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?
Tag: story
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,…
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.…
Sanding Down and Polishing Up: redrafting short stories
Notes jotted in the margin in a different colour ink reminded me of ways of crafting early drafts of stories that I’d learned at a writing workshop by Vivienne Plumb, a New Zealand poet, playwright and author. She shared some great suggestions, and I have subsequently added more of my own ideas for writing short stories, such as character development, enriching themes and meanings in stories, and writing dialogue.
Crop Circles
We know August by how yellow our bedroom at dawn, how rich the paints nature daubs outside our window – blue slash of sky, ribbons of hedge, poppies, gold flag of corn. Our bedroom eyes this van Gogh view, our window a silent watcher of that instant our eyes never capture when the golden flag…
An Ordinary Rebel
Have you ever wondered what it is like to be alive at a pivotal moment in history, and, in some subtle but significant way a catalyst for dramatic, desperately needed changes? If you would have had the courage of those ordinary people who took risky action – like Rosa Parks sitting down on a bus,…
Verve 