My third memoir, A Gradual Grace, is now available as an audiobook on Spotify and other channels. It has been beautifully produced by an editor colleague, AJ Collins. It is a follow-up to my first two memoirs: the first one, This Place You Know, tells the story [...]
This short chapter from my second memoir, A Practice of Loss: Memoir of an Abandoning Mother, tells of the separation from my daughters. Their father had forced me to agree to leave them with him and return to my mother in Sydney. He threatened to kill them, [...]
A Practice of Loss: Memoir of an Abandoning Mother October 24 2021, about a year after I wrote the blog below. My second memoir is now published with a changed sub-title. In Spring 1972, my ex-husband phoned me from Los Angeles. His raspy, nasal voice crackled over [...]
Writing this life? I never thought it would be so hard. I’ve never wanted to write fiction, just life; but lately, I’ve found myself writing my life as if I were writing fiction. I don’t mean I’m lying about it or falsifying it; but I’m having to [...]
At the same time I wrote of in my last post, when I was looking after an elderly lady who lived on the banks of the Swan River in Perth, I was very moved by a phone call from my youngest daughter, who was living on the [...]
When I was searching for a title for my second memoir, I came across a poem by Emily Dickinson. It seemed to express perfectly yet indirectly what the theme of my memoir is. A Gradual Grace is the title I have chosen; it comes from a poem [...]
When I was studying for my PhD, I wrote an essay about visiting the grave of my paternal Grandmother in Hay, NSW. I never knew my grandparents on either side; they were all dead before I was born. I was very struck by my mother's stories of [...]
About three years ago, I followed an impulse and saw a clairvoyant. The second thing she said to me (the first was that I was surrounded by angels!) was: "Where are your books?" What books, I said. "The ones you are writing." Well, I'm working on [...]
I'm delighted to announce that my memoir of childhood, This Place You Know, is published this month by Ginninderra Press. It's been a long journey, starting back in 1996 when my eldest daughter, Nicola-Jane, said 'Mum, you're my mentor in writing but you haven't written anything!' So [...]
About three months ago I wrote a review of Traumata, by Meera Atkinson, and it was accepted by the journal Life Writing. For some reason, it didn't get published or get a doi. I have addressed that now, and it is up online. Please visit the link [...]
