You know the feeling when you have prepared an exciting, celebratory event and when the event arrives and it’s time to shine, you want to crawl under the covers and not answer the doorbell? Yip, that was me on Tuesday past at about 5:45pm. The rain had just started bucketing down, I stank of smoke… Continue reading how to (or not) launch your new book!
Here‘s a teeny peek of what to expect: some of the books that inspired the thoughts I had to write and the some of the thoughts I wrote. On mothers: … It was the image of a woman that she represented to me: a woman so passionate about her task; a woman so energised and… Continue reading a week to new book launch
‘I have a confession’ I said when I met Tracy Going properly this week after a brief, fortuitous meeting at the Franschhoek Literary Festival recently. ‘I haven’t read your book. I opened it at Exclusives and couldn’t get past the Prologue.’ ‘Oh no! Why? That’s not a good sign. Was it that bad?’ she said,… Continue reading Book Review: Brutal Legacy by Tracy Going – the illumination of truths
With less than twenty four hours at my disposal this time at my annual literary feast – the 2018 Franschhoek Literary Festival - I hung around briefly in the EB pop up book section in the Town Hall, to scan the new lists of books. One day, when I own my book shop (in my dreams) I won’t… Continue reading Highlights of the Franschhoek Literary Festival
Finding this so hard, to précis my thoughts on this book. Should have done it the minute I put it down two days ago. That’s when the real, connected emotion was fresh. Having a go now… So there’s this beautiful Polish born woman who has fallen in love with South African literature and South Africa… Continue reading BOOK REVIEW: THE FIFTH MRS BRINK
BEAR WITH ME ON THIS ONE. IT'S LONGER than usual but IMPORTANT but as usual, UNEDITED. We are living in strange and uncertain times. Isn’t it always so? We make history in some way or another every single day in relative terms which will impact someone, somewhere in a future which, today, cannot be known,… Continue reading your one wild and precious life
A long, slightly rambling blog. Like the tentacles of an octopus. My October. Children are easily embarrassed by their parents when they get to a particular age. They are from a different generation dealing with different parts of their growing selves in ways they cannot yet fully understand, and we have long forgotten. Truthfully, I… Continue reading EIGHT OCTOBER OBSERVATIONS
I’ve just come out of a steaming hot shower. The glass doors in my bedroom are still steaming and misted over, so you know how keen I was to get to my laptop to get this one out. As I’m soaping and re- soaping, having gone down my right shin at least three times (do… Continue reading Can we say Virginia Woolf was vain?
I’d been reading Kafka on the way up in the car, scanning through ‘The Metamorphosis’ and other short stories, and deciding that I would have to speak to someone about him. I hadn’t read much of it before and felt a bit clueless about what he was trying to say most of the time. I… Continue reading On Kafda, and thoughts of one and other special things.
In last month’s blog, I dared to suggest that I would talk about turning FIFTY. Funny how you can be so motivated about a writing piece one day and wholly daunted by it days later. I thought I had worked it all out and it would sing of inspirations and insights and read like a… Continue reading 50 THOUGHTS on TURNING 50
I dont have the answers, just a lot of questions.
It all began with Eleanor H. Porter
Prime my subconscious, one hint at a time
Understanding ourselves and the world we live in.
Little flecks of inspiration and creativity
Diane's blog about theatre, art, movies, food, books, life, the universe and everything
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