Perth Words… exploring possibilities.

Welcome back to ‘The Story Behind The Story’ series. Today’s post is by Rashida Murphy. I love and resonate with Rashida’s writing on so many levels, and thrilled to learn more about the story behind her novel.

I was born in a small town in India and came to Perth, Western Australia as a young woman with an infant daughter and my then husband, about 30 years ago. I started writing stories as a way of ‘sense-making’ in a new country. My novel, ‘The Historian’s Daughter’ was one such story. It started as a fragment many years ago, but I started to write it seriously in 2011 when I was offered a PhD scholarship by my university in Perth. It is a story about fragmented families and fragments of memory and poetry and for a long time I didn’t actually know what the story was about. Like many writers…

‘… This is a song from the 50s .. It’s been recorded by hundreds of people … But not like this!’

(Van Morrison’s introduction to It’s All In The Game before performing it at The Albert Hall in 2014)

Van Morrison is a dweller on the threshold.

An artist who delights in the sensual world of earthly love and light and linear time while understanding in the very core of his being that we are also citizens of co-existing realms beating to the rhythms of a different eternal drum.

In his art he seeks to demonstrate that there are no walls between these realms but rather permeable membranes we can pass through if we would but release the flickering fires of our imaginative and spiritual nature.

So, when Van heard the song, ‘It’s All In The Game’; bizarrely written in posthumous collaboration by a Noble prize winning Vice President of…

We’re starting out the new year with a Go-Fund-Me campaign to protect our rhinos and the courageous rangers who stand between them and the poachers.

photo: unknown

We received a plea from a ranger belonging to a smaller anti-poaching unit in southern Kruger National Park. The loss of rhino in their area has left them feeling frustrated and helpless.  Aside from their basic training, they are in urgent need of a tracking course to enable them to better track poachers when they are in the area.

In this ranger’s words “It is important to go to such training as in most training centers or colleges they do teach us tracking but in a short period, and in those weeks there’s lot of things we’ve been taught (i.e animal identification, tree species, grass,soil erosion, patrol techniques, etc) so doing this specified human tracking will enable us to see clearly where and how the poachers came and to…

Bare feet on cold grass
Sun’s breath whispers on rooftops
Morning on my skin

Breeze finds leaves to kiss
Tiptoes through autumn colours
Barely makes a sound

Lively forest stream
All water leads to the sea
Skipping like a child

Sparrows in hedge chatter
Step too close and off they fly
Tiny thudding wings

Warmth of evening light
On my back and in my eyes
Hold me ’til the dawn

At the beginning of a new year, writers have often been working hard on a manuscript and are trying to summon up the courage it takes to submit it to an agent or publisher. Here are 10 tips for those who are new to this stage of the journey to publication.

1.Don’t send your manuscript to a publisher who doesn’t publish in your genre. It sounds obvious, but publishers report that it happens all the time. Do your homework first. Take note of who publishes the books in your genre that you read, and research those publishers. Look for information in the newsletter or on the website of your state writers centre or other writers centres you belong to. Read the websites of publishers; if you’re still not sure, email a polite enquiry. Commercial marketplace guides, online or print, are also available (e.g. Australian Writers Marketplace).

2.