“A picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less you know.” how photographs can help with writing.
Category: writing
Finding Your Way through Writer’s Block
Feijoa season is finished for the year in my garden. I’ve pruned the trees now the fruit are finished, snipping off the branches growing too close together, making sure there was space for birds to fly through. The sun was hot for late May, more like a spring day in the northern hemisphere than an…
Shoelaces – a short story
My shoelaces are missing again. My running shoes lie strewn on the floor, pointing in opposite directions. A ladder of darker grooves imprints the white leather tongues. The first time, we have this conversation. – Have you seen my shoelaces? – What do you want laces for? – I want to go for a run.…
Writing from Memory and Life
Memory and experience are fertile places for writers. I always think the stories and poems we react most strongly to are the ones that strike a chord of empathy or understanding, because we have experienced similar things or thoughts ourselves. One of my favourite poems is Originally, by Carol Ann Duffy and One Art, by…
At Midnight
The clock has struck midnight and all is quiet in our neck of the woods. But there was a time, a few years back, a certain small girl (she knows who she is) thought midnight was not a time for sleeping, but singing. It’s actually more like a quarter of a century back, and now…
Walking Sticks & Freedom
This morning was one of those grey-white, mizzly days. Warm, and not quite raining, but the sun seemed to have decided to stay in bed, wrapped up in the snuggly folds of duvet-clouds. I, on the other hand, was fizzing with energy (rare, and not-to-be-wasted), even after a shower. So after breakfast, we decided to…
Getting Mail
An envelope fluttered into my mailbox yesterday. When I was a kid, getting post was one of the most exciting things ever. That sense of wonder and anticipation fizzing when you saw your own name on the front of the envelope. Inside was always something worth the fizz – if it wasn’t birthday or Christmas…
Poems, Prompts and Plums
Tomorrow is National Poetry Day for New Zealand. For the last month, my Facebook feed has been full of information about all the different events happening around the country. If I had limitless funds, and could either clone myself or time-travel, I’d be racing around to poetry readings from in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, New Plymouth…
Editing Poems with a Giraffe and an Ostrich
Where I live on the Kapiti Coast in New Zealand, towns are the filling in a very beautiful sandwich. One slice of bread is the turquoise Tasman sea, which is garnished with Kapiti Island, a bush-clad native bird sanctuary and reserve 5km off shore. The other slice is the perpetually green slopes of the Waikanae…
Creating Soundscapes: 9 Ways with Words
Last night was a crap-television night. We haven’t signed up to Netflix or Lightbox, so rely on whatever offerings the free-to-air channels serve. Yesterday’s menu looked more like leftover crusts of sandwiches from lunch than carefully prepared cuisine. Often I’d just tuck right in to a book instead but last night we treated ourself to…
Verve 