At dawn on March 11th 1943, the 3351 Jewish people living in Monastir, Macedonia (what was Yugoslavia then) were rounded up from Monastir, and incarcerated, with all other Macedonian Jews. 7350 people crammed into the old Monopol tobacco factory in Skopje. Over two hundred people died in Monopol – of sickness, or killed by the…
Tag: creative writing
Snow Globes: a short story
You can’t pack a whole life into a small bag.
Mum dropped a rucksack on my bed that last day. My uniform took all the space. I put it on instead, shirt, skirt, jumper, over my jeans and t-shirt. That made room for more clothes, and school books. But what about my stuffed elephant from when I was a baby? Photos of Leo, of Dad? The snow globe Gran gave me?
Noisy Creatures
One of my favourite places to write, other than my art room on a sunny morning, is a local cafe – sitting at the quiet table in the corner, between a small forest of monsterras next to the window. If we go at the right time, it’s the perfect place. Wonderful art on the walls,…
The Boy Nikolai
turning nightmares into poems
First, Joseph
He was Joseph first. Maybe Joe, Joss, Joey? Then Luke. Joseph was locked down in a prison of time and amnesia. A footnote in official certificates. He was uprooted, transplanted. Luke was a shell, a skin other people constructed for him. He was grafted into a white weatherboard house owned by a white weatherboard family,…
Every Time I Blink
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Writing Poems & Stories from Photos
“A picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less you know.” how photographs can help with 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…
Verve 