Becoming A Fiction Writer
One girl, one dream … and a whole lot of procrastination
February 28, 2011 by amanda

February reading list and book of the month

Considering how short February is and how speedily it has flashed by, I’m almost surprised that I did manage to finish a few books. This month I got through:

  1. Heart Songsby Annie Proulx
  2. The Legacyby Kirsten Tranter
  3. Be Near Meby Andrew O’Hagan
  4. Why You Are Australian by Nikki Gemmell

Now, without meaning to get boring with my theme of Australian literary fiction writers, I have to admit that my favourite book this month was Kirsten Tranter’s The Legacy. Although it didn’t strike me as particularly literary and not as “beautifully written” as Nikki Gemmell’s non-fiction work, the story was all-important here – a bit of mystery, a bit of suspense, some intriguing characters. It’s a close call though, because Gemmell’s sentimental book on a 1970s/80s Australian childhood, comparing it to raising a child here now, and musing on the culture shock of returning to Australian from Europe, obviously all hit home for me, and I consumed the entire book within a day, but still, Tranter’s interesting story won me over. I’m looking forward to hearing her speak at the Perth Writers Festival next weekend.

Coming up for the next month, I’ve got a pile of books ready to dive into, a few more related to Writers Festival visitors (I can never get through all the ones I want to between the programme announcement in January and the festival itself at the start of March) and a couple on my iPad Kindle app – classics and other genres (but not romance again. I’m totally over that idea.) What books are on your reading pile for the next month?

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February 20, 2011 by amanda

A big novel writing decision for February

Regular Becoming A Fiction Writer readers will no doubt have been wondering (after my vocal, successful January) how I’m going with my month-by-month fiction writing goals for February. Well, to cut to the chase, as they say, I’ve been going rather badly! My goal was to finish the revisions to my first novel draft, Kanako’s Foreigner, but apart from glancing at the folder on my shelf which I know contains a print-out of the most recent version and the beginnings of some amendments, I’ve done nothing.

Let me correct that. I have moved the folder off my shelf, I now remember doing this, and it is cluttering up the dining table instead. However, this is certainly not great progress, and the end of February is fast approaching. However, I have had a good think about this and, with the help of some other outside input, have made a big decision.

At first I thought the reason I hadn’t got to these revisions was simply because I’d had a busy writing January, a busy working start to February and with it being such a short month, I was just pushed for time. But then I received some very useful feedback – the general feedback to all entrants for the TAG Hungerford award, a contest for Western Australian novelists which I entered with my Bratislava novel. They sent all entrants some general impressions from the judges which included some very relevant points to my case, I’m sure, including the fact that realist narratives formed by far the majority of the manuscripts submitted, usually relating to what appeared to be real life experiences (mine doesn’t fit this category quite as strictly as my first novel might, but still perhaps a little “too much” in some sense); there was also a particularly salient comment:

In general, there was a disappointing lack of interest in exploring and extending the
possibilities of form or language, with stylistic experiment kept to a minimum and a strong
reliance on simple, unadorned prose.

This has long bothered me about my fiction writing – for the novels I’ve written in particular – and especially after my month of poem writing in January, I’ve realised I can definitely do better. This line of thought also led me to think about the novels and career trajectories of two of my favourite Australian writers, Nikki Gemmell and Andrew McGahan. As much as I have enjoyed all of their writing, in both cases their first two novels (Shiver and Cleave for Gemmell, and 1988 and Praise for McGahan) would probably have got this kind of comment from the judges (not to say they’re not great novels – but they certainly seemed to be based on their experiences, whereas their later work seems much more, I don’t know, “imagined” somehow. Better, more literary. More “proper” writing, in a way!

What I’m leading up to is this big decision: for the time being, I’m going to put aside my first two novel manuscripts, and work on the third novel idea I have, but doing it really, really “properly”. I’ve been reluctant to get going with the agent thing because I’m not convinced they’re my best work. And I figure you really, really want to try these things out with your absolute best, rather than “poison the waters” with something you’re not 100% sure about.

So, my task for the remainder of February is relatively simple, to reschedule my month-by-month goals to take this into account. At the same time I’m going to work in some downtime and breaks because switching from month to month takes a little time – for example, just in the first day or two of each month I have to use my spare time to send out invoices and finish up other work that is simply essential, so I can’t always jump straight into the next fiction writing project, and my schedule should reflect that. And then I’m going to really get going on producing the absolute best novel I’m capable of, at least at this stage of my writing life. I’ll keep you all informed, of course!

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February 14, 2011 by amanda

Today’s for loving libraries (easy for me)

While many of you might know today as Valentine’s Day, my husband doesn’t usually recognise this event and luckily for him, I have also discovered that it is also Library Lovers’ Day here in Australia. Since I do sincerely love libraries, that seems a reasonable substitute and instead of a big bunch of flowers I’ll be happy to have an extra half hour or so to delve into one of the numerous exciting novels I currently have on loan from my local library.

Whichever way you’re celebrating, have a terrific day, and keep an eye out this week for news on my success (or otherwise …?) with my February goal of revising my novel. As a teaser, let’s just say it’s not going quite as well as the January month of poetry did – but more later. I’m off to enjoy a good book. Happy Valentine’s Day and Happy Library Lovers’ Day!

[Thanks to Andrew Stawarz for the pic]

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February 1, 2011 by amanda

How writing 31 poems helped my fiction writing

As you probably know, as part of my month-by-month goals for 2011, I signed up to Sage Cohen’s Poem A Day Challenge at her Path of Possibility site. I hoped I’d get back into the spirit of using “beautiful words” in my fiction writing, and generally start the year off with a bit of fun, some different kind of writing and something I could relatively easily do (quite why I thought writing a poem every day for 31 days would be relatively easy is a mystery to me, or perhaps only explained by New Year’s Eve champagne?).

In any case, I have to say that my experience with the Poem A Day Challenge exceeded my expectations by far. I really got heaps out of it, including:

  • I definitely did get back my affinity for beautiful words. When you are writing a poem it seems incredibly important to pick exactly the right word. I certainly used a thesaurus a lot more often, or just stopped to think about words. I want to remember to do this for my regular fiction writing as well – why should the words be any less important just because there are more of them?
  • I discovered all kinds of interesting themes that I would like to write more about. The highly varying prompts which Sage used meant I wrote on many different topics and a lot of them I could imagine expanding into at least short story form or incorporating them into a novel. I can also imagine using poetry writing in the future as a kind of brainstorming process for my fiction writing, to explore ideas a bit more thoroughly in a form that seems to give rise to all kinds of extra creativity.
  • I remembered that writing as part of a group can be really rewarding. Although the format of the challenge meant that none of us had much time to provide feedback on each other’s work, even the short comments I received were very encouraging, and just the fact that I knew other people would be reading my poem (and possibly – although they probably weren’t – waiting to see that I actually wrote one every day) gave me both the motivation to do it and to make it half-decent.
  • And I confirmed my suspicion that I can concentrate well for a month at a time on one thing – but probably not a whole year. Which means my 2011 plans might just make for my most successful writing year yet.

So, thanks heaps Sage, I really did get a lot out of this month! In case you’re inspired I just saw that she has scheduled the class again for April – it’s too cheap at $50 – so I highly recommend it for a creative kick-start – and you certainly don’t have to be a poet to join in, because I’m not, and I loved it. (And I don’t get paid anything to say this!).

If you’re still reading, well, as promised earlier this month, I will share a couple of the slightly-less-than-atrocious poems I wrote in response to some of the prompts.
Read the rest of this entry »

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January 31, 2011 by amanda

January 2011 retrospective: Poems galore and a book of the month

So, January’s about to finish and it’s time to look back on my writing and reading experience and see if I got off to a good start in my quest to become a fiction writer … a published one, that is! First up, I managed to read a few good and a couple of not so good books this month – you can always check my full 2011 reading list for details, but in summary this month I read the following:

  1. Twenty-Somewhereby Kristan Hoffman
  2. Dexter Is Deliciousby Jeff Lindsay
  3. The Still Pointby Amy Sackville
  4. Dancing In The Moonlightby Raeanne Thayne
  5. Indelible Inkby Fiona McGregor
  6. In the Wakeby Per Petersen

And the clear winner for January’s book of the month for me is Fiona McGregor’s Indelible Ink – not just because I’m being patriotic about Australian literature but because it was the most interesting novel for me, one where I enjoyed every character and wasn’t quite sure where things were headed.

As for writing, my January focus was on writing a Poem A Day as part of a community of writers undertaking the challenge together. Today is January 31, and although I haven’t yet posted my final poem in the community forum, I have drafted it, and I have 30 other poems all finished as well, so I’d say I’ve successfully completed January’s goal. Not only that, but I think my writing will have all kinds of benefits from this month of poetry writing, so many in fact that I’ll tell you about them in another post (where I’ll be brave enough to share a poem or two from my new collection of them! – most of them are very average though so don’t get your hopes up).

This month-by-month focus is definitely going to work better for me I think – my goals are in a manageable size and shape, so to speak. I’m already itching to get going on my February task of revising Kanako’s Foreigner.

How are your goals or tasks going so far in 2011? Do let me know, a problem shared is a problem halved – and we can celebrate any success together.

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January 27, 2011 by amanda

2011 Perth Writers Festival programme has me salivating

Oh, sweet darling that is the Perth Writers Festival. Honestly, I’m going to go out on a limb here and admit that pretty much nothing else gets me as excited and inspired as getting a massive overdose of writing, writers, reading, and books, and that’s what the Perth Writers Festival provides every year.

I’ve just come home from the launch of the 2011 Perth Writers Festival programme (and yes down here we do say programme, so that red squiggly line that wants me to type program can just disappear, please!), and have devoured the Festival brochure, drawn rings around the people I just must see, and even been online to reserve a few relevant novels from my local library (with major apologies to the writers, but my budget just doesn’t stretch to buying every book I want, plus my husband would kill me as books take up space, which he claims we don’t have).

You might be able to guess from my blathering and generally wobbly speech that I’m rather excited by what I’ve found and I can’t wait until the first weekend in March when this all takes place. Some time ago I already snapped up tickets for the Armistead Maupin evening (this was one of the early announcements) but now I discover I may have to sandwich Annie Proulx in before him and after a day full of some of my favourite local writers and writing personalities (oh, I even told my husband who really didn’t get it all, that dear Ramona Koval from ABC Radio’s The Book Show will be here, I adore listening to her and her podcasts have got me through many a boring dinner preparation!). And I can’t believe I really only found out tonight that Joanne Harris (yes, author of Chocolat, among others) will be here too.

For me, seeing and hearing so many writers within a few days gives me a major inspiration boost, and even just thinking about it six weeks ahead of time gets my fingers pretty itchy, too. One thing I really love about the writing world is that 99% of writers are absolutely ordinary people, and the nature of books and writing means that even most successful writers are not particularly affected by their fame (probably because not too many of them become rich because of it!), and mingling with them at a festival makes me truly believe that I can be “one of them” too. I think it must be much more daunting to want to be a famous actor or rock star, because there’s so much more hype surrounding those personalities. Thank goodness my big dream is just to become a fiction writer!

What does seeing writers “live” do for you? Let me know what you think in the comments (and tell me if I’m insane. I can take it).

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January 24, 2011 by amanda

Two fiction writing contests in a week

I’m really feeling like 2011 has got off to a great writing start. Is it the daily poetry that’s got my writing juices flowing? Is it the rush of a new year, new goals and new resolutions that hasn’t worn off yet? Or perhaps the fact that I’m super-super-busy, with new consulting work, courses to run all over the place and of course a small boy to take care of, and the old “if you want something done, ask a busy person” adage is kicking in again?

It’s probably a combination of all three, I think, but I’m certainly feeling enthusiastic about writing and squeezing in quite a lot of it. In the last week I managed to enter to short fiction contests. Okay, one was really REALLY short, but still took quite a lot of thought – I mentioned recently that I entered the Tweet Me A Story contest in which I had the chance to write three 140-character stories using the word “searching”. The great news is that one of my stories made the cut to the second round (top 25 out of 150 stories, I think) – my successful story was this:

Old Mr Gibbs was searching the death notices when the maid came up behind him, newly-changed will in one hand, heavy saucepan in the other.

If you like it, you can vote for it, although public voting only accounts for one of the five writers who get to advance to the next round later this week, where the successful tweeters have to put their 140-character thinking caps on all over again.

I also managed to get another entry in to the 24-Hour Short Story Contest that Writers Weekly runs on a quarterly basis. Regular readers will know I’ve often entered this contest, mainly because I love the idea of being “forced” to write a short (short) story (always under 1,000 words) within a 24-hour time period. A friend of mine who blogs at Because I Said So also entered with me this year, so it was great to be able to compare our stories and see what different ideas just the two of us (who have a lot in common) came up with from the same prompt. Of course, I’m never particularly happy with the story (or let’s be fair, the draft of a story) I come up with during the contest, but at least it adds to my collection of “to be edited” fiction and of course, keeps my brain and fingers in the writing mode.

For me, thats the main benefit of entering writing competitions – some pressure to keep writing. Do you often enter writing contests, and why or why not?

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January 17, 2011 by amanda

Halfway through Poem a Day and I’m (nearly) on track!

A poem a day is certainly continuing to keep the writing wolf at bay, and here we are, halfway through January and I’m still writing a poem a day. (Okay, I’m a day or two behind most of the time, but what’s a poem or two between friends? As of this moment I have written 15 poems this year. That’s a lot of words and a lot of writing. Well done me.)

I’m more than satisfied with how this month’s writing resolution is going. Having a daily task which is both interesting – Sage Cohen’s daily prompts are incredibly varied – and not too arduous – a poem isn’t a novel, and it’s just a draft, really, nobody’s expecting me to come up with a properly publishable poem each day – is proving to be a very successful strategy. It’s giving me routine, rhythm and motivation, and the rest of my writing life is benefiting. And there’s the hoped-for bonus of me paying more attention to writing beautiful words, because writing poems certainly has me searching and thinking for just the right word, and that’s a skill I’d like to transfer to my fiction writing.

One interesting thing I’ve noticed is that my poetry is extremely personal. I looked through my 15 poems for one to share with you, but discarded all of them, either because I don’t think they’re really good enough to share, but mostly because they’re about really personal topics, and I don’t feel comfortable putting them out there for the whole wide world to see. (Interestingly I have got used to posting them on the online forum used by my Poem A Day classmates, whereas the first couple of days I had to pretty much close my eyes and click “post” to be able to put them up there). I’m curious about what I should learn from this use of the personal. Is it a poet’s thing? Do poets suffer from the “oh did that really happen to you?” questions even worse than novelists? Does poetry lend itself to me wanting to express really sensitive things? Or should I be using these same themes in my fiction (I guess I do, in some cases, but in a more disguised form, using invented characters and scenarios to get the same point across). I’m still thinking about all of this.

But I do hope that by month’s end I have a poem or two I feel willing to share with you all – not least to just prove that I actually have been writing all this poetry!

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January 14, 2011 by amanda

Tweet Me A Story contest got me writing, again

January really is my month for getting some writing done. This writing may not be part of any novel I want to finish or start, or even part of a publishable short story, but it is exercising my writing brain and getting me warmed up and motivated for the year ahead. Today, in addition to my poetry fun, I also took part in the Tweet Me A Story contest for the first time.

As you might guess, this contest insists that you write a story within the limit of 140 characters, the length of a tweet. Until recently I would have probably ignored such a contest, but you may recall I enjoyed reading a collection of hint fiction recently – containing stories in 25 words or less – and this is about the same length as a tweet. Given that experience I felt I both had a better idea of how to form a story in such a short space, as well as seeing that something worthwhile actually could come out of almost no words!

The Tweet Me A Story contest has something like a thousand entrants (it’s free but you have to register and they only take the first thousand) and in the first round, which I’ve just completed, the writers are randomly divided into twenty groups. Each group is given a (different) single word which must be included in their story. I was in Group 1 (I took this as a lucky sign!) and our word was “searching”. Unfortunately I had a quick look at the email then took care of my little boy, eventually put him down for a sleep, went off to have a shower and then remembered to think about the stories I might create, by which time I thought the word I had to use was “spreading”. At the time, I’d also been chatting with a friend about her upcoming ocean swim and the shark attack risk, so I came up with this awful story:

The blood was spreading faster than Alan could swim. Fortunately, the shark was still distracted by his wife’s hands and shiny wedding ring.

When I sat down at my computer and discovered I should be writing about “searching”, I realised scrapping the shark idea was probably a good one! As the contest hasn’t closed yet (you have about five hours to get your stories in – you can submit up to three) I can’t share my entries yet, but I will later on. It’s fun to think about how to write sparsely and how to suggest an entire plot in just 140 characters, but it does make me look forward to getting into some novel-length work again soon!

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January 13, 2011 by amanda

Amanda’s 2011 reading list on Becoming A Fiction Writer

In 2010 I managed to read a so-so 44 books – I’m pretty sure that’s less than I’d read in previous years, so I’m keen to improve on that this year. Not that quantity should get in the way of quality, but I often scan a bookshop or library and think to myself that life is way, way too short to read all the books I want to, so I’d better get going!

As usual, I’ll keep adding to this reading list of books (usually fiction) I’ve read during 2011. Do leave your thoughts and comments at the bottom, or a link to your own reading list if you have one. I always like perusing other people’s lists to get some new ideas for my to-read list.

  1. Twenty-Somewhere by Kristan Hoffman – yes, my writing friend whose blog I closely follow – someone who I know I’m going to be able to say “I knew her before she was famous”. Twenty-Somewhere was also my first ever e-book, read on my new iPad. Oh – before I forget – it’s an episodic, chick-littish read, following three college friends as their lives take different paths in their twenties – lots of fun.
  2. Dexter Is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay. A totally random read for me, I found it on a summer reading list from the local ABC radio, in connection with our upcoming writers festival. A thriller featuring cannibalism, not my normal style at all, but well-written, great story, and, well, totally different! Since I’m aiming to read some different genres this year, I’m glad I read this. Don’t think I’ll go back and read the others in the series, though.
  3. The Still Point by Amy Sackville – I read most of this last year but just finished it off – a story of an Arctic misadventure and its impact a couple of generations later, and a nice enough story but I felt like I knew nearly all about it right from the start and then the book slowly told me not much.
  4. Dancing In The Moonlight by Raeanne Thayne … oh goodness me. In the spirit of expanding my genre experience, and with the thrill of downloading books on the Kindle app on my iPad, I tried a Harlequin romance novel. The reviews said stuff like “not as corny as its title” and “I didn’t even realise it was a romance novel until the end” but … these reviews were wrong. Romance genre experiment officially over.
  5. Indelible Ink by Fiona McGregor is an excellent piece of Australian literature, with the same kind of “slice of modern life” feel to it as I got from Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap. If you’re a fan of the other Aussie fiction I like, you’ll like this.
  6. In the Wake by Per Petersen, a Norwegian writer of some note. Haunting, lyrical story. Very readable and lovely.
  7. Heart Songs by Annie Proulx, since she’s coming along to the Perth Writers Festival this year. It’s a short story collection which started out all being about hunting (not really my taste) but ended up being much broader – beautifully written.
  8. The Legacy by Kirsten Tranter, a new Aussie novelist who will also be at the Perth Writers Festival. Bit of a mystery novel, bit of a typical lit fic, definitely enjoyable and nice to see a novel set partly in New York but with an Australian perspective.
  9. Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan (also coming for the Perth Writers Festival) – a novel about a Catholic priest, it had a great beginning, a great ending but for me, a bit of a so-so middle with a hefty chunk of back story that had me skipping through it to “get back to the story”.
  10. Why You Are Australian by Nikki Gemmell – a non-fiction “letter to her children” detailing her trial return to Australia for a few months, trying to decide whether she could live her again after many years as an ex-pat in London. For me, a beautiful homage to what is best about my country and why I wanted to raise a family here and not elsewhere. To the general reader who is either not Australian or hasn’t had an ex-pat life, and doesn’t have children – perhaps less of interest.
  11. Blueeyedboy by Joanne Harris of Chocolat fame, though it’s best not to think about that, because the two books couldn’t be more different – yet are both excellent. Blueeyedboy is kind of a mystery/thriller told through online fan-fiction and blog-style entries. Bizarre but excellent.
  12. Wonders of a Godless Worldby Andrew McGahan, one of my favourite Aussie writers. Every book he writes seems totally different, and this was no exception; a vaguely fantasy-style story that’s hard to explain yet a beautiful read. Perhaps my favourite of his?
  13. Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta, a re-read of this YA book I read at least a decade ago, after seeing Melina Marchetta speak at the Perth Writers Festival (ooh, just Wikipedia-ed her and discovered we share the same birthday!). Excellent novel. Vivid and honest about the life of an Aussie-born teenage daughter of immigrants in Sydney, and it says a lot about Australia and our way of life here, both good and bad. With a suitable dose of teenage angst!
  14. Baby Steps: A Bloke’s-Eye View of IVF by Jason Davis – creative non-fiction, which you may recall I decided to put on this list; a fluffy account of a slightly more important subject, but interesting to see a man’s perspective.
  15. The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam by Chris Ewan is a cross between comedy and crime, lots of fun and with a few interesting plot twists. I think it’s the first in an ongoing series, although I probably didn’t enjoy it quite enough to grab the next one.
  16. The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins, another non-fiction (but well-written) addition to my list. Scary stuff about the pressure teenagers are under to succeed in high school and college life in the United States.
  17. Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta – yes, I had to keep reading her stuff after loving Looking for Alibrandi last month. This YA novel was good, but not great – nowhere near as powerful as her debut.
  18. Surfacing by Margaret Atwood; I haven’t read any of her stuff for ages but since I’ve been following her on Twitter (she’s a real addict – @MargaretAtwood) I felt the need.
  19. The Piper’s Son by Melina Marchetta, again. This is her newest, and involves the same characters as Saving Francesca, but five years on (and it stands alone as a novel). Heaps better than Saving Francesca in my opinion, excellent in fact, although definitely for the older end of YA or even just for fully-grown adults like me! Great Aussie slice of life.
  20. What is Left Over, After by Natasha Lester, a local writer who I met at the Perth Writers Festival. This novel won the TAG Hungerford award and I can see why it beat mine. A million times better! It’s got a great storyline about a woman suffering from a tragic loss and much of it is set in the south-west of WA.
  21. Land’s Edge by Tim Winton – it’s a memoir, rather than a novel, but is typical Winton – quite mesmerising, especially for a fellow West Aussie like me who can picture the beaches and coastlines he’s talking about. I learnt we grew up in the same Perth suburb, and am hoping that’s a Lucky Thing!
  22. Dead Line by Stella Rimington – another in her Liz Carlyle spy series, and yes the only spy author I read – but she’s authentic! And lovely! And I saw her at the Perth Writers Festival a few years ago. I’ve even got another of hers on my to-read pile right now.
  23. Fall Girl by Toni Jordan – her second, and one I was inspired to read after seeing her at the Perth Writers Festival again. Excellent book, amazing how she got me all sympathetic to this family of con-men (and con-women), so funny with many laugh-out-loud moments and some lovely twists in the plot. Something different to everything else I’ve read lately, so very refreshing!
  24. Avoiding Mr Right by Anita Heiss. I really wanted to *love* this book, because I love the idea of it – urban Aussie chick lit with a strong Aboriginal woman as the protagonist. But unfortunately I just couldn’t get past the chick lit part. It’s just not my genre. If it’s yours, however, then this is an excellent book. If I were a chick lit lover I think the only criticism I’d have is that it reads at times like a guidebook to Melbourne cafes and pubs (not necessarily a bad thing!).
  25. Present Danger by Stella Rimington – yes, another in the Liz Carlyle series, this time caught up in the leftovers of the Northern Ireland conflict. Good but I should have left a bigger gap between reading the previous one and this – it started to all sound a bit the same.
  26. When My Husband Does the Dishes by Kerri Sackville, an Aussie blogger turned published author – this is non-fiction and hilarious, easy for any wife and mother to relate to.
  27. Belly Dancing for Beginners by Liz Byrski – a local writer – and I admit when I started this novel I thought I was not going to like it, as it seemed clearly aimed at women somewhat older than me. Fortunately I read on, and it was a delight. I love books set in Perth (so exciting to know the places!) and the characters here were so lifelike yet so interesting. A great read.

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