Ella lived in the red-dirt country where the earth was as dry as old bones and it hadn’t rained for years and years and years. It’s four weeks and a Continue reading

I’m going down to Bruny Island for a couple of days, leaving later this morning, and while I’m there I’m going to visit the local primary school. It’s a very Continue reading

The editing process for a novel is long and slow. But there are some really exciting moments in it, and one of the best is receiving First Pages from my Continue reading

When I was eighteen, some friends and I went to the drive-in to watch the Steven Spielberg movie Duel. It was Spielberg’s second movie, so his name didn’t mean a Continue reading

Back in 2010 I was invited to New Delhi to take part in the Bookaroo Festival of Children’s Literature. It took place over four or five days, and there were Continue reading

My parents met and married in the Northern Territory during the Second World War. My father was a soldier just returned from Palestine. My mother was an army nurse. That Continue reading

My dad was a storyteller. It’s not a hard thing to be in Tasmania, which is packed to the brim with strangeness, beauty and tragedy. So when my brothers and Continue reading

Many years ago, I sent the first three chapters of Museum of Thieves to Peter Bishop from Varuna Writers House in the Blue Mountains. By then, I’d been working on Continue reading

My #2 tip for up and coming writers is practise patience. This is a hard one to take on board, particularly when you’re young. In your teens and twenties, it Continue reading

A young woman doing a creative writing degree at University recently messaged me with a number of questions about my career. Her last question was, ‘Can you give me three Continue reading