Author Archives: susan

Like many autistic people, I knew I was ‘different’ from a young age – and I knew that different was not a good thing – so I constantly tried to be more like people wanted me to be… In an … Continue reading →

Having played to her heart’s content, Chibi would come inside and rest for a while. When she began to sleep on the sofa – like a talisman curled gently in the shape of a comma and dug up from a … Continue reading →

I’m not just an observer any more. I’m realising that I care about the team. A very different book about teenage boys. Yesterday evening, I loaned my library copy (yes, I know; bad) to a trusted and fast-reading friend, and … Continue reading →

Dying is the secret wish of the survivor. I don’t just mean by suicide, although that had become the most attractive exit strategy. I’m talking about the need for danger. The impulse to shipwreck the miracle of being alive. I … Continue reading →

I want to look through the eyes of a bird. Would its world be the same colours as my world? Would everything bend and ripple like a crazy mirror at the fair? Most birds have eyes that face sideways, so … Continue reading →

“Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.” The daily recital of the Rosary was over. For half an hour the steady voice of the Prince had recalled the Sorrowful and the Glorious Mysteries; for half an hour other voices had … Continue reading →

I found a couple of Kathleen Norris collections on Kindle, each containing a half dozen or so novels, and very cheap. Which is good, because after reading The Heart of Rachael and The Beloved Woman I’ve really gone off this … Continue reading →

The Sicilian summer was bringing out the abs and pecs again. It would once more reduce all movements to the consistency of molasses while enervating people with the sirocco, plague the countryside with tiger mosqitoes and forest fires, and make … Continue reading →

A mother, father and daughter living in an inner-urban house in a state of perpetual renovation. A visiting grandmother. And a little mini-lop rabbit. These are the protagonists of The Burrow, a short novel set in Melbourne during the final … Continue reading →

Off the blocks and running in the 2025 Reading Stakes. I’ve finished 3 books so far this year – all fiction, and one of them was even a recent, Australian, literary fiction title. A good start, since I struggled with … Continue reading →