Daydreaming in our pandemic iso-world is a national pastime. Here is an imagined dinner, hosted by myself and my partner Rob in our new house at Blackheath, in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. There are four courses (well sort of), and four dinner guests from
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‘You’re playing with Pandora’s box. Sometimes it’s better not to open it. Sometimes, it’s better not to know’. Tatiana de Rosnay. In September 2011 I was completing my research for a narrative non-fiction book in Great Malvern, a beautiful town in the English county of Worcestershire. It
Read more →THE MARSDEN SISTERS MOVE SOUTH This is an extension of The Water Doctor’s Daughters’ original literary walk around the town of Great Malvern, Worcestershire. In 1876 Dr James Marsden separated from his second wife Mary to pursue an affair with Sabina Welch, a servant girl from Malvern. Emily, the
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WHAT’S IN A NAME? I recently expressed some disquiet over a book title chosen by a fellow member of a writers’ group. He was actually seeking advice on whether to include a blurb on the back cover of his memoir. Perhaps rightly, he was not impressed when
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It is such a privilege to have access to someone’s diaries. I find myself handling them with something akin to reverence. Recently I have been in Sydney’s Mitchell Library reading those of English writer Sylvia Townsend Warner. Sylvia began them in 1927, the year after she
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Some people might say that the best part of writing a book is typing the words THE END. Or that the most satisfying part is setting out on the journey and writing that first sentence. But for me, there is one stand out moment of pure joy
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CHRISTMAS 1877. At St-Leonards-on-Sea, in the English county of Sussex, a Christmas market was being held in the ‘old town’. The shops and churches were decorated with laurel, holly and ivy. Nevertheless, perhaps due to the unseasonable mild weather, the jollity of the Hastings & St
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CLENCH YOUR PEN AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT! Authors are constantly advised not to respond to negative reviews. I fully agree; you simply cannot argue with another person’s opinion. It is worth remembering that many literary classics suffered a hatchet job when first published. I particularly love
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JOHN RASHALL THE PREACHER AND THE POET ALFRED TENNYSON An interesting aspect of my book The Water Doctor’s Daughters, is the lifelong friendship of the poet Alfred Tennyson and the Reverend John Rashdall. The pair had grown up together in rural Lincolnshire, and were contemporaries at Cambridge
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APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE, THIS STORY IS A BIT COMPLICATED! When St John’s church at Parramatta (New South Wales) was being remodelled circa 1817, Elizabeth Macquarie offered some advice to the project’s architect, Lieutenant John Watts (1786-1873). In 1895 Watts’ daughter, Mrs Margaret Elizabeth Bagot wrote; ‘Mrs Macquarie
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