Author Archives: susan

I was going through some old papers  ( quest for an orderly filing cabinet is endless, it seems) when I found this comic strip created by my husband from photos of my first ever book launch. I spent in the … Continue reading →

A day of dramatic clouds, rain showers, shafts of bright sunlight, hail, wind, quiet lulls of no weather at all, vast rainbows and then more rain. The coldest day for four years. And the shortest day, too. Walking down into … Continue reading →

“DNA Nation”, a 3-part series on SBS TV, followed Ernie Dingo, Ian Thorpe and Julia Zmiro as, using DNA mapping of human populations, they discovered the paths taken by their ancestors out of Africa. Last weekend, I watched the last … Continue reading →

The illustration by Rose Ellenby (note the skull and crossbones!) and cover art are from a King Penguin, Poisonous Fungi by John Ramsbottom, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1945. And another fungi poem… This is an excerpt from  Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath, first … Continue reading →

Our prolonged Indian Summer is over at last. It’s six o’clock; I’ve just come in from taking the dog for a walk around the block and my nose feels like it has frozen and may well snap off as it … Continue reading →

I am a member of a Council of Adult Education book group, which means that we get  boxed sets of books – with reading notes and list of suggested questions – delivered, therefore none of us have to scamper around … Continue reading →

                                    Late in life  – we, her children, don’t quite know when – my mother wrote several mysterious, beautiful poems. This one was … Continue reading →

I’ve been reading nothing but crime novels all April. It’s no coincidence that this crime wave is happening alongside an intense period of work on my new children’s novel. It’s not a Verity Sparks mystery and I’m loving making the … Continue reading →

  I Seeing these toadstools bursting out of the ground along the side of our neighbour’s fence, I remembered this poem by Margaret Atwood. Very sinister!  (This is only part of it.) MUSHROOMS i In this moist season mist on … Continue reading →