Author Archives: susan

For most of Better Than Before, I really enjoyed Gretchen Rubin’s company. She’s chirpy, cheerful and positive. She reads children’s literature. We share  a genuine pleasure in de-cluttering. We find stationery shops blissful and like nothing better than a list … Continue reading →

Every now and then I torture myself with a self-help book. Usually I borrow them from the library, but this one I actually bought, on a whim, in Dymocks in Collins Street when I was in Melbourne last week. Actually, … Continue reading →

It’s Anzac Day. Red poppies. Parades. Talk of sacrifice and death. A recording of the Last Post and the solemnity of “Lest We Forget.” On Anzac Day itself we were never at school, but I remember sitting cross-legged on the … Continue reading →

Here is the cover for the new Verity novel, which is due to be released in August this year.  

I’ve just finished The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather. I wish I’d read it when I was a child, along with Little Women and Anne of Green Gables. Because most of it – the most interesting part – … Continue reading →

I’m damaged at present – but it’s my left arm and only temporary. I fell over in the garden whilst trying to move some rocks – by jumping on them. I thought that the two rocks would fall straight forward … Continue reading →

…a lot, as usual. Scrappy and disorganised hot-weather reading, for the most part. Pictures are good when the temperature is high, and so there have been lots of gardening books. After years of yearning for beds full of flowers – … Continue reading →

Walking around my dry garden this morning, I found some parrot feathers. Mine were blue, but they reminded me of Lorraine Marwood’s poem, ‘A Gift”. It’s from Guinea Pig Town and Other Animal Poems (Walker Books Australia 2013). I found … Continue reading →

I woke early this morning – just before 5 – and couldn’t get back to sleep. So after a while I got up, made myself a cup of tea and went back to bed, where I sat up and read … Continue reading →

The site of an old gold mine near the main road into town. Mining equipment turned into rusty old junk turned into oddly beautiful objects.  The closer you look, the more you see (isn’t that the way of things?). All … Continue reading →