Showing all posts about writing
The definition of being a single parent
23 February 2022
Dani Vee, Sydney based host of literary podcast Words and Nerds, writes about being a single parent at Ramona Magazine. If you only read one paragraph of the article, make sure it’s this one:
The next time you hear anyone talking about single mothers, start by replacing words like lonely, stressed, frazzled, broke and struggling with ‘you mean that independent-solution-focused-resilient-kick ass woman with the electric lawnmower?’
Also lookout for her debut picture book My EXTRAordinary Mum, featuring illustrations by Alexandra Colombo.
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Impossible by Sarah Lotz
21 February 2022
What would you do if an email intended for another person, made its way to your inbox? Would you delete it forthwith? Or would you, without blinking at it, inform the sender by return, of their error? Or might you feel that’d be tantamount to admitting you’d read the message? Might you think you were therefore exposing yourself to possible retribution, by making yourself known to the sender?
Or might you be like Bee, a London dress maker, who having received, and read, an incorrectly addressed email, decides to send a considered reply to the sender, because she found the contents intriguing? And would you believe for a second that such a response could be the beginning of a friendship, or perhaps something more?
This is exactly what happens in Impossible (published by HarperCollins Publishers, March 2022), by Sarah Lotz, the eighth novel by the British novelist and screenwriter. Nick, who is struggling personally and professionally, is surprised when Bee, a stranger, replies to his misdirected rant, but is delighted as their correspondence becomes regular and more intimate.
After all, who doesn’t like a meeting a new friend? But when Bee and Nick realise there is more to their exchanges than cordial banter, they decide to take the next step. Nick jumps on a train from Leeds, while Bee makes her way to London’s Euston station to meet him. But is it that simple? Can something come of what they have? Could it? Or is there too much they don’t know about each other to make that possible?
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fiction, Sarah Lotz, TBR list, writing
The This, Adam Roberts
16 February 2022
This sounds convenient. Instead of hauling a smartphone around all the time, you could instead have a social media platform injected into the roof of your mouth. The implant would mesh with your brain, eventually taking the place of your phone. Blink twice to take a photo maybe, communicate brain to brain with friends who also have the app implant.
Welcome to The This, the futurist social media app, and novel of the same name, written by British science fiction author Adam Roberts, published by Hachette Australia. The app is popular with many, but there are those who do not like it. They do not want to be part of the so-called hive mind. They’ve seen Twitter, they’ve seen enough. But the storyline has all the hallmarks of a hive mind, a sprawling, surreal, neural network spanning space and time.
Adan is a journalist, sent to profile the CEO of The This. But after Adan’s mother unexpectedly leaves the country, he is forced to join the army as he is left without a home or any money. Adan is battling a robot invasion, in a reality far removed from the one he once knew. In later centuries a diminished humanity is fighting off another hive mind, one intent of the final destruction of humanity. And all because we wanted to try out a new social media app…
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Adam Roberts, fiction, TBR list, writing
Francis Spufford, a writer once not a writer
16 February 2022
If you were a writer like British author Francis Spufford is, but didn’t want to call yourself a writer, as was once the case for Spufford, what title would you settle for instead?
It took me a long time to decide I wanted to be a writer. And then I felt that to call myself a writer, let alone a novelist, would be a kind of boast. I accepted it gradually, once I could see the objects I’d made.
If it were me, and we were talking about say works of fiction, I’d probably describe myself as a storyteller.
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The Very Last List of Vivian Walker, Megan Albany
12 February 2022
I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel if I were told I only had a certain amount of time left to live. It’s not the sort of situation most of us are used to dealing with. Our time, energy, and thought-output goes into dealing with all those other everyday predicaments. Paying the mortgage, getting the kids into the best school. Meeting the latest deadline. No pun intended.
But this is what happens to Vivian, the titular character of The Very Last List of Vivian Walker (published by Hachette Australia, 9 February 2022), the debut novel of Kalkadoon woman Megan Albany, an Australian author based in the Northern Rivers of NSW.
With her mortality hanging by a thread, Vivian does what any self-possessed control freak whose life is regimented by lists would; she decides to face her demise by organising herself. She prepares to-do lists not only for herself, but husband Clint, and son Ethan. These lists, she hopes, will soften the blow of her terminal diagnosis, and prepare the family for a future without her.
Vivian’s final days are punctuated with a certain dark humour, and one hopes not too many of us will ever find ourselves taking a leaf from the book of Vivian Walker.
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fiction, Megan Albany, TBR list, writing
Ice Crash: Antarctica, Lynda Engler
11 February 2022
American science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson is among writers who are hopeful fiction featuring climate change, and the consequences of global warming, will play a part in changing the perceptions of people who still don’t take the worldwide environmental crisis seriously.
For instance his latest novel, The Ministry for the Future, paints a bleak picture of a planet in deep trouble, but also presents a pathway through the turmoil, towards a positive future. Ice Crash: Antarctica (published by Amazon, February 15, 2022), by North Carolina based American author Lynda Engler, is another work of fiction taking on the topic of climate change, coupled with a series of devastating natural disasters.
Here, an earthquake in Antarctica pushes the Thwaites glacier, also known as the doomsday glacier into the ocean, bringing about a sudden and catastrophic rise in sea levels. Kathryn, a seismologist working in Antarctica, who has been alarmed by the unusual seismic activity, becomes trapped at McMurdo Station, by a succession of earthquakes.
Her husband and son meanwhile, who are in Boston, and her daughter who is in Florida, need to evacuate as sharply rising sea waters, and a series of tsunamis, bring devastation to the continental United States, and other nations around the globe.
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fiction, Lynda Engler, TBR list, writing
The Truth about Faking It, Cassie Hamer
10 February 2022
The first rule of lying is not be caught out. But to lie frequently, or compulsively, means you either need to have a good memory, or hope that no one ever uncovers the truth. And webs of deceit are at the heart of The Truth about Faking It (published by HarperCollins Publishers, May 2022), the third novel by Sydney based Australian author Cassie Hamer.
Lies run through Ellen’s family. Her daughter Natasha, a composed television news reader, and grand-daughter Georgie, the producer of a reality TV show, are accomplished at concealing the truth, and their feelings. Ellen isn’t half bad either. Despite being married to David, she has been seeing the well-off Kenneth, on the side. But when the accident prone David dies in a boating accident in Thailand, having travelled there with his elusive and seldom heard of brother, Ellen, Natasha, and Georgie, smell a rat.
Something is not quite right about the whole affair, and the three women decide to delve further into the circumstances surrounding David’s demise. But in doing so, in exposing the truth of what happened to David, they risk lifting the lid on their own sordid lies and deceptions. Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive…
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Cassie Hamer, fiction, TBR list, writing
A day in the life of a librarian
9 February 2022
A day in the life of a librarian, or at least how library users might see a librarian’s day, by Chicago based American author John Howard Matthews. Quite possibly not one hundred percent accurate…
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The impact of COVID lockdowns on new authors
7 February 2022
Newly published authors are among those whose livelihoods have been impacted by the COVID lockdowns of the last two years, writes Mark Rubbo, managing director of independent Australian book retailer Readings. Bookshop exposure is integral in building an author’s profile, and is something many new authors have missed out on recently, with people staying at home because of restrictions imposed as a result of the pandemic.
For most first-time authors, exposure in bookshops is very important in establishing a market for a book, be it a chance encounter, a recommendation or a purchase triggered by some form of publicity. If the book is any good, then word of mouth builds a more sustainable demand. Many of the books released in the past two years risk becoming Covid orphans.
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Cooper Not Out, by Justin Smith
1 February 2022
It’s a funny old game cricket, some days a player’s skill sees them soar to heights not seen before, other day’s fortune roundly turns on even the best. Then there’s Roy Cooper, a police sergeant who’s been a member of the rural Australian Penguin Hill Cricket Club for years. He’s never scored a century, nor for that matter, gone much passed double figures.
Nor has he ever taken a wicket, let alone a hat-trick, or a ten wicket haul. But as local schoolgirl Cassie Midwinter discovers, Roy has a claim to fame, one seemingly overlooked by the statistics mad doyens of the game: he has not once been dismissed while playing. After decades at the crease, Roy has never been bowled, stumped, caught, nor run-out.
It is a feat Cassie brings to the attention of a renowned cricket writer known as Don Garrett, who thinks the national men’s cricket team could benefit from Roy’s talents. Australia are being trounced by the West Indies in the 1984 summer test series, and Don sets about bringing Roy’s achievement to the notice of the team selectors, in Cooper Not Out (published by Penguin Books Australia, 18 January 2022), by Melbourne based writer and journalist Justin Smith.
Will the unthinkable happen? Will a life-long club player find himself pacing onto the pitch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, in a bid to reverse the fortunes of the men’s test team? It might seem like a pipe dream, but as they say, it’s a funny old game. But Roy isn’t the only one with unnoticed accomplishments, and there’s much more to Don, the sports writer, than meets the eye.
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