Staying motivated on a long project requires a particular sort of grit. There are strategies that help you hang in there for the long game. When I had my mini writing retreat at Bundanon, I was looking back over my ‘writing journal’. These are the notes...
Last week my mum gave her first talk at the Thame Arts and Literature Festival in the UK. People laughed at her jokes, asked interesting questions and she sold 10 copies of her memoir A Baboon in the Bedroom. At 79 years old she’s finding...
Overlooking the town of Laurieton is a mountain called ‘Big Brother’. The day after my workshops there I went to the top and there was a parasailer preparing to jump off. I could never do that. I’m scared of heights and the thought of taking a...
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...
What makes you write? Do you write to be read? I was watching an interview with Australian author Markus Zusak (The Book Thief) who said that even if he knew his next novel would never be read, he’d still write it. That’s pretty honourable, I reckon. When...
Hello everyone, I’ve been quiet for a while. After working on my novel for two years, I’m excited to announce that it’s nearly ready for publication. The Pagoda Tree will be published on 26th June 2013 by Penguin. As I needed to create space for the...