Copywriting | Feature Writing | Hobart, Tasmania
Caught by the River has long been one of my favourite websites. The self-described ‘arts/culture/nature clash’ publishes beautiful and thought-provoking essays, music and photography.
It’s one of the sites that I recommended in my Women’s Nature Writing post a couple of years ago, and I’ve been thrilled by the number of people who have let me know that they’ve become regular readers since that recommendation. Continue reading “An essay on Caught by the River”
You know you’ve been busy when you don’t get a chance to write a ‘Happy New Year’ blog post until the first week of March.
It feels a bit late to be posting a detailed roundup of the projects I worked on during 2020, so I think I will skip that annual tradition other than to say thank you so much to all the clients and editors who chose to work with me. Continue reading “A New Year: Open for Business”
After many months of Tasmania’s borders remaining closed to the other Australian states and territories, we are now starting to open up. Last Friday was the latest step in this gradual relaxing of restrictions, when we started to welcome back travellers from New South Wales. I’m afraid our friends in Victoria will have to wait just a few weeks more, although we can’t wait to see them soon too! Continue reading “Guardian Feature: Tasmanian road trips”
Tomorrow – the first of September – marks the beginning of spring in Tasmania. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to some warmer, brighter days.
Winter was a weird one this year – but then, hasn’t everything been weird this year!? There were individual days that seemed to last forever, and weeks that seemed to be over before they’d even started. Continue reading “Spring in Tasmania”
I had a feature published at Guardian Australia over the weekend: a response to the news that Dark Mofo 2020 has been cancelled, and an encouragement to continue supporting Tasmanian small businesses, arts organisations and restaurants even in light of that cancellation. Continue reading “Guardian Feature on Tasmania in Winter”
After a long and lovely summer holiday which included a trip to Hawaii for a family wedding – lucky me – I’m finally back at my desk.
Even after six years living in Tasmania, I haven’t quite adjusted to taking a break in January. For all my friends in the Northern Hemisphere, the turn of the year marks that moment when they start to feel energised with new ambitions and resolutions; whereas here it simply marks the start of a month off.
That means when February does roll around, and school goes back at last, it can feel like there’s an awful lot to catch up on. Continue reading “February 2020: Back to work!”
Another year just about done!
2019 has been a very busy one here, so I thought I’d finish it by sharing a quick post with you about the good, the bad, and the ugly of my year in work. I am a big fan of being transparent about the highs and lows of freelancing, so that others who are considering making that jump have a realistic sense of what it entails. Continue reading “My freelance year: the good, the bad and the ugly”
Just a quick post to let you know that I have a new personal essay up at Literary Mama today.
I’ve been doing a lot more commercial writing work this year, which has meant less time for personal essays and blog posts, but I’m grateful that I still have time to do the occasional one.
Earlier in the year, my son decided he didn’t want me to read him a bedtime story anymore. It felt like a big milestone, and I was full of feelings… 1800 words of feelings, in fact!
It’s always a joy to work with the great editorial team at Literary Mama, so I’m really pleased to see the resulting piece – The Last Bedtime Story – be published as part of their November/December issue.
I have a piece up at Guardian Australia today about the final season of the icebreaker Aurora Australis, which has spent the last thirty years transporting cargo and crew to Antarctica.
This was a lot of fun to write, and I’m very grateful to the researchers and writers who took time to speak with me.
One cool fact that didn’t make it into the article – the ship is painted the same colour as San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge!
According to my blog stats, a post I wrote back in 2017 about 20 Places to Read Great Personal Essays has proved to be enduringly popular. I suspect it’s mainly other writers who seek it out, looking for publications that might be a good fit to submit their own personal essays to. But perhaps there are also a few people out there – like me – who just really enjoy reading good quality essays and feature articles online.
One problem I’ve found over the years is that I tend to lose track of those favourite reads. I save the link on Facebook, or favourite it on Twitter… but then never manage to go back and read it a second time. Sometimes I forget to save it at all, which can be infuriating if I’m trying to find it again later! I’ll remember a great turn of phrase, or a theme that resonated, but no combination of Google search terms will bring the piece back to me. Continue reading “The best essays of 2019… so far!”
