Why I did very little writing this week 3(3)
Hi all, Well another week of dramas has just passed. I have left out a lot of detail in what has been going on with my father, his behaviour is so out of character and strange that I feel if I describe it on this blog it will just take away any dignity he has […]
Graham’s best science fiction of 2009
Hi all, I wasn’t going to do a best of list for 2009 because I felt like a bit of a fraud with my lack of reading last year, but I did watch a few science-fiction movies and a lot of television so, in the hope of creating some sort of tradition, here is my […]
Australia’s health system sucks.
My father has survived, we think, the removal of a tumour on his bladder, but still can’t urinate. The Albury Private Hospital wanted him out on Friday. But then found he couldn’t urinate, so they hooked him up to a colostomy bag and said we could take him, knowing full well, that because of his […]
My Cataract Surgery.
Hi all, I know a few readers of this blog are considering undergoing cataract surgery, so I have decided to write a post on my experience, so far. About four months ago I had conjunctivitis which left me with one very pink left eye, and not so pink right eye. It cleared quickly but I […]
Out Damned Spot
Hi all, Over the past few months my vision has been losing focus, especially after a bout of conjunctivitis about two months ago. I began to interrogate my eyes by reading with one or the other closed and discovered the left eye, the one most badly affected by conjunctivitis, had an opaque patch, right in […]
Science fiction novel short listed for Age book of the year
Hi all, Steven Amsterdam’s novel Things We Didn’t See Coming, is on a short-list of five for the Age Book of the Year Awards. The novel “makes use of science fiction and apocalyptic themes” and much of it is set in the near future. The Age also says his writing “recalls the work of writers […]
The Emerging Writer’s Festival, part eight.
Hi all, The Best Way Forward was the last session I attended at Melbourne’s Emerging Writer’s Festival. It discussed avenues a writer could use to improve their writing. Steve Amsterdam told us a story that turned some of my prejudices around, but reinforced others. He was born in America to a literary agent mother. As […]
The Emerging Writer’s Festival part seven
Hi all, This is the seventh – yeah I’ve milked my attendance for all its worth – post on the Melbourne’s Emerging Writing Festival, held in the last weeks of May this year. I went to nine sessions over the second weekend. In this post I cover two sessions, the first, Out of the Mouth […]
The Emerging Writer’s Festival, part six.
Hi all, Day two of my weekend at Melbourne’s Emerging Writer’s Festival began with a session called Crashing, Smashing and Bashing Through. It was the first panel to have a real-life science fiction writer on it, so there is at least one emerging science-fiction writer getting published who has opinions on writing. His name was […]
Emerging Writer’s Festival, part five.
The Pitch was the final session of the Saturday I attended the Emerging Writer’s Festival. The ground floor hall of Melbourne’s town hall was, once again, packed with about 300 writers eager to be told, at least I was, that it wasn’t as hard to pitch to publishers as everybody else had said. This session […]