Nigel Featherstone: My Heart is a Little Wild Thing
I’ve been eagerly awaiting this post from one of my favourite writers, Nigel Featherstone. Nigel’s latest novel, ‘My Heart is a Little Wild Thing’ has been described as, ‘Powerful, tender, visceral and sublime–a must-read piece of...
Sharron Booth: The Myth of ‘Follow Your Dream’
I loved this gorgeously wise post by WA début author, Sharron Booth. I know writers, and readers, will love it too, as we all resonate with the struggles of writing a book and getting published. It’s never straightforward and Sharron’s post, with its truth and...
On Ted Kooser, Journaling and Playing With Poetry
It doesn’t happen very often, but every now and then I read or hear about something and it strikes me immediately as something I must do. This happened to me in October 2020 – I was driving home, watching the road, probably thinking about the next thing I had to...
David Whish-Wilson: Research Moments in Bars
Writers in the Attic is now in its seventh year and over that time more than 130 writers have generously given us an insight into their writing process. Every single one of those processes has been unique and today, I bring you another great writer with another...
10 Things I Learnt From Writing My Second Novel
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged. For many reasons, including that I’ve had my head down finishing off Novel #2, I’ve been busy scribbling Novel #3 (over 50,000 words in already) and I’ve been working on a few other projects (see below)....
Portland Jones: Turning Family History into Historical Fiction
It’s with great joy I welcome Portland Jones back to the attic today. She visited back in 2019 – read that post here – but our friendship goes back to 2014, when we were both shortlisted for the City of Fremantle – TAG Hungerford Award. Portland has just...
Fiona Robertson: Walking Away for Inspiration
It gives me more pleasure than you can possibly imagine to welcome Fiona into the attic. It’s not the first time she’s visited (read her first post from 2017) and these days Fi is an almost daily visitor to the attic, as I am to her office, when we write...
Maria Papas: Lessons from ten year old me: how to tell a difficult story
Welcome to Writers in the Attic for 2022! I have some wonderful authors lined up already, and I’m looking forward to bringing you their stories from behind-the-scenes. I don’t know about you, but over this past two years, books have become a touchstone for...
How to Start Writing
Back in the day, I used to blog quite regularly (I wrote about that here), mainly because it enabled me to put my thoughts and experiences into words, and publish them without asking anyone’s permission. I liked, too, that I could edit a post after pressing...
Rashida Murphy: Sesame, Lilies and Conquistadors
My guest in the attic this week is Rashida Murphy. Rashida is a Western Australian author whose writing I’ve admired since we first met at a writing course in 2012. At the time, we were both starting out and in throes of writing our début novels. Since then, our...