It is 80 years today since the Black Friday bushfires which devastated the Gippsland area of Victoria. In 1989, on the 50th anniversary of those fires, my mother, Catherine Mary (McGrath) Merrick, put her memories of that day on paper . ~~~ 'What a dreadful day. The hills of East Gippsland and beyond Melbourne were … Continue reading Black Friday, 13 January 1939
2018 – A Year of Reading
For about twenty years now, my goal has been to read a book a week. It is not such a difficult thing to do, but something I seem to be incapable of achieving. I usually manage to read forty-eight books, give or take a couple, each year. In 2017 I reached fifty books but this … Continue reading 2018 – A Year of Reading
My Reading – December 2018
Shell by Kristina Olsson The day the great man sang, heat blazed in haloes over Bennelong Point. The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry No decent story ought to begin with a dead prostitute and for that, apologies, for it is not something upon which respectable persons would desire to dwell. The Ghost Tree … Continue reading My Reading – December 2018
An Unseasonal Christmas – Rain, Wind and Snow in 1878
In less than one hundred years of British settlement in Australia, settlers had developed certain expectations of Christmas -- the weather would be warm, dinner could be taken al fresco, the afternoon would be spent in outdoor activities. But 1878 was a year when the 'clerk of the weather' decided to show that he had … Continue reading An Unseasonal Christmas – Rain, Wind and Snow in 1878
Christmas in Australia
For many people Christmas brings to mind images of snow covered trees, robins hopping on branches, holly and ivy. Here at ‘the top of the world (or the bottom according to your point of view)’* Christmas occurs in summer. While weather can be variable (it has been known to rain at Christmas), the perfect Christmas … Continue reading Christmas in Australia
Book Review – Graveyard Clay (Cré na Cille) by Máirtín Ó Cadhain
Graveyard Clay (Cré na Cille) by Máirtín Ó Cadhain is set in a graveyard in the west of Ireland in the early 1940s and is a continuing dialogue between those buried there. These are not spirits waiting to be translated elsewhere but rather the coffin-bound corpses of the dead. They have brought with them into … Continue reading Book Review – Graveyard Clay (Cré na Cille) by Máirtín Ó Cadhain
My Reading – November 2018
Graveyard Clay (Cré na Cille) by Máirtín Ó Cadhain. Translated by by Liam Mac Con Iomaire and Tim Robinson I wonder am I buried in the Pound Plot or the Fifteen-Shilling Plot? Or did the devil possess them to dump me in the Half-Guinea Plot, after all my warnings? The Cry by Helen Fitzgerald It … Continue reading My Reading – November 2018
Book Review – The Lady of the Tower by Elizabeth St John
The Lady of the Tower imagines the life of Lucy St John, a descendant of Margaret Beauchamp (maternal grandmother of Henry VII), from 1603 as she emerges from girlhood to 1630 when she was wife of the Keeper of the Tower of London. With the death of Lucy’s mother five years earlier, the family has been … Continue reading Book Review – The Lady of the Tower by Elizabeth St John
An Interview with the Author!
This is my first 'real' interview - Richard Lowe interviews me about Forsaking All Other and writing in general. It is part of his Author Talk series where he interviews a range of authors about their books and their approaches to writing. Richard's website Fiction Master Class also contains a wealth of material for people … Continue reading An Interview with the Author!
A Grandish Tour
Although I am nearly a week back from my five week holiday in the northern hemisphere, my writing brain is still not functioning properly. I put it down to the combination of nearly twenty-four hours travelling contrary to the spinning of the earth and a very nasty cold caught in the process. So instead of … Continue reading A Grandish Tour
