Jasper Jones author delivers a darn good yarn of a different kind

The subject of my latest review for THE AGE/SMH is Craig Silvey’s latest book, Runt. It’s aimed at mid to late primary school-age children and features  little Annie Shearer and her best friend, Runt, a scraggy wee dog who can…

A journey into the past to find a place called home

As memoirs go, Amaryllis Gacioppo’s first book Motherlands shows nothing of the current tendency of many writers to reveal a traumatic childhood – the more murder, mayhem and misery the better. Gacioppo takes an anthropological rather than a personal view…

Moriarty’s latest romp is an awkward family lunch to remember

My latest book review to be published in The Age/Sydney Morning Herald.

How working from home changed my life

In which I share my hard-won wisdom on the subject of working from home.

We are defined by our humanity: How to leave a footprint

The history of our involvement in overseas conflicts has been an inglorious one. But at least in the aftermath of the Vietnam War we had the decency to welcome refugees, as a recent program, Saving MG99…

Julie Oberin’s long campaign

Thanks to women like Julie Oberin, government funding and services are edging more closely to a position where domestic violence prevention becomes a possibility rather than a futile dream. I was delighted when my former colleague Julie Oberin, received an…

Boomers

In early November 2019, a TikTok video was uploaded showing a grey-haired man—thought to be a Baby Boomer (born 1946 to 1964)—declaring that “millennials and Generation Z have the Peter Pan syndrome”. He adds: “They don’t…

Motherhood, truth, love and guilt: the ingredients of a cracking novel

I’ve always maintained the easiest books to review are the really great ones or the really bad ones. In either case you can become impassioned about the content. Fortunately, in the case of SMH journalist Jacqueline Maley the book was…

Scott Morrison has chosen to ignore the voice of female advisers and constituents at his own cost

The prime minister Scott Morrison finally announced a royal commission into Australian Defence Force and veteran suicides on April 19, 2021, saying that it would “examine all aspects of service in the ADF and the experience of those transitioning from…

An Embarrassment of Riches: Andre Sardone’s flourishing arts practice

The nesting boxes are all around us, housing kookaburras and robins, sugar gliders and even vulnerable brush-tailed phascogales. Before continuing the tour of Andre Sardone’s studio we get fixed on the brush-tailed phascogales. How can you resist them? The male…