Category Archives: My Life

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‘It doesn’t seem like blogs have as much “power” as they used to’

I have to admit I've been a bad little blogger lately: that is, I've barely read any blogs.

I can trace this back to when I moved from Blogger to WordPress.

See, Blogger has this nifty in-built blog reader thing where you can add blogs to your reader and in a scroll box all the new posts appear.

So I subscribed to roughly one hundred bookish websites, including my own, and every time I'd log into Blogger (on average this was hourly) I'd scroll down the list until I hit my own post recent post: I knew then that I'd read all below that.

This was the perfect way to keep up-to-date with everything and I loved it.

Fast-forward to WordPress which has no such reader.

So everything sort of dropped off the radar.

I'd only read posts that I saw on Facebook or Twitter - few ...

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Behind The Scenes: Judging A Short Story Contest

I thought it would be fun to go behind-the-scenes of the short story contest that I helped judged.

It all started way back when (read: about a month ago) I applied to be a judge.

There was the call-out, and I emailed a short plug for myself and a CV. I made the short-list and was sent an application form, which I promptly filled in. It included questions like why do you want to be a judge and what can you offer.

I got the phone call while I was walking down a street in Richmond; I’d just had breakfast with a former boss of mine. A wonderful, lovely woman who has been a great help, inspiration and a whole other bunch of things to me – since I’ve known her really, but also specifically these past few months.

So I was already elated ...

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Come To The Awards Ceremony!

... Of the short story contest I helped judge!

Hooray! You know you want to :P

Y'all remember the short story contest I was judging?

Well after tonight I can say that we've 'been there, judged that'. I am extremely happy with the winners and short-listed entries and can't wait for the awards ceremony.

There will be food and drink (bonus!), me talking (can't wait!) and lots of other goodness including emerging writers being praised for their awesome stories about gambling. (Which really, is why we're all there.)

The deets:

During April, Council held a story telling competition for young people to mark Gambling Awareness Week (14-20 May).

Council called for young people to submit stories on the topic, "Don't let gambling take over". Entries took the form form of  written stories, photographs, drawings, video and other kinds of media.

Winners will be announced at a ceremony at ...

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Emerging Writers’ Festival: Festival Picks

Has everyone checked out the Emerging Writers' Festival program? I honestly can't narrow down my choices as the entire program looks fantastic.

In partilcuar, I'd like to highlight my own session details :P

Here's the blurb for the writers residency:

Words in Winter @ Future Bookshop

12:00 AM, Monday 4 June 2012  until 17 Jun 2012  
NGV Studio, Federation Square
191 Flinders Street (Gmaps)

Words in Winter, Future Bookshop Residents

Future Bookshop will feature real, live writers working in NGV Studio.

See how words unfold at Future Bookshop. Our 15 writers in residence and the Emerging Writers’ Festival team will be dreaming, collaborating, creating and asking – what is the future of writing?

Come and watch our writers work, or peruse their constantly-evolving creations, on display daily at Future Bookshop.

Participating Writers (see all writers) Sophie Benjamin Matt Blackwood David Blumenstein Megan Burke Tully Hansen Rebecca Howden Julien Leyre Hayley ...

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CBCA Book Awards: Judges Talk 2012

CBCA Book Awards Judges Talk was held in Bendigo and for the third time (2009, 2010) I made the trek up!

This one was going to be a little different. Firstly, I drove rather than got the train (less writing time, more singing to Glee at the top of my voice time) and thirdly I stayed over rather than going home.

This afforded me many more opportunities than usual, namely I had dinner with my friend Jen, and also stayed at her house. This was fantastic for a number of reasons, but mostly because it was so good to see her, and I got to see her husband Stephen and one of her sons as well. They have such a beautiful house, and it was such a treat catching up.

Stephen showed me this fantastic interactive book on his iPad - I really ...

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Excellent News!

In the last few days, several excellent things have happened and I'm celebrating with smiley balloons!

Two big news items:

I'm judging a short story contest AND I have a writers residency!

These come at a particular excellent time as the past few weeks have been down right horrendous but things are looking up people!

I am in excellent company for both of those; a friend from uni, Shannon, is also a judge for the short story contest as is Adolfo aka Fez, an acquaintance from Voiceworks. And my friend Sam has a residency as well. 

I am SO excited and feel so honoured to have been chosen for these roles. I really cannot believe it.

I've been doing a happy dance for a few days now :p

If you want to enter the short story contest, you can do so here.

If you want more information about the residency, ...

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Pretty Décor For Bookworms

I've always really loved gorgeous cards and postcards, and I've always had them sitting on my dresser or window sill, held in little card holders (these ones, from Typo). Problem with them in my new house they're right in my path to get to my bathroom so I am always knocking them over, plus my sister's car knocks them over. And shoving them in the spiral coil is slowly ruining them.

So last night I was all inspired after looking at Etsy and decided I needed to do something!

And look at the top photo - how pretty! They're my first six, a combination of cards and postcards, in white photo frames (frames three for $6! Love K-mart!).

I have some more of them too. Some of them I need to buy more of those white frames (annoyingly enough, you can't see the ...

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Public Service Announcement: Don’t Steal Rabbits!

This is the last picture I took of my beloved rabbit, Miffy, before she was stolen.

Yes, the night before last, Miffy was stolen from her cage in the back yard. Along with some stuff from my housemate's car (my car, Ben, was thankfully okay (then again the only things I had in it were two fairy dresses and a clown outfit!)).

It didn't really dawn on me that she was gone gone until late last night.

I went out for dinner and then to the comedy festival, had fun, came home, and started to talk to Tara (my housemate) and then I looked at some photos of her and I realised I was never going to see her again (cue tears).

We currently have three theories:
1) They stole her (which begs the question, what are they doing to her now?)
2) They ...

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Sydney Writers’ Festival – I’m there!!!

So on Friday I was looking through The Sydney Writers' Festival program - as I often do - and I started to notice just how many authors were going that I like.

Heaps, in fact.

In previous years it's been one or two, but I started to tally it and once I had written down over fifteen events that I wanted to see, I started to seriously consider going.

A quick check of the old bank account made me see I'd been paid early (hooray!) which pretty much cemented it - I was going!

Flights and accommodation later, I started to specifically plot which sessions I needed to buy tickets for.

Looking down my haphazard list, I saw that majority of the sessions were free. FREE!

Music to my student-stretched-budget ears!

In fact, I've only paid for four sessions (The Forest for the Trees: Writers & Publishing ...

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Marketing, Growing Up and being more Professional

I've been thinking about marketing a lot lately (although let's be honest, I love marketing, so when am I not thinking about it!).

Specifically, I joined Hootsuite and OMG is that site amazing. I am in love with it. And I can't believe no-one told me about it earlier!

It simplifies all your social media into one handy program - you can do everything you can do in each different social media, but it's saving you time as you can manage all your accounts at once.

Plus, you can schedule messages to be posted whenever you want - which is a huge help, and something I'd been wanting.

Hootsuite also offer Hootsuite University, which is educating you in social media.

I'm really interested to learn how to maximise social media marketing, and use it more effectively, and I think I'm going to sign up.

I'm working on ...