I often wonder why so few people actually finish their writing projects. Or, why other people have great plans but don’t act on them. Any creative project has 3 distinct phases and each one requires you to harness a particular energy within yourself. Stage #1 –...
I had a terrific time at the The Hindu Lit for Life festival in Chennai. My workshop on world building (of the fictional variety) was a lot of fun with an engaged group of 20-plus people. I even got a mention in The Hindu paper about it. There was a typo...
On 09 November, I'm doing a Book Discussion about Lost Artistry, Lost Humanity and a Collision of Cultures in 18th Century India with author and renowned journalist Mick Brown at the Nehru Centre in London from 6.30 - 7.30pm. The event is FREE admission so please RSVP by sending me an email at claire@wordstruck.com.au so I can get an idea of...
Today, as India celebrates 70 years of independence from the British, there is an alternative lens to view the history of the two nations. A history not solely defined by the Raj, but one that evolved during a window in the mid-eighteenth century before British rule...
You never know what you’re going to do to research a book. For The Pagoda Tree I’ve shared my hotel room with a rat, ridden on a bullock cart, met a prince and driven all night from Delhi Claire on the back of a bullock cart,...
Yesterday I met 4 writers – two Indian & two Australian – who were part of the 2012 Bookwallah tour, Asialink Arts’ roving international writers festival through India. This amazing literary tour covered 4000-km by train, beginning in Mumbai and ending in Pondicherry in Tamil...
In a recent video interview with the Australian Writers’ Centre I was asked how I write about other cultures. The pitfalls, the pleasures. And how writing about my Indian characters in The Pagoda Tree differed from writing about Ani, the Tibetan nun, in Last Seen...
The first question a journalist asked me last week was why I made the decision to write my new book as fiction. Why I made the leap. Although Last Seen in Lhasa is a travel memoir, I used fictional techniques — creating character, plenty of dialogue...