenly understanding how a story was meant to go together, how to make sentences have pace. It wasn’t a formal moment of teaching, but the realisation of how it could be done. From then on, I wrote furiously – song lyrics, poems, short stories, stories about other planets. I remember writing a poem for my grandfather when I was nine which began:

My pop, he cooked me eggs and bacon.

I didn’t think it could taste that good.

I was mistaken.

My grandfather, a gruff, drily funny and occasionally difficult man, was so delighted by this that he repeated the whole poem often. He was a hard man to please, so perhaps that encouraged my burgeoning interest in connecting with others through writing.

The gift of a passionate teacher

I had individual teachers who encouraged me in both primary and high school, but the person who knew that writing could be a career and broadened my reading and encouraged my writing was an English teacher who I didn’t meet until after I’d finished working with her. I had dropped out of school at 15, and the following year did year 11 through correspondence school. I had a wonderful year of sending work to this teacher, and receiving not only her encouragement on my writing, but lists of suggested books to read. She introduced me to Virginia Woolf and Herman Hesse and Anais Nin. When we finally met in person, she told me about how romance writers could earn $10,000 per book – and this was in 1986! While I didn’t have any interest in doing that, it turned my mind to the possibility that you could write for an audience beyond your family members and friends.

I was then hugely fortunate to have Marion Campbell as a writing tutor in the two units that Murdoch University ran in creative writing during my undergraduate degree, and then Richard Rossiter as my PhD supervisor at ECU.

My first publication was in 1995 in the Fremantle Arts Review: I was thrilled enough to have pieces in university magazines, but to have a piece in FAR – a monthly arts broadsheet – felt as if I had entered a new realm. 

Transformative studies

I am a passionate supporter of studies in creative writing from primary age up. We have had art and music schools: why shouldn’t we have writing schools? There wasn’t a creative writing qualification at Murdoch when I studied my undergraduate degree (aside from the two units that were electives), so I went on to do creative writing honours and a PhD at ECU, which was transformative. I found the collegiality of studying writing such a wonderful thing, and having focused feedback on my work was remarkable.

About Julia

Julia Lawrinson is a writer and presenter living on Whadjuk Noongar boodjar. She has published more than fifteen books for children and young people, many of them award winning, and has just published her memoir entitled How to Avoid a Happy Life. Although she left school at fifteen, she has since gone on to get several degrees, including a PhD in Writing and a Bachelor of Laws with Distinction. She works as a consultant on legislation and policy when she is not writing and presenting to people of all ages on how to put things into words and why this is a good idea. Julia is an enthusiastic adult learner of Indonesian, yoga and the cello. Her favourite place on earth is the dog park. She writes a regular Substack entitled, ‘What Were You Thinking?’ The companion podcast for How to Avoid a Happy Life is available from Fremantle Press.

Anthony Duckworth read a complaint letter he had actually sent to the Socceroos, expressing his outrage at their being renamed the Subway Socceroos (yes, after the fast food chain); Brett Mitchell complained about—among other burdens of temporary homelessness—being unable to find the light switch in the 2022 House of the Year, and Sarah Callaghan gave a wonderful spoken word performance about why we pretend to know how to adult, when we’re all, in fact, staggering about in the dark, looking for the light switches.

There was wine! There was laughter! There was consternation (someone pooped in a park…next to the playground)! And then there was more laughter. And we raised $500 for Indigenous Literacy Foundation. I’ll be organising another one of these later in the year so leave a comment below if you’d like to be notified when tickets go on sale.

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The Idea of You

and dating IRL vs the rom-com

For most of my life I have been a sucker for a great romantic comedy. Yes, the great ones are few and far between, but when they worked they always really hit the spot for me. Lately, however, I have felt my own romance with the romcom souring. For starters, after 5 years on and off online dating, I can confidently say that romance is absolutely dead in the water. A Tinder conversation that opens with ‘on a scale of 1-10, how horny are you?’ is hardly the stuff that meet-cutes are made of. I find myself infuriated by the scenarios I see depicted onscreen, in which women and men so easily meet and fall into relationships - a scenario that bears absolutely no relationship whatsoever to the reality I have encountered and discussed with countless other single women. Sarah Wilson recently wrote about this in her Substack:

I’ve given the sad sport [of dating] an unrelenting red-hot go with men spanning four generations and from all around the world. So I feel I’m qualified to make a few … observations. …One of the reasons I’ve hesitated in writing [this] series is that I couldn’t find a way to do it that would not see me accused of “man bashing”. For, invariably, my experience as a heterosexual woman is a profound disappointment in the courtship behaviour of (single, CIS) men.

In Mare of EastTown, for example, Kate Winslet walks into her crummy local drinking hole looking like she slept on a park bench. Sans makeup, dressed in old jeans and a flannel shirt, her hair is unwashed and her roots are in dire need of a touch-up. And yet, in a matter of minutes she gets picked up by Guy Pearce playing a university professor! Mare of EastTown is not a rom-com of course, but a scene like this would perhaps be a better fit in a fantasy movie.

Despite my cynicism, the part of my brain that was trained by society to perceive having another person fall in love with me as the ultimate aspiration still exerts a strong hold over my viewing choices, which results in me hate-watching films like The Idea of You, a new rom-com in which Hayes (silly name), the star of a world-famous boy band (played by Nicholas Galitzine, an actor so preposterously handsome he looks like he was created by AI), falls in love with Solène (pretentious name), a woman sixteen years his senior (played by Anne Hathaway).

To begin with, it is a stretch to put this film under the ‘rom-com’ banner because it offered very little that I consider romantic and even less that I consider comedic. In place of romance, we are offered sex (I concede the stars had good chemistry and Solène had beautiful underwear). And in place of humour, we are offered idiocy. (Though I have never been to Coachella —the site of their fateful first meeting—I’m going to go out on a limb and stake everything on the fact that the rock stars’ trailers are NOT adjacent to the public toilets). I’m not sure if I actually laughed at all, unless you count derisive scoffing.

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Though I don’t look to rom-coms for incisive social commentary, the ‘issues’ in this film—the double standards about men, women, dating and age—felt very old hat. It is, after all, more than 20 years since Demi Moore married Ashton Kutcher, and though, in that time, the perception of women dating younger men doesn’t seem to have changed much, actual dating behaviour seems to have changed considerably.

In fact, one of the things that most surprised me when I started dating was how few men of my own age (mid-40s) I matched with, and how much interest I had from men in their thirties. It turns out the men in the forties were all chasing women in their thirties, while the men in their thirties were all avoiding the women their own age who were desperate to get married and have kids. One man I went on a date with told me every date felt like a job interview. He said it was a relief to go on dates with women who’d already been married and had children and weren’t putting any pressure on him to deliver those things. Based on these experiences it was not a surprise to me that Hayes fell in love with Solèbe. What was much more of a mystery was what she saw in him.

It seems to be a truth universally acknowledged—by women at least—that most men tend to lag behind us in emotional maturity, as captured aptly in this Mother’s Day Instagram post:

https://www.facebook.com/thesarcasticgirl/

One of the most common phrases I see on men’s dating profiles is: I don’t do drama, which roughly translates to, I’m unable to talk about my feelings and I don’t want to hear about yours. Unfortunately, in our patriarchal society, men don’t receive social rewards for emotional intelligence, so often they don’t develop that muscle until they’re in a long-term relationship. Which means that a 24 year old dude who’s been in a boy band for a decade is very unlikely to have a level of emotional intelligence that would satisfy a 40 year old woman. Of course, Hayes could be an exception to the rule. Spoiler alert: he’s not. For example, he doesn’t have the maturity to realise that Solène might feel a little out of place sharing a villa with his boy band bros and the girls they are ‘hanging out’ with, aka sleeping with. He doesn’t have the maturity to shut down the conversation when the gang starts talking about how much more fun he used to be when he was slutting it up with the rest of them. Bottom line, he doesn’t have maturity. So while it’s not hard to imagine Solène enjoying a fling with him, it’s almost impossible to imagine they could really have a satisfying relationship.

Finally, since I can’t avoid noticing it, I might as well talk about it: The Idea of You, unsurprisingly, yet still disappointingly, indulged the time-honoured Hollywood trope of the effortlessly thin woman. In one scene, for example, in which we see our lovers lounging in bed in a hotel room, ordering room service, she orders a BLT with a side of fries and a plate of cookies as a chaser. You don’t have to be a dietician to know that at 41, Anne Hathaway does not maintain a body like that by alternating between fatty carbs and sugary carbs. If we have to live in a society where thin bodies are held as the highest ideal for women, can we at least be realistic in depicting the work it takes to have those bodies?

Questions Have you seen this silly film? Did it annoy you as much as it annoyed me? Am I ridiculous to expect anything more from a rom-com than pure silliness? Are men actually extremely emotionally mature and I’ve got it all wrong? I want to know your thoughts and feelings!

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There were other things I was going to talk abut but it turns out I had a heck of a lot to say about The Idea of You, so I will leave you with this quote from Paul Lynch’s staggering Booker-Prize winning novel Prophet Song.

What is left behind will not be left behind at all but will continue to grow in weight and be carried forever on their backs. 

Then I remembered something I read in Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It:

Burkeman used to be a productivity expert, until he realised relentless efficiency was making him utterly miserable. He wrote this book about his exploration into finding new ways to relate to time; the outrageous brevity and shimmering possibilities of four thousand weeks (the average length of a human life).

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It is a fascinating read: spiritual, philosophical and incredibly soothing. Each time I dip into it I am reminded that slowing down is a valid choice, an act of self-care, a break for my harried nervous system. I am also reminded that the creative process cannot be hurried.

Apparently the Germans have a word for the time inherent to a process: eigenzeit. What a reassuring concept. It gives me permission to let go of the pressure to finish my book faster; to accept that it will take however long it takes.

Some of my books zoom along in the first draft, and drag their heels in the second; others the opposite. Some have three for four drafts, others twice as many; some have long breaks between drafts. All have been derailed for various periods by life events dramatic (marriage, a baby, a divorce) and quotidian (illness, parenting, working). In the end, all my books seem to take the same amount of time: four years. Four years is the eigenzeit of my writing process. When I remember this, I feel much calmer about this ‘wasted’ week. Perhaps I simply needed a rest in this break from my day job. Or perhaps I needed a period of incubation before I was ready to take great strides in my book.

Re-reading this quote I am reminded of what I so often tell the aspiring and early career writers who come to my workshops: most of writing is not about publishing and all the things that you imagine go with that. It is about the process itself. If we are only writing a book to get to the end of it, what dreary hours we will spend in that task! How different it feels if we can remind ourselves that writing can be fulfilling in and of itself: a break from hustle and productivity; a time for contemplation and deep thought; engaging with our creative selves; a chance to play and experiment.

I didn’t make great strides on my week away from teaching, in fact, I didn’t make any strides at all. But after a week of allowing myself to do what my body needed (rest), this week I felt inspired and refreshed and was able to finish a scene I have been working on for two months. Was it the break which helped, the releasing of expectations and pressures? Or was two months simply the eigenzeit for that scene?

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Event | To Whom It May Concern

Fundraiser for Indigenous Literacy Foundation

I am excited to be hosting my fourth night of complaint letters at the fabulous Beaufort Street Books on Friday, May 10th. To Whom It May Concern is an evening of grouchy gripes and grumbles about the issues that make our blood boil and get our knickers in a knot! Spoken word artist Sarah Callaghan, microphone mistress LadyFree and other creatives will express their dissatisfaction through poetry, song and the good old fashioned complaint letter, hosted by yours truly. Come along for a laugh, a glass of wine and to make a difference to indigenous literacy.

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Can’t Get You Out of My Head | Adam Curtis

and whether humans deserve to become extinct

Over a few weeks I’ve been watching a BBC docu-series (available on YouTube) called Can’t Get You Out of My Head. The sub-title is An Emotional History of the Modern World, but I think it would be more accurate to call it an idiosyncratic history. It seems, at times, a somewhat random collation of events and perspectives, and the assertions Curtis makes don’t always seem to be backed up in a particularly solid way. Most of the time I don’t know enough about the place or period he’s discussing to confidently say that he’s misrepresenting things, but I have an uneasy feeling he’s presenting a fairly skewed perspective. If there is a through-line, it is perhaps only that humans in positions of power are, more often than not, corrupt, (or will become so), and that the overthrowing of any despotic /authoritarian regime will undoubtedly be followed by another regime which is equally problematic only in different ways. My key takeaway is that humans are greedy, rapacious, and, for the most part, idiotic. As a result I stopped watching after the fourth episode, as it was making me gloomy and dispirited. I do think it’s worth a look, and I especially enjoyed Curtis’s selection of quirky obscure footage and music.

June Events in Margaret River

I also have a talk and workshop coming up in Margaret River which I’m very much looking forward to. There is always a warm, welcoming atmosphere at my events in the south west so if you haven’t been before, do please come along and meet some fellow writers and readers.

Other things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• Season 2 of Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy on SBS, (aka searching for new ways to say ‘oh my god’) in which the charming and loveable Stanley gets around gorgeous locations, eating and drinking delicious things grown/prepared/cooked with love and passion: nice work if you can get it and great TV if you can’t.

• Ripley on Netflix. This show is nothing short of GORGEOUS to look at: the sets and locations are stunning and it is all filmed in black and white. But it is actually a little dull to watch, mostly, I think, because the characters are so bland. I adored Andrew Scott in All of Us Strangers but he doesn’t get to reveal any of his lovely warmth here; Dakota Fanning is wholly unsympathetic as the joyless—and frankly daggy—Marge, while Johnny Flynn brings the character of Dickie Greenleaf about as much rizz as a piece of cold toast.

• Scoop on Netflix: a mediocre dramatisation of the story behind Prince Andrew’s damning TV interview about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, which led to him being stripped of his status. The sometimes-mesmerising Gillian Anderson was utterly wooden in this—too much botox maybe, or perhaps having to put on an english accent made her stiffen up? And even in a Chanel jacket and with a posh accent, Billie Piper was still essentially Rose the chav from Doctor Who. The standout performance was Rufus Sewell as the clueless buffoon Prince Andrew, who apparently thought the interview had gone ‘rather well'. Read the room, dude.

• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan - an old favourite which definitely stood the test of time for me.

What have you been reading, watching and listening to?

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Lately I have been feeling lost in my writing life. It is almost a decade since my last book was published and I feel forgotten and irrelevant. Recently, I experienced a wave of crippling envy reading about another writer’s success. In a state of panic I began scrambling in every direction at once, trying to think of something I could do that would make me shiny and relevant and successful, or at least make me appear to be those things.

Then I remembered something important—so important, in fact, that I had it tattooed on my body so I wouldn’t ever forget it.

In other words, I have to work on my roots before I can start waving my branches around. I need to let go of thoughts about my writing life—whatever that means—and think about the writing itself. As I so often tell the writers who come to my workshops, most of being a writer is not about being a writer (launches! festivals! awards!)…it’s just about writing: putting the words on the page; moving them around. Doing the work.

Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s boring. Sometimes it feels like it isn’t leading anywhere. Sometimes it’s wonderful and then I remember why I do it. Writing is the roots. Writing is what I need to come back to. Maybe later I can wave my branches around. But first I need to ground myself again.

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One of the hard things about long-form writing is it’s such a long time between drinks. In the last decade I’ve written two novels from a quartet called Monkey See, for which I am yet to find a publisher. In the meantime, I am working on my sixth novel, Self/Help. I am close to finishing a first draft, but the second draft is always the hardest and slowest work for me, so even if I am lucky enough to find a publisher, that book won’t be out in the world for another couple of years.

In the meantime, I want to find another way to connect with readers. My website/blog is no more (long story): a loss of a decade’s worth of musings, reviews and interviews. I am grieving this archive of my writing life (there’s that phrase again) and overwhelmed by the thought of attempting to reconstruct it.

I have decided to experiment with Substack as a way of connecting with readers and other writers. I want to see if making a (loose) commitment to a semi-regular (weekly? monthly?) newsletter will motivate me to sit at my desk more often and get words on paper.

I don’t yet know what shape it will take. It will certainly be about:

• books and writing and language

• art and film

because those are some of the things I think about the most. But it might also be about:

• gardening

• eating and bodies

• middle age

• dating

• and the intricacies of human relationships

because those are also things I think about a lot. (Also, my cat, Pippin, because she is a national treasure!)

So here goes…

Yhonnie Scarce: The Light of Day

Last week I took the international students from a unit I teach on creativity to the Art Gallery of Western Australia. I was riveted by an exhibition of works by Kokatha and Nukunu artist Yhonnie Scarce, who creates astonishing blown-glass sculptures to explore the impact of colonisation on her people. Some of her most striking works reference a nuclear test conducted in Maralinga in 1956, where her family lived. I felt devastated to read that the plutonium in the soil at Maralinga will still be at lethal levels in 24,000 years time. And yet, Scarce somehow transmuted this act of senseless destruction into something exquisitely beautiful.

The Tomorrow War: why do all aliens look the same?

Though thoughtful, humanist speculative -fiction is my favourite kind, especially when it comes to books, in film I can also enjoy silly action sci-fi and in this category The Tomorrow War did not disappoint: there were spectacular sets, ludicrous stunts and a whole helluva lot of action. But I was disappointed by the aliens that Chris Pratt and his chums had to battle. There seems to be a significant lack of imagination when it comes to our ability to conceptualise aliens. Why are they so often reptilian, slimy, spiky and toothy? Are we really unable to imagine anything beyond a combination of elements from animals that exist on earth? Aliens can come from anywhere in the universe, folks! They could be smooth. They could have many faces, or no faces at all. They might slide or ooze instead of running on legs. Instead of snarling, growling and chittering, they might emit a high-pitched noise, or be completely silent. I think of the astoundingly inventive alien in Jeff Vandermeer’s novel Borne, and I hope that something like that will be coming soon to a screen near me.

David Cronenburg: Dead Ringers

and the centralisation of romantic relationships

As a big fan of Cronenburg, I don’t know how I missed his 1988 pychological thriller Dead Ringers, which features an incendiary performance by Jeremy Irons playing identical twins. It was a deeply disturbing film with all kinds of fascinating ideas I could, (but won’t) delve into, (the less you know the better, if you’re going to watch it) but one thing I couldn’t help notice is the way the twins’ closeness is presented as aberrant, even before the problematic Cronenburgian shenanigans start to unfold. And yes, of course, that is partly foreshadowing. But I can’t help thinking about the normalisation of the centralisation of romantic relationships in our society. Why is it considered normal (and desirable) to live with and know everything about a romantic partner, but strange—even neurotic, or abnormal—to live with and know everything about a sibling? That’s a think I’m thinking, and I’d love to hear what you think.

Bri Lee’s The Work

and characters who seem effortlessly thin

Bri Lee has written her first novel and it is a ripper: a smart page-turner which engages with all sorts of zeitgeisty issues around class, sex, consent and representation in New York’s art world. As a person living with an eating disorder, something that catches my attention in books and films is female characters who seem to be effortlessly slim. Because IRL, for a large majority of women, slimness is often a hard-won goal, and a result of a lot of exercise and/or being very careful about what we eat or drink.

Weight and body image is a preoccupation for Saskia, one of my main characters in Self/Help:

It was true that Saskia hadn’t lost any weight by going to the pool—not that she weighed herself—she had made a pact with Doris not to do that anymore, but she could tell by the way her clothes fit that she was still the same size. Still, it soothed her, swimming laps. And it used up time. There was packing her bag, driving to the pool, the laps themselves; then she had to shower and wash her hair. Lately she’d added a sauna to her routine. It took most of the morning. Which was a good thing. 

She hated the gym, especially the treadmill. Thudding away on that conveyor belt, in that sweat-infused room where everyone seemed thinner, more flexible and more determined than she was, all Saskia could think about was how many calories of the ‘wrong’ foods she had consumed, and how no amount of jogging would ever burn them off—so as well as being torturously boring it was also futile—and all that thought-cycle made her do was want to eat more. 

In The Work Bri Lee’s protagonist, gallery owner Lally, seems to fall into the stereotype of the effortlessly thin woman. She is described as slim, but we never once hear about her working out, or watching what she eats. Yes, she drinks a lot of coffee. But she also drinks a lot of alcohol. And though we are privy to many of her thoughts, she never once seems to agonise over what she’s putting in her mouth. Bri Lee explored this issue eloquently in her non-fiction work Beauty. Perhaps she didn’t want to address it again here, which I can understand. The omission of it here is not a criticism, simply something that gives me pause for thought.

Other things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• Documentary The Greatest Night in Pop on Netflix. Heartfelt and uplifting doco about the creation of the song We Are the World.

• TV Three Body Problem on Netflix. It’s refreshing to encounter a non-US-centric sci-fi. Seeing how the world sprang to action to counter a potential threat from the stars 400 years in the future makes me wonder why we can’t spring into action to counter a threat that’s upon us right now.

• Blogpost 5 ways creatives can stay optimistic and creative by Ben Tallon

• Essay Subtracting Resistance by Charlotte Wood

I would love to hear from you! Any little thought that pops into your head would be so welcome in my inbox.