The Godfather: Peter Corris’s top ten writing tips
Having never taught creative writing and having avoided writing workshops, mentoring and such things, I’ve always been reluctant to give writing tips. Over the years I’ve trotted out the same pat answer: Imitate the manner of the writer you most admire, using your own...The Godfather: Peter Corris on the humour of Michael Frayn
I’m indebted to writer and publisher Michael Wilding for introducing me to Michael Frayn, whom I’d heard of but never read. He was enjoying Frayn’s 1998 novel Headlong and I’d just finished an historical novel of no distinction and was looking for something good....The Godfather: Peter Corris on not counting sheep
Lying wakeful, I began a new routine to help me get to sleep. Nothing radical, like some of the proposals I’ve had since I wrote a column about insomnia, just a matter of making lists and counting. I started by attempting to name and thereby count all the players in...The Godfather: Peter Corris on grandparenting
Recently I emailed a friend to explain that a visit he proposed wasn’t convenient because I’d be minding my seven-year-old grandson and wasn’t sure where I’d be. I’d previously sent him and his wife a photograph of me with my five grandsons. He replied understandingly...The Godfather: Peter Corris on being a grumpy old man
When the Editors of the NRB invited me to write a column I asked them what they wanted me to write about. ‘Anything,’ I was told; I could be a grumpy old man and complain about things if I wanted to. I haven’t done much complaining so far, other than about poor...The Godfather: Peter Corris on Flashy
By now there are probably about 200 book-length pastiches of Sherlock Holmes in print. One of the earliest, and to my mind one of the best, was Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1974). It captured the flavour of the original and was a best-seller,...The Godfather: Peter Corris on address books
I use two (non-electronic) telephone and address books, both old and battered, one slightly smaller than the other. One is alphabetised, one isn’t. Why I have two is a mystery to me. Did I lose one, start another, find the original and continue using both? Maybe. The...The Godfather: Peter Corris on My Word
Probably no one under 60 is closely familiar now with the BBC Radio quiz program My Word. Immensely popular in its day, the program ran from 1956 to 1967 on BBC1 and from 1967 to 1990 on Radio 4. My Word was aired on the ABC continually over that period and repeats...The Godfather: Peter Corris on comics
Recently I tried to distract and entertain a friend laid up with a severely broken ankle by setting him a series of ten-question quizzes devised off the top of my head. I tried to tailor the quizzes to some of his known areas of interest – politics, the law,...The Godfather: Peter Corris on gongs and milestones
I’ve been lucky with reviewers, lucky even in their mistakes. A recent positive review of my current Cliff Hardy novel The Dunbar Case credited me with four Ned Kelly awards for crime writing but I only have two. Another, equally pleasing review, declared it to be the...The Godfather: Peter Corris on those radio days
Television came to Australia in 1956, in time for the Melbourne Olympics. The big consoles were expensive and my parents had to save for the deposit and buy one on hire-purchase. We didn’t get a set until 1960, which meant that, for the whole of my youth, home...
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