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A novel is often remembered by its leading figure: the person whose choices seem to hold the whole story together. Yet the person standing a little to one side…

An author interview can look like an unplanned chat while serving several purposes: orient a listener, reveal an author’s voice, and give a book a reason to…

Joy and grief can share the same scene without cancelling each other. A character may laugh at a friend’s foolish mistake, then fall quiet when the empty chair…

Casino play has moved from desktop screens to smartphones, giving Australian players a convenient way to browse slots, live tables, poker rooms, bingo and…

A first paragraph is a doorway, not a complete tour of the house. It has to make a reader feel the pressure of the story world: who is speaking, where we are,…

A commonplace book is a private anthology made at reading speed. It gathers quotations, scraps of news, recipes, descriptions of streets, arguments worth…

A comparative reading of my two books is less a contest between genres than an exercise in listening for what changes when the same concerns pass from…

These are my notes on writing about racial injustice without preaching. The phrase matters to me because a moral argument can weaken when the writer begins…

Revision is often presented as the stern duty that follows the enjoyable business of writing. That account misses the pleasure of returning to a page with…

The joke arrived at the end of a parish supper in North Melbourne. Rain ticked against the high windows of a hall near Victoria Street Market while trams…