Writer, editor & reader
This was such a good month for reading, I travelled back to Australia for Christmas and had a fair few 3am wake ups to read through, and after finishing the Wolf Hall trilogy I felt like I could tackle anything (except Middlemarch, which I’m circling. So many people love it. Maybe I should try audio?) … Continue reading Castles, ghosts, heart surgery, Paris
While reading the Gillian Mear’s biography a few months back I discovered that when The Mint Lawn was reissued she had the opportunity to make a few changes. Yet she more or less left it how it was. Perhaps she simply didn’t have it in her to go back to that book. It was so … Continue reading 5 ideas to help you finish a piece of writing
It took me a while to read Tim Winton’s most recent novel and I was surprised, actually, that it was published in 2017 and I still hadn’t got around to it… but that’s moving countries, a pandemic and a supply chain crisis for you. I would have stumbled across it in Perth at some point, … Continue reading A unexpected conversion in the Grunewald
It’s hard to explain what is meant by a distinctive voice in fiction – after all, every voice is distinctive in its own way. But when you come across a book with a strong voice, you recognise it immediately. My two latest reads are both ones I could ‘hear.’ The first, The Shepherd’s Hut by … Continue reading Say it out loud – extraordinary voice in fiction and memoir
A long time ago I became friends with someone because her partner was my then-boyfriend’s uncle. The three of them lived together in an old terrace house in Fremantle, and we bonded over our love of red wine, books and morbid humour. She was twenty years older than me, but we somehow clicked, and when … Continue reading ‘Leaping into Waterfalls’ and losing track of old friends
All the animals at Berlin's Anoha museum are handmade from recycled objects by various Berlin artists The cure for many ills, noted Jung, is to build something, and this is the epigraph and theme of Amanda Lohrey’s atmospheric novel, The Labyrinth (Text). It’s my second read by a Tassie author this month and further proof … Continue reading Amanda Lohrey’s ‘The Labyrinth’ and making things by hand
The City Kino in Wedding Reading is what fuels my writing, and possibly since deleting my Twitter account I’ve gotten back into it big time. Here are a few books I’ve adored recently.How to End a Story by Helen GarnerOof. Helen Garner’s account of her marriage breakdown to 'V'. Beautiful writing, as always, and so … Continue reading Reading, watching, listening
Wendy Davis' memoir, published by Fremantle Press The Claremont Serial Killer, now known to be Perth man Bradley Edwards, was jailed in late 2020 for forty years without parole. News reports referred to ‘a dark line being drawn under history,’ and it is hopefully some relief to the families and his surviving victims to know … Continue reading The quiet Australian – a new book is to be published about the Claremont Serial Killer
Thanks to Readings Books for adding The Night Village to their list of the best crime books of 2021 - their resident crime reader and bookseller Fiona Hardy (who is also an award-winning author) wrote a wonderful review of The Night Village for Books & Publishing right before it came out, which got it off … Continue reading The Night Village on the Readings Books list of best crime fiction of 2021
When I started writing my psychological suspense novel, The Night Village, about a new mother and her strange houseguest, I pictured the story unfolding in my old flat in Hackney. And then, in the same way a dream will suddenly shift location, my characters were all somehow living at the Barbican Estate in central London. … Continue reading Why the Barbican makes a compelling setting for a novel
Zoe Deleuil 