The Godfather: Peter Corris on Sydney Town
I’ve spent a good part of my life in Sydney, perhaps 20 years or more, and seem always to have returned here after sojourns away. Although I am devoted to Sydney, you might say I’ve philandered to other places. I’ve owned houses here, rented others, been employed, and...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on writers about writers
With notable exceptions – Ian Fleming’s fulsome praise (to his face) of Raymond Chandler in a 1958 BBC broadcast interview, for example – writers are not usually particularly generous to each other. It’s a competitive business with everyone, as it were, fighting for...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on his first sea change
For many people a geographical shift from Melbourne to Sydney would be enough to last a lifetime but it wasn’t so for Jean and me. In our time together we have made several such moves, some of even greater distances – such as from the Illawarra to an island in Moreton...
ELIZABETH HARROWER In Certain Circles. Reviewed by Michael Richardson
The post-World War II themes of this novel are refracted into contemporary Australia with startling force. Between 1957 and 1966, Elizabeth Harrower published four critically acclaimed novels. Despite the admiration of Patrick White and Christina Stead, all four were...
DAVID RAIN Volcano Street. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
Nostalgia casts a long shadow in this novel about small-town life and secrets. Although we associate the word ‘nostalgia’ with a wistful longing for the past, the term was originally coined in the 1700s to describe a medical condition suffered by soldiers fighting on...
DON WATSON The Bush: Travels in the heart of Australia. Reviewed by Jean Bedford
The Bush offers a narrative that includes Indigenous people, colonialists, settlers and migrants in a wide-ranging and sophisticated appreciation of our bush heritage. Colonial and post-colonial Australians have always had an ambiguous relationship with the bush. For...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on what makes a writer
What makes a writer write? I don’t mean a writer of music or poetry, plays or screenplays. I haven’t the faintest idea what moves them. I mean people who put words together to form sentences that end up as stories, short or long, or novels. My observations also apply,...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...MICHELLE DE KRETSER Questions of Travel. Reviewed by James Tierney
From colonialism to the internet, Michelle de Kretser explores big themes in this tale of two travellers. Australian literary fiction is sometimes accused of lacking ambition. Michelle de Kretser’s fourth novel attempts to defy this criticism with a palimpsest of...The Godfather: Peter Corris on alcohol and writing
Patrick White worried about his drinking. He told biographer David Marr there were times when he drank half a bottle of spirits a day and wine as well. He consulted doctors, almost hoping, Marr suggests, for a diagnosis of alcoholism, which would relieve him of...
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