Perth Words… exploring possibilities.

Would you like to win a bundle of books for yourself or your friends? Summer is such a great time for reading so I hope you’ll like this competition. I’ll be giving away a bundle of four of my books to each of two winners. You can see which books in the photo. With Christmas and the holiday season looming, you could tick some presents off your list, or line up your summer reading – all in one fell swoop!

To enter the competition all you need to do is opt to follow my blog. That means you will receive my latest blog postings directly into your email inbox. To do that you need to go to my website www.lizbyrski.com and enter your email in the “Follow blog by email” field at the foot of any webpage, and click the “follow me” button.

If you already follow my blog, then…

The Smuggler’s Curseis a story set in Broome, a wild and lawless town in the north-west of Australia in 1896 and is about a boy who is sold by his mother as a cabin boy to a sea captain. Captain Black Bowen turns out to be the most notorious smuggler to ever sail the wild Western Australian coast. Before too long, they are at sea and involved in out-running customs patrols, being chased by murderous pirates, nearly killed in a cyclone and entangled in smuggling guns to guerrillas fighting the colonial Dutch in Sumatra.

Red, the narrator, is the son of Mary Read, owner of The Smuggler’s Curse Hotel which sits high on the cliff overlooking Roebuck Bay in Broome. I borrowed her name from a famous 18th century female pirate of the Caribbean, as well as Red’s name from the pirate, Red Rackham. The other main character, as…

Two years ago, looking up/looking down presented a series on Western Australian women writers to watch out for. As I wrote then:

There’s so much creative energy among writers on the western edge—some of it being nurtured in university writing programs, some finding inspiration and support through writers centres, some brewing entirely independently. This four-part series features eight WA women who are part of that creative flurry. All of them have a manuscript ready, or nearly ready, to submit to agents and publishers, and I hope we’ll be hearing a lot more from them in the future.

It’s a true pleasure to observe the evolution of a creative life, and I’m delighted to present an update on what some of them have been doing. Here’s how Michelle Michau-Crawford and Emily Paull responded to an invitation to review their last two years of writing…

Michelle Michau-Crawford

When I was invited in…

You can listen to my short story “The Two of Hearts” on Soundcloud.

The story was originally broadcast on RTÉ Radio, read by actress Catriona Ni Mhurchú.

Click on the picture to listen:

source: independent.ie

STUDIOCANAL and Werner Film Productions release the first images and a behind-the-scenes video today for Dance Academy. The much-anticipated film is an adaptation of the incredibly successful two-time Emmy nominated Australian television series of the same name.

Picking up eighteen months after the television series finale, the much-loved characters have moved on from the ups-and-downs of elite dance training at the National Academy of Dance and are living very different lives. Tara (Xenia Goodwin) was destined to become one of the top dancers of her generation but suffered a devastating injury that crippled her career. In her quest to defy the odds and make a comeback, Tara travels to New York to discover the true definition of a dream.

With all the familiar favourites from the original series and some new faces, including Nic Westaway and Miranda Otto as the Artistic Director of the National Ballet Company, Dance Academy

We are pleased to announce with YOUR generosity, we have been able to fully fund the training of Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre’s APU canine unit!

Trainer, Corlet; photo: HESC

A word to all of you from our friends at HESC:

Words cannot sufficiently express our gratitude towards Fight for Rhinos for being one of our most ardent and loyal supporters.

Fight for Rhinos generously committed to assisting with the successful care and training of our anti-poaching canines at HESC – both for the protection of our rhinos and the rangers.

I’m not accustomed to this level of praise from anyone but my husband. My professor isholding out my short story to the rest of the class, my√++ a loud red against the white paper. It’s screaming, “loved it” almost literally, because that’s what he’s written next to my grade.

“Look at the format. This is what you need to do. The heading there, in MLA. And it’s six pages, so now what? She just has to hand in four more and BOOM! she’s done with her portfolio.”

I can’t make eye contact with anyone, barely even my friends. I don’t know if I’m smilingor just red and blotchy. If I am smiling, there’s a good chance it looks arrogant and cockeyed because I can’t tell if I’m pleased or I want to vomit because I’m embarrassed. I thrive on positive encouragement. In fact, I can take nearly any criticism if…

‘How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.’

(Shakespeare from The Merchant of Venice)

While The Akkadians slept the Moon shone down.

While The Hittites dreamed of an eternal empire the Moon set the tides a flowing.

While The Assyrians and The Phoenicians marched the Moon shone down.

While The Babylonians, The Persians and The Etruscans dreamed of eternal empires the Moon set the tides a flowing.

While The Greeks and The Romans rose and fell the Moon shone down.

While the empires of great Alexander and that of Chandragupta Mauraya rose and fell the Moon set the tides a flowing.

Look up! Look up!

It’s the same moon! The same moon!

And, looking up, we can’t help but feel the Moon looks down on…