This blog is mainly about my journey as a self-publisher author. However, today I am uploading a piece about a chance conversation with Barry, once a senior proofreader for some major Sydney newspapers. This conversation took place at Easter. How circumstances change! It’s now only June and, since then, I have been informed Barry has …
Musings is a book that just sailed into my life one day and I’m so happy it did for it’s a remarkable work with a wealth of fresh observations of life, politics, culture, religion and a whole lot more that gets you thinking about how good life on this earth could be if we were …
It is with a great sense of satisfaction (and some relief) as I put down my copy of Thomas Pynchon’s first novel V for, with that action, I have joined that club of erudite readers who have read the complete works of Thomas Pynchon at least once. I was introduced to Pynchon over ten years …
I was asked to provide a three minutely eulogy for my father at the church service for his funeral: Gerald, my father, was born in North Sydney in 1936, into a period of human history on the verge of amazing expansion. He attended Saint Aloysius Primary School in Milson’s Point and then went to Saint …
Over Chinese New Year this year, I received as a gift a copy of a book called Our Colourful World. It’s a collection of 54 short stories by mainland Chinese writer, Ling Dingnian. On the cover of the book, he, or perhaps his publisher, describes his writings as mini-novels. That really doesn’t translate well into …
Thrillers are about characters who are in ‘terrible trouble,’ writes Dean Koontz. Peter Gray does appear to have cracked the thriller formula with Rough Cut, for on the very first page his character is indeed in ‘terrible trouble’. We are immediately drawn into the story of how Charlie Robertson came to be in that trouble …
I so enjoyed watching the Australian Soccer team play France in Kazan in their first game of World Cup 2018. I visited Kazan in 2001 and remember it as a wonderful regional Russian city even then. The day after Australia played France, I heard sports commentator Francis Leach talking on the radio about how Kazan …
Along the Way, The Journey of a Father and Son, a co-autobiography by Martin Sheen and his son Emilio Estevez, was published in 2012. While it has a strong focus on the scripting, directing, acting and general activity behind the scenes of their 2009 collaborative movie The Way, an account of a father’s epic walk …
it was great this week to catch up again with Hilarie Lindsay. I called her about midday the other day and it was as if she was sitting there waiting for me to ring so she could fill me in on all that had happened since we last spoke about six years ago. Hilarie at …
