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This Happened at the Yoga Pool
Jeannie is one of these inch worm types. One toe in, one toe back. The cold has always been alien.…
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HELLO WORLD!
Welcome to my new WordPress blog! This is my very first post since I transferred from a WordPress.org business site…
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Yarrawarrah
In the Sutherland Shire 32 kilometres south of Sydney is a hilly tree-rich suburb on the edge of the National…
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The Grafton Jacaranda Festival of Yesteryear
I’m remembering the Jacaranda Festivals of my childhood at Grafton in northern New South Wales, with a certain nostalgia. Did…
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The Loss of the Voice Referendum
Saturday 14 October, 2023 The date will be forever etched in my mind, like that of my father’s death, two…
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The Parable of the Twins
The Parable of the Twins I came across this parable at the time my daughter was about to give birth…
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Finding peace … going deeper … meditating
What is Meditation? “It’s what happy and successful people do,” I was told, when I first started learning about meditation…
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Buddhism for Westerners
In 2008 I attended a Convention in Singapore for followers of the New Kadampa Tradition of Buddhism, introduced to the…
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Fear of Flying in Planes and How to Cure Your Fear
My Story I’ve always been afraid of things. Psychologists in this country use cognitive behaviour techniques (CBT) on people like…
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A First Day in Paris
This is a short story expressing contrasts between two cultures and the beauty and awe associated with the new one.
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High Flights: Beginnings and Endings
High Flight Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve…
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A Book About Kythera by Susan Johnson
I’ve always liked Susan Johnson’s writing, ever since I found a piece by her in the Griffith Review Journal (Number…
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The Golden Ratio in Art and Architecture
The Golden Ratio Many buildings and artworks reflect the Golden Ratio: the Parthenon in Greece, and many other classical buildings…
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The New Kadampa Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism
Several years ago, a young Englishwoman donned a backpack, set out for Australia and rented premises in Bondi; she’d brought…
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An Invitation to a Qing Ming (Grave Sweeping) Ceremony in China: Text and Photos by Roger Britton
A Guest Post on The Art of Creative Writing website, this post written by Roger Britton How it all started…
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How Do You Deal With Fear?
Extreme Fear in the Time of Covid The only thing we have to fear is fear itself! The above quotation…
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A Very Smelly Place—The Indigenous Meaning of My Lovely Suburb Of Coogee
I live in Coogee near the beach with my husband of 47 years. Coogee is located on Sydney’s famous Coastal…
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So You Want To Write A Novel? Or a Creative Memoir?
Getting Off The Ground In this month of November, I see that there are many colleagues and friends on Medium…
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Authentic Voices From the Land—Songs and Dream Time Stories of Indigenous Australians
The Past Lives in Us Charlie Perkins, an Aboriginal activist, who was the first indigenous person to study at the…
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A Shared Sense of Humour—It’s A Great Thing, Isn’t It?
Yes, but not everyone has the same sense of humour to share, and some may even lack a sense of…
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My Brother Donny
Swallowed By The River She’s not had such fun in a long while. Donny is like a dolphin in the…
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Last Words
A short story based on a life well-lived This piece is loosely based on my husband’s life, as a child…
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Our Australian of the Year 2021 Speaks Out: Amazing Grace Tame!
When Grace Tame from Tasmania fled to Santa Barbara in California in 2019, she was diagnosed with high functioning autism.…
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A Memorable Third Reunion for Armidale Teachers’ College
The Class of 1961-1962 A group of 65 of us — ex-Armidale Teachers’ College students — braved the weather and…
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Do Soul Mates Really Exist, Or Not?
A true story of karmic proportions…if you believe… Let me state at the outset that a soul mate is not…
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Did You Know That Cold Showers Are Good for You?
Wim Hof, from the Netherlands, is called the “Ice Man”. He has been known to climb freezing mountains in his…
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1963: An Outback Teaching Appointment To A Small School
How would you fare if, like Alan Parkes, you were sent to “Bourke and Beyond” to run a small school…
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Don’t Miss It — The Movie Bohemian Rhapsody
A unique love story, the many sides of love, modern music and much more The Movie I loved the film…
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The Fear … the Fear…
Ways of Facing Fear Fear, like pain, is often a good thing. It’s normal to be afraid of dangerous creatures,…
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An Amazing Story About Stuttering
Did you know that Australia is a world leader in Stuttering research and treatments? See: The Australian Stuttering Research Centre.…
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Have You Ever Experienced The “Numen”?
The reason people choose atheism rather than belief or agnosticism, may simply be that professed atheists have not experienced, at…
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I visit the Ukraine in 1968
My Travel Journal Continues: “From Paris to Russia and Back” Because of the events in Ukraine today, I have re-published…
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KARRANA: A Professional Review
From Amazon’s Online Book Club I’d received lots of reviews from family and friends of my debut novel, Karrana. But…
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Carl and Emma Jung
A story of eternal love Dearest, I was telling our grandson, Andreas, just the other day, how he possesses the…
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The Golden Ratio and How it Works in Nature
Just look around you…on the ground and in trees, in the sky… The Fibonacci Sequence is everywhere! In Plants In…
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The Republican Movement is Back
I’m reposting this Conversation article by Denis Altman, to mark my backing of the new model being set up by…
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7 Tenets For Life—Or How I Set Myself Up As A Guru
Appropriating the American way while writing for Medium 1. Keep physically fit and eat well Fitness: There are so many…
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Did I Spoil My Child? Or Was It A Sign Of Infinite And Precious Love? And Polarities!
My daughter leaves parts of herself all around the place. She especially sheds bits and pieces chez moi. As if…
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Voice and Truth in Fiction
A little on point of view first… Point of view refers to who sees the action within a story or…
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Climate Change: Things Australians Are Doing About It
Reference: ABC Online: Future Australia While the Federal government has come to the party at the COP 26 (Glasgow) on…
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How To Find A Voice For Your Novel
The Voice that Comes to You Mystery is part of the writing process, and for some writers there are those…
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Pandemic States of Australia:
A Hermit State Forever More? The normally united states of Australia, have entered a chequered phase of mistrust and anger.…
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What We’re Reading Down Under
That is, reading on the beach I live at Coogee, close to the beach in a unit with my husband…
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Memories of a Country Education
by Ian Harry Wells (Wellsy) Armidale is a city of learning, being home to the first NSW Teachers’ College established…
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Things Come in Threes by Ian Wells
What would you do, if you lost your long-term partner? How would you cope with the grief? My Armidale Teachers’…
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Coping With Covid
A Perspective from Two Young Women Covid isolation and protesters as seen through the (younger) eyes and voices of 2…
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The Pandemic Down Under
Coronavirus (COVID-19) SARS-CoV-2, The Australian Government is managing the COVID–19 outbreak in Australia as a health emergency. A glossary of…
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Write about what you know … 3 authors who recently did just that!
Three colleagues who assisted me in getting my writing off the ground, have just published new works: Dina Davis with…
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Swimming Pools in Coogee
The Mardi Gras festival for the Gay and Lesbian community (LGBTQ) occurred as usual in March, within stricter guidelines than…
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A Useful Site for Readers and Indie Authors: Books 2 Read
Click on the following links: Karrana: https://books2read.com/b/3GeoKL Writing a Novel: https://books2read.com/u/m2r6Nj How does Books2Read work? Books2Read is an author site…
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How I Created My Debut Novel
The Story of the Novel Those in the know say Write about what you know. This could be my parents’…
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Randwick Writers’ Group: Sharing Writing Skills
A book about writing groups Joining a writing group is very popular these days, at least in Anglo speaking countries.…
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5 Further Publishing Facts
NIELSEN BOOKSCAN In December 2000 the situation for publishers began to change a little with the establishment of Nielsen BookScan,…
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5 Facts I Learnt About Self/Publishing
Someone said it takes a village to bring up a child; it’s the same for writing a novel. This was…
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The Myth of Persephone and Demeter
Can this myth assist us in understanding a little better, and in coming to terms with what is happening here?
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What I learnt from writing a novel…
There’s an innate problem with writing about your life, and that is that your relatives might not want to be…
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Voices From the Past
Words in a book… Esther learnt of my existence and found me through words in a family history tome. My…
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Candidly Yours…
In search of a voice… My writing started out as therapy for a polarised — to be explained later on…
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Highs and Lows of Self Publishing
Self publishing may require you, the first-time author/publisher, to invest time in learning the ropes by accessing online forums and…
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Ancient Stories from Childhood
As a child growing up in a valley where diversity was met with suspicion, I learnt, first-hand, about racism. However,…
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C.G.Jung’s Active Imagination and the Dead
It is an unfinished, personal and spiritual account that was, and still is, at odds with the atheistic and scientific…
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Self publishing a novel as an ebook
What a month it has been! No, make that two—or three…. First a hasty trip to Croatia and to Spain…
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5 or 6 Things About Valencia
The Old and the New are intermingled in harmony in Valencia
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Return to Cavtat…uvijek!
We’re here in Cavtat on the southern coast of Croatia, for the 4th International Symposium on Stuttering that my husband…
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Genre in Writing
This post from December 2016, has been re-edited and re-published in April, 2019. Broad and Narrow Genres Since the proliferation…
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A Close Look at Point of View—What Is It?
More confusion surrounds the concept of Point of View in fiction writing than any other term. One of the problems…
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Structuring a Short Story
Note: I first published this post on this blog in February, 2013. I have added little to the original for…
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Boat People to Australia: a revisit
In 2015, I titled this post “A Crafty, Callous and Curmudgeonly Crew”, which was a boating metaphor for the members…
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How to create an ebook in 5 easy steps…
Why design an ebook? I wanted to include a special offer for new subscribers to my blog. This is called…
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Blackbird Mythology: Crows and Magpies of Australia
Many people lump black birds (crows or ravens) and pied ones, such as the Australian magpie, all together, and think…
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Alone not lonely in Apartheid South Africa
Alone not lonely is Maureen Mendelowitz’s second novella to be published by Ginninderra Press (2018). See my post about her…
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Bohemian Rhapsody the Movie
A Unique Love Story The Movie I loved the film Bohemian Rhapsody. Seated next to my partner just before the…
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What is your favourite myth?
A Myth is a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the world, the creation, fundamental…
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Spring Happenings in Sydney
Whenever I walk through Sydney Hyde Park, past the Archibald Fountain, along Art Gallery Road, and up to the steps…
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Magnetic Island will pull you in…
Magnetic Island Magnetic Island is part of the Great Barrier Reef. Just outside our unit is a marked underwater reef…
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Psychology as a Field of Study
Psychology is a relatively recent area of research and treatment for “inner” emotional problems, with Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) creating his…
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Western Influencers Down Through The Ages
GREEKS of ANTIQUITY I had my first taste of philosophy at Armidale Teachers College in 1961. This was one of…
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Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now
First a note about the painting, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, that serves here as a symbol for Joni Mitchell’s song.…
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The Rock by Maureen Mendelowitz
I really enjoyed this novella, published by Ginninderra Press, about an unrequited love relationship set in South Africa during apartheid.…
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