My mother was a New Zealander, and one of my first memories is sliding down the wool chute in my uncle's barn. I loved the feeling of landing on top of the lanolin-full wool, and that strange silence as almost all sound was absorbed by the fiber. I come from a long line of knitters, [...]

Nicole and I share an agent, a publisher, an educational experience, a love of books and a propensity to write – so I was very chuffed when she messaged me over twitter last year to ask if I’d be interested in writing a short piece for her blog. We decided on February, as it seemed [...]

Random House cohort and friend, Sara Foster will release her latest novel this month. BENEATH THE SHADOWS is a highly anticipated work, so with a view to wetting your appetites here is a brief synopsis. How do you begin to move on, if the past won’t let you go?  When Grace’s husband, Adam, inherits a cottage [...]

You may recall earlier in the year one of my guests was designer Tia Carrigan. Tia is a 5th generation grazier from Goondiwindi currently based in Brisbane. Tia reached the TOP Ten finalists of the Melbourne Cup invitational National design competition with her fabulous creations. The winner was that guy---- what's his name? Anyway he won [...]

A novel inhabits your mind like a lover. A novel you’re writing, I mean. A novel you’ve read, someone else’s book, will too if it’s good, at least while it’s still on your bedside table, but a novel you’re writing lives with you. It’s always there, at the back of your mind, like homework due [...]

Maris Morton writes:The genesis for A Darker Music began during the 1970s when I lived in a WA country town. As president of the local arts promotion group, I was responsible for liaising with the WA Arts Council to arrange visits by various performers; among them was the Arensky Quartet. Up until then I’d been [...]

Sara writes: While an author is writing their second novel, I think it’s probably safe to say their publisher is sweating. All the time and attention that a publishing house gives to a new author is in the hope that they are supporting a career, and not just a one-book wonder. When a publisher buys [...]

Sara writes: Western Australia has been my home for the last five years. Here I have found an extraordinary wealth of opportunities to escape the ‘real’ world and get back to the REAL world – where there’s nothing but trees and sand and water and blue sky. I live near enough to the coast and a [...]

THE RIGHT TIME TO WRITE. Before I was published, I always regarded writing time as the ultimate treat. The danger of this was that sometimes I ended up relegating my passion to something of a guilty pleasure, solely for me, and therefore it slipped right to the end of my never-ending list of more practical [...]

Sara Foster writes: Since leaving my job at HarperCollins UK back in 2002, while I worked on my writing in my spare time, I made my living as a book editor. I have edited well over a hundred books, and I haven’t yet met one that didn’t need the helping hand of an editor, no matter [...]