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Showing posts from February, 2010

[Interview_3] Sue Moorcroft

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Romance author and creative writing tutor, Sue Moorcroft's novels include Starting Over (Choc Lit, 2009), Family Matters (Robert Hale, 2008) and Uphill All the Way (Transita, 2005). She is also the author of a non-fiction book, Love Writing: How to Make Money Writing Romantic or Erotic Fiction (Accent Press Ltd, 2010). Her short stories have been featured in anthologies that include Sexy Shorts for Christmas (Accent Press Ltd, 2003) and Scary Shorts for Hallowe'en (Accent Press Ltd, 2004). In this interview, Sue Moorcroft talks about her latest novel, Starting Over : What would you say the novel is all about? Starting Over is about Tess Riddell who, whenever she has a problem in her life, just moves on and starts over somewhere new. It’s a strategy that family and friends have problems with and, eventually, Tess finds a strong enough reason to tough things out. How did the idea behind the novel come about? The central male in the book, Ratty (Miles Rattenb

[Featured Author] Magdalena Ball

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A Voice in the Wilderness By Alexander James Author and poet Magdalena Ball left behind the concrete canyons of New York and the sleepy spires of Oxford to find her voice in the rural mountains of Australia. And with wombats and kangaroos for neighbours, she’s producing the best work of her life. In the past five years alone, she’s seen wide publication of short fiction and poetry, non-fiction book, The Art of Assessment , her Quark Soup poetry anthology and, her debut novel, Sleep Before Evening . With work underway on two other books, 42-year old Magdalena even finds time to run her bustling review site, The Compulsive Reader -- and look after her children, Dominic (10), Oliver (7) and Genevieve (4). She said: It’s hard to believe that we’re only an hour’s drive from Sydney. It’s very rural here and, as I type, the lyrebirds are singing, kookaburras laughing, bellbirds tinkling. Chickens are tearing up the lawn looking for grubs, and I really do need to follow-up on t

Interview _ Siobhan Logan

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Siobhan Logan is a teacher, a trade unionist, a poet and a storyteller. Her first published book, Firebridge to Skyshore: A Northern Lights Journey , (Original Plus, 2009) weaves together the science, myths, legends and folk stories behind the aurora borealis . The book gives a unique and near magical perspective of life under the Northern Lights. In this interview, Siobhan Logan talks about her writing: When did you start writing? Well, I wrote as a child, of course. I remember making up plays for my siblings and friends in the school playground. My sister tells me I was always making things up for them. And bedtime stories. So oral storytelling probably came first. Then later, poems, stories, songs. But I had fallen out of the habit of writing when I came back to it more seriously in my mid-thirties, realising I needed an alternative life to my busy teaching job and all the union/political activism. I needed that interior space of writing, the imagined landscape and voic

Short Story _ The Bracelet

By Ambrose Musiyiwa* We were both in the kitchen when I first saw the bracelet. Sharai had just come home from school and was having tea with sandwiches. With one hand, she was stirring some sugar into her tea, and with the other hand, she was fingering the bracelet. “What’s that?” I asked. “It’s a bracelet,” she said. “Can I see it?” She handed it to me. The bracelet was made of gold and looked like something that had come from Argos or H.S. Samuel. “Where did you get it?” I asked. “A friend from school gave it to me,” she said. “Why?” “Because he likes me.” “And what are you going to give to him in return?” I asked. “Nothing,” she said. “When you go back to school tomorrow, please return the bracelet. Tell the boy who gave it to you that I won’t let you keep it.” “That’s not fair, Dad,” Sharai protested. “You are taking it back tomorrow.” “I want it. I want the bracelet. Mum knows about it and she says I can keep it.” “It’s either you take it back

[Featured Author] Daniel Abelman

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Sheer Magic By Alexander James Daniel Abelman was sixteen when he stumbled upon the battered corpse of a murdered black man at the side of a remote dirt road in South Africa . He called the police who swung the body onto the back of a dusty pickup truck. "Don’t you want my statement … you know … for your investigation?" Daniel asked. The boss cop’s reply numbed him: "Investigation? Are you bloody mad, kid? It’s just another kaffir." That’s when young Daniel decided to leave what had been the Beloved Country -- and the adventure began. Daniel had been born in the busy South African shipping city of Port Elizabeth on the coast of the Indian Ocean in 1958. It was also the body-surfing capital of the world, and as a tot, he learned to swim long before he could walk. Later, unknowingly, he started to play the illusion game that became his life and fueled his bitingly satirical novel of skullduggery, Allakazzam! He said: It was a pleasant four-mile dow

[Interview] Lawrence Hoba

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Lawrence Hoba was born in 1983 in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. His debut short story collection, The Trek and Other Stories was shortlisted in the 2010 Zimbabwean National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA). His short stories and poems have also appeared in the Mirror ; the magazine of the Budding Writers Association of Zimbabwe , and in anthologies that include Writing Now (Weaver Press, 2005) and Laughing Now (Weaver Press, 2007). In this interview, Lawrence Hoba talks about his writing: When did you start writing? I started writing before I went to school. (I always enjoy this response from many artists.) I started writing fiction as a pastime around 1999. The decision to become a published writer came much later on, around 2002, when I became a serious member of the Budding Writers Association of Zimbabwe (BWAZ), under the Chiredzi Chapter, where I attended writing skills workshops and met other aspiring and established writers who helped fuel the motivation to get published. Getting to meet peop