I love a serendipitous discovery. Out at Readings on the weekend, Madison choosing her 'Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid', I spotted Bren MacDibble’s book ‘How To Bee’ in the Young Adult section, and could not resist. The title jumped out at me - I've carried Bee in my nickname for a long time. Not [...]
Heart Without Expectation
Or, The Lesson My Son Taught Me That No One Else Could My eldest son, Ryan, is 14 years old. For me, that was an age of growing apart from family. Of buying into all the teenage clichés of resenting parents, rebelling, feeling like I didn’t fit in. As a parent with my first teenager, [...]
Plateau
The following was the result of a writing exercise for the Elephant Academy course; the prompt we were given was ‘Tell a story about a time in your life when you felt carefree, creative, and totally in the moment. Use the senses and all the W's (who, what, where, when, why).’ The ten minute window [...]
Terrified
I've used the words 'I'm terrified' in respect to writing and sharing my work a number of times. These words have not come from my mouth prior to this month, as far as I can recall. Maybe just before the arrival of kids! But the words have been there. An invisible anchor behind me. A weight [...]
Bye to the New Guy
I lay on my back. My old friend, Dull Ache, seems to have left for good. Sometimes I miss him. Particularly on the those days when new friend, targeted localised shooting pain, let’s call it the new guy, is around. Dull Ache was a long-term companion. He was settled in behind my heart. For as [...]
