Perth Words… exploring possibilities.

There are no magic formulas that agents are hiding from writers. Or secrets that published authors are hiding from unpublished authors. But there are a few things that can act like a key to unlock potential. I believe these three things are all it takes to make it in this business.

Time: Books don’t write themselves. Last week I asked people if they have a writing schedule. It was unanimous that while some people have strict schedules (up at 5am to write!) everyone believed you have to find a way to get the words on the page at a regular basis. While most people thought that a writer doesn’t have to write everyday to be a writer, they DO need to buckle down to get it done.

Fear: No matter how important it is to be fearless in your writing, you’re always chasing your fears away. For most writers, they never disappear…

Street Art in Waterford City, Ireland.

This quote from Oscar Wilde is painted on an old wall on a hilly street near where I often park in Waterford City.

The first time I saw it, I only glimpsed the top two lines as there was a car blocking the rest of it. It certainly captured my attention and every single time I see it now, it stays with me for hours and hours.

I reckon there’s a lot of truth in it and I’m beginning to think that the ‘busy, busy, busy’ approach to life which is so dominant in our society is playing a huge role in dragging people away from living to existing.

I know that there are some people who are genuinely busy and I would count many working parents of three or four young kids as probably being among the most genuinely busy people out there.

For so…

By Rashida Murphy

Growing up in the seventies in a convent school in India meant that the foundations of a colonial education were firmly entrenched by the time I was a teenager. To borrow Rushdie’s words, I too grew up “kissing books and bread.” Most of the books I kissed and consumed were those that inhabited my father’s rosewood bookshelves, along with the ones we were obliged to read as texts. The Bronte sisters were an early influence, as were Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy. I could easily visualise Byron’s “deep and dark blue ocean” despite never having seen one and hear Shelley’s skylark without any idea of what that might be. And how I ached, along with Keats’s “drowsy numbness” and wandered, “lonely as a cloud” with Wordsworth, while peering into that “deep romantic chasm” with Coleridge. The poets spoke Romance to me and the Bronte sisters taught me…

So proud to see this book on the shelves now. It’s a collection of personal stories by fifteen wonderful women writers responding to the the colour purple, and edited by my friend and colleague Rachel Robertson​ and me.

We have our own stories in here alongside Anne Manne​ Annamaria Weldon​ Toni Jordan, Natasha Lester​ Sarah Drummond Deborah Hunn​ Rosemary Stevens Hanifa Deen​ Lily Chan Lucy Dougan​ Amanda Curtin​ Tracy Farr​ Jacqueline Wright​ .

It’s been fascinating to see what emerges from asking women to think about what purple means to them and Purple Prose includes stories about families, pigeon fanciers, French Impressionists, feminism, ageing, the footy and more. Just what you need to solve your Christmas gift dilemmas! Hope you enjoy it.

In addition to assisting Ol Pejeta and the Black Mambas, we are currently raising funds to support an anti-poaching unit in southern Kruger National Park. This APU has lost rhinos in recent months, and are in need of additional training to track poachers.

By providing them with training of human tracking, this will enhance their skills, cut down the chances of poaching, and further equip them in protecting wildlife in the area.

By purchasing an ornament, a piece of art or making a donation, you will provide necessary support for our project.

Ranger in Kruger National Park. photo: Marco Longari

I’d love to know to what extent blogging runs in families. I know about 3 pairs of sisters who blog, 3 mothers and sons; 2 mothers and daughters and I think that’s it.

Maybe it’s just that I’m not moving in the right circles to find the families, or maybe I know them individually and haven’t put one and one or two and two together ( that always reminds of the card game ‘Fish in the Pond.’ Do you remember it? )

There is the little matter that there can be a sense that there is only room for one blogger in a family ~ a bit like one photographer.

I think my late mother would probably have got into blogging if it had been around in her day. She wrote a lot for publication and broadcasting and loved being part of a ‘community of writers.’ I often think of…