Australian author, literary agent, consultant

Finding grants as a writer: a few key resources for US and Australian writers

January 24, 2012 Grants for writers

Applying for a grant as a writer is easy in one sense – after all, you can write a decent sentence – but very difficult in lots of other ways. There will always be more applicants for any grant than there are grants available. Your chances of success are often (not always) better if you [...]

Looking for a critique? Look no further!

January 21, 2012 Memoir

If you’re looking for constructive feedback on your work in progress to take it to the next level, I’ve got some time available in February. I regularly read and write editorial reports on writers’ draft manuscripts for clients as distant from each other as Abu Dhabi, New York and Sydney. As a published memoirist and [...]

New year resolutions for literary types

January 4, 2012 Improve your writing

What might it be like to write “for the unknown good of our enemies”? This is one of an inspiring and reassuring list of writers’ resolutions for 2012 from the blog of Brevity magazine:

Mike Nock Trio Plus: music to ease anyone’s pain

January 3, 2012 Pianos and pianists on the stage and the page

I must be missing New York’s cold January weather. How else to explain the two ice packs I’ve clutched to either end of me this past week in a hot and humid Australian climate? Visiting a dear friend in Brisbane, I fell over my own foot while hanging out some washing. The resulting bruise looked [...]

On being widowed: Sarah Watt and William McInnes

November 27, 2011 Memoir

Tonight I learned that Australian filmmaker Sarah Watt died earlier this month. Sometimes I’m a little slow on the uptake – it was more than three weeks ago. She leaves behind a body of award-winning work, a loving husband, and two teenage children. This moving article in The Age features a photograph I will reproduce below [...]

Cross-dressing writers in Theresa Rebeck’s “Seminar”

November 21, 2011 Improve your writing

I’m excited that my first guest post on the terrific Brevity blog is now online. It’s a riff on a satirical attack on memoir-writing in the new play Seminar by Theresa Rebeck, which I recently saw in preview. The remarkable Alan Rickman (who I have adored ever since Truly Madly Deeply) plays Leonard, a formidable [...]

The New York memoir

November 15, 2011 Improve your writing

The Economist‘s books blog reviews James Wolcott’s memoir of 1970s New York as the latest in a long line of first-person accounts of living in the city. There are certain precautions memoirists can take to inoculate themselves against the genre’s hazards. … Memoirists are safe so long as they appear to be eulogising someone or [...]

Top secrets of writing a memoir

November 13, 2011 Improve your writing

Did you know that literary magazine Tin House receives 2,000 stories every month? Or that New York literary agents receive 10-12 queries per day? These are a few of the reality-check gems I picked up by watching the videotaped National Book Critics Circle panel “Secrets of Memoir” held recently at the NYU Bookstore. The panel moderator, [...]

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Australian author, literary agent, and grant writer/researcher