Perth Words… exploring possibilities.

 It’s time to kick off summer with a Fight for Rhinos t-shirt campaign. What would you like to see on the shirts?

                             Get your designs and suggestions to us. DEADLINE has been extended to JUNE 30TH.

Send us YOUR designs. We’ll post the entries and leave it up to all of you to decide. The design with the most votes will be used on our summer  t-shirts and the winner will receive one of the shirts. Contest open to all ages.

Keep in mind it should be eye-catching and not overly detailed.

Please send your original design to fightforrhinos@gmail.com. Deadline is June 30 . We’re excited to see what you come up with!

Skips seem to be punctuating the landscape in Ireland these days and the mere sight of them sets my mind racing.

For a couple of weeks, every single skip I looked into had at least two old-fashioned suitcases in them ~ you know the ones without wheels?

I longed to know where they had travelled and, of course, with whom.

I’ve only ever had one major dealing with a skip and that was when we were clearing out our late parent’s house. Practically everything that went into it carried memories of some description and it was only then that I truly realised how what can appear to be total rubbish can have very significant meaning for somebody somewhere.

Skips also make me think of an exercise I had to do as part of a course on writing poetry. The opening line was: If I had a skip I would throw away…

I’d like to thank Lynn Michell for this guest post about writing middle-aged heroines. In addition to writing, Lynn runs Linen Press, a small indie publishing house for women writers. She describes this as a fine balancing act “but ever since I saw Elvira Madigan, I’ve secretly wanted to be a tight rope walker”. Lynn’s previous thirteen books are published by Harper Collins, Longman and The Women’s Press, and include a writing scheme for schools and Shattered, a book about living with ME. Those closest to my heart are fiction: Letters To My Semi-Detached Son and my debut novel set in Kenya, White Lies. When not writing or editing, you’ll find her building a house and moving rocks to create a landscape in an oak clearing high above a small village in southern France.

I was talking to an experienced, well respected literary agent the other day about the…

Interview by Nicole Melanson ~

Felicity Marshall has studied Fine Art, majoring in painting. She was a trained classical ballet dancer performing in concerts and pantomimes, and has done additional studies in photography and in writing for children. She is also a qualified teacher for secondary and tertiary level and worked for seventeen years in film production. She started her writing career when she was in her late forties and considers herself to be a late bloomer, with the best work yet to come.

Her publications to date are:

You and Me, Murrawee Penguin Books 1998 (Shortlisted Crichton Award for Illustration) –Written by Kerri Hashmi and illustrated by Felicity Marshall

Sage’s Ark Fremantle Press 2000 (Shortlisted WA Premier’s Book Awards)

The Star Ford Street Publishing 2010 (CBCA Notable Book 2011)

In addition to these, Felicity has published several short stories, poems and a condensed biography of film editor Jill Bilcock.

Overhead, a swinging lamp
casts shadows amidst the damp
of a derelict house that still stands
against time’s winds and sands:

A testament to an ingenious man
and the workings of his rough-hewn hands.

On quiet nights, it still lights the way
to fallow field and vine-choked hay.

Tasking their master to return and reap,
wind-blown stalks bend and weep.

there’s a withering that begins
the days after you reach the peak.
so, ive decided to stay here
planted in the soil
with my hopes.
i’ve decided to outsmart
the grey listless joy.
they dont tell you
there is nothing but snow
at the summit,
anyway.

– sc

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity of talking with the ABC’s Richard Fidler, about my new book – IN LOVE AND WAR: NURSING HEROES.  Richard is such a terrific interviewer who brings great empathy and understanding to all his ‘Conversations’.  It was such a pleasure to talk to him about these surgical Guinea Pigs and their nurses.  If you’d like to listen to the interview you can do so here:

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2015/06/01/4246029.htm