A lover of good writing; literary fiction, genre writing, non-fiction, poetry, it matters not.

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Book reviews from Down Under and other musings

I am often compelled to share great writing as I am beyond grateful when an author allays my fears that I have lost the ability to read more than a few pages without falling asleep.

I grew up reading the Milly Molly Mandy collection, the Heidi trilogy, and the Trixie Beldon series. Books I owned thanks to my maternal grandmother, aka Nanny, who at eighteen years old was scolded by her mother for riding a bicycle. My love of libraries grew from monthly visits to our local with my father, which in 2018, culminated in a visit to the Bodleian Library, (amazeballs) when I accompanied him on his five-week-long retirement trip to the U.K.

My book reviews tend to come from an organic response rather than being tasked or sponsored. These days I am an Academic Librarian, but I am always happy to talk or write about books. I am happy to be contacted with writing opportunities as writing in all its forms is where my JOY in uppercase lies waiting.

Nan would often say, “You’ll never be lonely if you read,” and I think the same goes for writing. Since my burgeoning teenage consciousness, and winning my High School’s Year 12 creative writing competition I have called myself a writer. I continue to work on the discipline of turning up and take comfort in the knowledge that when I do writing is waiting for me.

The topic of my thesis in my Honours Degree in Writing and Literature was ‘Negotiating familial trauma in creative writing,’ where I called out the dearth of scholarship applying a literary trauma reading to texts written by women about women. Literary trauma theory is evidently ALWAYS reserved instead for books featuring the masculine endeavours of war and genocide. It was written during the #metoo phenomenon and I was astonished at how systemic misogyny is perpetrated in society.

I hope to share news of my manuscript, a family memoir, soon.