I first met Australian icon Dr Catherine Hamlin when I went travelling in Ethiopia at the end of 2017. I spent a few days at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital talking to her for a magazine article, and learning about her tremendous work caring for girls and women who were suffering debilitating childbirth injuries, and … Continue reading Author Talks: Sue Williams on discovering two remarkable friends and their shared story of changing the world, one patient at a time
Author Talks
Author Talks: Emma Ashmere with Writing Us In
My new short story collection Dreams They Forgot has been described as ‘a mix of history and imagination’, but not all these twenty-three stories are set in earlier times. Several use the past as an echo reverberating into the present day. I’ve always been interested in the kind of people who don’t make it into … Continue reading Author Talks: Emma Ashmere with Writing Us In
Author Talks: Monique Mulligan on Nurturing the Seeds of Inspiration
One of the most-asked questions of authors is ‘What inspired you to write this book?’ Some authors hate this question; others don’t. I fall into the latter camp. What inspired me to write Wherever You Go is something I’m passionate about. I could talk about it endlessly and I do, which sometimes earns me a … Continue reading Author Talks: Monique Mulligan on Nurturing the Seeds of Inspiration
Author Talks: Christie Nieman on Using Place to Find Your Stories
Place is where I find my stories. Start with a place, I recommend to young writers, and you will find stories, from the journeys of a tiny beetle to the machinations of an elderly patriarch. I forgot about all that though, when soon after my first novel As Stars Fall was released I had children … Continue reading Author Talks: Christie Nieman on Using Place to Find Your Stories
Author Talks: Nicholas J. Johnson – You can’t make this stuff up
I tell people that I write fiction because I can’t be trusted with the truth. After all, I’ve worked as a professional magician for almost thirty years. My entire life has been dedicated to fabrication. I’m not just a regular magician either. I play an ‘honest con man’ swindling audiences with card cheating demonstrations and … Continue reading Author Talks: Nicholas J. Johnson – You can’t make this stuff up
Author Talks: Sandie Docker on The Power of Feel-good Fiction
Feel-good fiction sometimes gets a raw deal as being ‘light-weight’ or an ‘easy’ read, but an easy read simply means it is a page turner. And while feel-good fiction may leave us, as the name suggests, feeling good at the end, it doesn’t mean it can’t deal with some fairly heavy issues. And for me … Continue reading Author Talks: Sandie Docker on The Power of Feel-good Fiction
Author Talks: Leah Swann on Inventive explorations of motherhood in fiction
The eagle-featured mother in Angela Carter’s Bluebeard story “The Bloody Chamber” was an electrifying discovery as a student and lives on in me to this day. Back then, I’d read about oppressive mothers, unreliable mothers, fearsome mothers and loving mothers but never a fierce, swashbuckling mother like this one. Early in the story we learn … Continue reading Author Talks: Leah Swann on Inventive explorations of motherhood in fiction
Author Talks: Kirsty Manning on Discovering hidden jewels through research
A little over three years ago I was in the final stages of researching and writing my last novel set in Shanghai in World War Two—The Jade Lily—when I stumbled across an extraordinary newspaper article that completely knocked me off track. It was a review of an exhibition of 500 priceless pieces of Elizabethan and … Continue reading Author Talks: Kirsty Manning on Discovering hidden jewels through research
Author Talks: Lisa Ireland on The Women Who Paved My Way
For all the women who paved the way, most especially my mother, Lorraine. This is the dedication I wrote for my new novel, The Secret Life of Shirley Sullivan. The book centres on a strong and determined older protagonist and, in a way, I created her to pay homage to the many wonderful women who … Continue reading Author Talks: Lisa Ireland on The Women Who Paved My Way
Author Talks: Karly Lane on the Importance of Women in Agriculture
One of my very first attempts at writing was a book titled the Cattleman’s Runaway Bride. When I began writing, I only had Mills and Boon in mind to submit to because they were the only ones I had writing guidelines for… This was in the very early days of the internet! It was eventually … Continue reading Author Talks: Karly Lane on the Importance of Women in Agriculture
Theresa Smith Writes 