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Waterlily thoughts

September 7, 2014

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One image can sum up a holiday, a phase of life. You wonder what draws you to photograph certain sights, certain objects. What makes you strive to capture this particular image this way or that. Or when you take so many photos like I did when in Japan recently, it’s surprising how one or two images can capture the whole time and experience, the reflection in the lens coming back.

The image and symbol for that recent holiday and right now is the waterlily. The photo I took of two waterlilies in a pool of many at Yahiko, a little village in north west Japan, somehow captures this time now.

I’ve always loved waterlilies, the beauty rising from the mud, the perfection blossoming, the majestic clarity they carry and hold.

They have popped up at different times in my life. An etching I did once years ago at a time of immense change when I was pregnant, features me jumping from one lily pad to another in some archetypal riotous spiralling motion.

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At another earlier time, Australian author Kate Llewellyn’s ‘The Waterlily: A Blue Mountains Journal’ became a favourite reflective piece, read at a time of great turmoil many years ago when my heart was somewhat broken.

Kate captures twelve months of making a life in the Blue Mountains in her poetically infused language and style and especially the sense of being present through the flow of days and the feelings that ebb with them:

Shall I say in similar fashion, that it is now clear to me it is all visitors coming and going and then being alone and then visitors and cooking and cups of tea and talking and picnics and looking at the vast blue valley and the fire and the autumn, and then meals and making dinners and breakfasts and then looking at the plants and feeding the birds and stoking up the fire and writing in between. Something like that.

IMG_9186I must reread this lovely book and lose myself again in the rhythm of her days to refocus mine. There is pain and longing there but the calmness of the moments being harvested is soothing.

The Book of Symbols tells me that the lily generally is connected with queenly divinities, identified with purity and innocence. Further…

Highly regenerative, the lily surfaces even after fire or drought. Alchemy honored the lily as evoking the very essence of Mercurius, the spirit of pysche’s unconscious depths and transforming opus. As the quintessence, the longed for goal of the adept, lily represents psychic integrity that is no longer pulled apart by affect.

The waterlily particularly symbolises the cycle of life, birth and death, and with its ability to produce blossoms and fruits simultaneously represents universality.

In the spiritual arena of Hinduism, the concept of resurrection is symbolically denoted by the water lily. This is because at night (or during darkness) the lilies close their blossoms and with the first ray of the sun, they open. It is also a symbol of purity, because even though the plant grows in mud, the flower is pure and free from blemishes.

From What does a water lily symbolise?

So many ways of interpreting this image, so many waterlily thoughts.

So what does the waterlily symbolise? For me, it’s a symbol of renewal, of optimism, and of quietness, recognising the stillness and productivity in each moment and in the everyday. It’s about beauty and positivity rising from an environment of muddiness and complexity. It’s about honouring the fact that the mud the plant grows from is the anchor and grounding for so much more. Without it, the beauty would not exist.

What images are you noticing and what are they saying in your life?

2 Comments
blogging reading notes

Beaches and books

June 11, 2014

at the beachIt’s been such a busy time these past months…this the continuing mantra of my life. And the posts here are so infrequent when I had planned so much more this year.

In between the busyness, beaches and books have sustained me, my Instagram feed has mostly reflected the books I am reading and sights from walks on the beach. (Until recently heading to Japan and that’s another story to come!)

On the beach, walking, the sun setting, the cool sand and the water rushing or lapping depending on the day.

And the books, mostly Australian Women Writers lately though not exclusively – I’ve read Michelle de Kretser’s ‘Questions of Travel‘, Carrie Tiffany’s ‘Mateship with Birds‘ and Hannah Kent’s ‘Burial Rites‘ as well as Elisabeth Gifford’s ‘Secrets of the Sea House‘ plus enjoyed a reread of a gentle favourite, Rumer Godden’s ‘In this House of Brede‘. I’ve eagerly entered these worlds and stayed there for my 30-40 minute train journey on most days.

Both beaches and books have sustained me.

The beach grounding me as it always does, my feet in the sand, the act of walking, the water cooling my thoughts, my breathing calming.

The books keeping me connected to my love of words, my creative heart that is somewhat languishing. The part of me that wants to write more poetry and the novel that I imagine but cannot quite get to that other creative desk of the heart at present.

Words that have come to me lately:

The spirit of her invincible heart guided her through the shadows.

from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, and:

for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

from e e cummings loveliest poem, ‘maggie and milly and molly and may’.

And my own beach walking poem on this theme:

 Narrative

She starts up high, facing north
towards slow mist,
watching the sea wash
into the rain’s drift below.

She is called to the beach
as if to a baptism, bride-like,
white as the air, stepping
down the rough rock stairs.

She narrates her life,
writes as she walks,
as if the sand and shells are
the bones of her story.

And the pieces connect her:
an imperfect white oval shell,
a fig leaf from a canopy,
the sketched black lines
of a creature’s moving home.

Cool and tight limbed,
she ends in another place,
as if washed by waves,
her contours, clear and shell-lined
as the Borromean grottoes
of Isolabella,
her white shining lights
coming home.

2 Comments
reading notes

Reading Australian Women Writers

January 8, 2014

awwbadge_2014I participated in The ‘Australian Women Writers Challenge’ in 2013 for the second year. I had another wonderful reading and connecting experience that built on my 2012 experience and many years of enjoying Australian women’s writing.

So what is the challenge? It’s about enjoying, supporting and promoting Australian women’s writing. You can read the background to the challenge here and sign up for 2014 here. Started in 2012 by Elizabeth Lhuede in response to an under-representation of women’s writing in Australian literary prizes being awarded, it has developed into a strong, diverse group of readers and reviewers celebrating and sharing writing by Australian women.

You can choose your level of engagement in the challenge and there’s no pressure to complete, just a target to aim for. In 2013, I aimed to read 6 and review at least 4. I achieved the reading part of the challenge with 7 reads. As in 2012, I haven’t done as well with the reviewing part but will capture the reads in this summary post and aim to review in 2014.

So why am I signing up again and why is it important?

Reflecting on the 2012 experience, I summarised my rationale as below:

I have a great love of Australian women’s writing. My Australian literature bookshelf is about 80% women writers. This love developed naturally during my university literature studies and has endured. It’s my history, lineage and backyard; they are not the only writers I enjoy but they are the writers closest to my experience with all the local references, influences and language especially as it relates to the experience of women.

I am engaging with the challenge again in 2014 to broaden this experience further; in 2012 and 2013, I have learned about so many new and exciting Australian women writers and absolutely loved the diverse reads. Through-out the challenge, I have been deliberately seeking out writers that are new to me and genres that I don’t normally read.

There is still plenty of work to do in promoting Australian women’s writing as this post indicates. As Margo Lanagan commented on twitter about this, it is depressing from a bookseller and it made me sad, sad that a person selling books couldn’t find such strength and beauty in Australian women writers as I do. It would at least help with book sales to people like me having this knowledge even if it’s not a personal love.

Perhaps I expect too much but in any case, as a result of the dialogue since this post, Mr Page has signed up for the challenge again in 2014. I hope this time the real challenge is finding the time to read as much as he wishes to in the rich diversity of Australian Women’s Writing – new and old. That is certainly my experience.

Reflecting on 2013

In 2013, I read 7 books towards my target of 6. Because I didn’t get to the reviews (again) in 2013 and in the spirit of the AWW community, here are my reads with a few brief comments.

  • Fishing for Tigers by Emily Maguire – I loved blogging buddy Liv White’s review and was interested in the Vietnam setting. I’ve never been to Vietnam and the novel created a sense of the steamy beauty of Hanoi. ‘Fishing for Tigers’ focused on relationships played out against a sense of place and dislocation from home.
  • Sea Hearts, by Margo Lanagan – There have been some fabulous reviews on this book, especially Elizabeth Lhuede’s review, and it has won numerous awards. ‘Sea Hearts’ took me to another world and showed the impact of longing, desire and power on a small island community where men can have beautiful women fashioned from seals. I don’t often read speculative fiction and I enjoyed it immensely as a new AWW genre this year.
  • Sydney by Delia Falconer – the non-fiction book about my home town. I struggled with this book more than I wanted to but perhaps that was precisely the point. Sydney is a mass of contradictions; as Falconer writes: “Surely no other city’s pleasures are so bound up with revulsion, or their beauty so dependent on the knowledge of corruption.” ‘Sydney’ is well researched and captures Sydney in all its complexity.
  • The Secret Keeper – Kate Morton – was a great read. I loved her previous books and this one didn’t disappoint. Kate Morton has enjoyed high praise including as top voted Australian writer in the 2013 booktopia poll. I also read ‘The Distant Hours‘ by Kate Morton though this story didn’t engage me as much as The Secret Keeper’s compelling narrative.
  • The Scrivener’s Tale – Fiona McIntosh – was my first read of 2013 and an epic adventure traversing modern and mediaeval times. Again, this was outside my usual reading fare and I enjoyed it for its feistiness, sense of mystery and historical contexts.
  • The Longing – Candice Bruce – was my last and favourite read of 2013. ‘The Longing’ tells the story of a modern day curator researching for an exhibition of an American romantic landscape painter. The lives of two 19th century Australian women that he painted are also told: one a Scottish immigrant and the other her Aboriginal servant. ‘The Longing’ is beautifully written and like a rich landscape itself. Author Bruce is by background an art historian, writer and curator so the detail is delicate and authentic. It’s about love, loss and longing, history, home and family.

What have I learnt from 2012 and 2013?

  • AWW is a great journey; read outside your usual genres, discover some of the Australian Women Writers – recent or past – that you haven’t encountered up till now.
  • You don’t have to review in the order that you read and you don’t have to review at all. That said, I get great value from the reviews of others so I am hoping to contribute more in this regard in 2014 during the year rather than at the end and by learning to write better reviews.
  • The AWW reading and writing community is fantastic. You can connect on the blog, through twitter @AusWomenWriters or hashtag #AWW2014, through Goodreads; there are readers, writers and reviewers from all walks of life reading so diversely and widely. Even though I didn’t review, I tweeted and blogged and contributed in that way and made some valued connections with like-minded readers.
  • The consolidated reviews are excellent and highlight the work of AWW readers and writers across all genres. Check out the review listings here – there’s plenty of inspiration and information.
  • It’s really all about raising awareness of Australian women writers to inform reading choices.

What am I planning to read (and review) in 2014?

My exciting list so far for 2014:

Michelle de Krester – Questions of Travel
Hannah Kent – Burial Rites
Carrie Tiffany – Mateship with Birds
Favel Parrett- Past the Shallows

A special thanks to Elizabeth Lhuede for initiating the challenge in 2012 and for the 2013 team for maintaining the hard work of holding it all together for the benefit of us all.

I hope you’ll join the challenge!

6 Comments
blogging transcending

Keeping transcending

December 3, 2013

Keeping transcending Yes it’s been quiet here…nearly three months to be precise but who’s counting.

I’ve missed it here, creating these pieces of me to put out into the world. It’s been hard to get back to it, a combination as always of work pressures, plus more travel time. I am working further from home and in a new, exciting and intense job role that has required my highest attention and priority.

And then there’s ‘Transcending’ itself, as the blog, as the practice it talks about: ‘strategies for rising above, cutting through and connecting…’ In the strangest of ways, the practice of writing the blog itself enacts this, how I have to keep coming back and revitalising it.

Many times I have nearly stopped writing here altogether especially after a break such as this. I’ve nearly given up on it so many times.

But it’s important to keep going, to keep transcending and to think about what I have achieved, why I do it and write here, the reasons for it, who has helped me and been on the journey with me and what I hope for ‘Transcending’ into the future.

So what have I achieved?

I started this blog in May 2010 and in between busy job roles, I’ve kept writing and creating its content, even if there have been gaps at times. The wonderful ‘Blog in Review’ report for my blog for 2012 sent from WordPress is insightful. I have revisited it now to help me see what I have achieved and what else I can do to keep the momentum and to do it better and more often.

The report told me there were 2400 views in 2012 alone. That might not seem many to some with bigger audiences but to me, it is staggering. I have now created an archive or body of work of 88 posts since May 2010. That’s probably about a post every three weeks. I could be more regular in my work here and write shorter posts more often, but in the circumstances of my life and full-time work role, I’m claiming it as an achievement.

My busiest day so far yielded some 197 views of a single post and I am proud of this and grateful – it was thanks to mentions posted by friends in the blogosphere and especially Tammy at RowdyKittens and a flow on from her extensive readership. It reminds me of the continuing need to visit others and spread the pleasure of their work as well, repaying the kindness. And to be thankful.

My top posts of all time are:

Poetry: into the light

Working your introvert

The value of howling into the wind

Poetry: Optical Illusions

About stillness

My 2012 ‘Blog in Review’ report tells me:

Some of your most popular posts were written before 2012. Your writing has staying power! Consider writing about those topics again.

This is good advice that I need to heed. Especially the posts on poetry, one of the major loves of my life, seem to have resonance, so this is something I can work on in moving forward. This can move both loves forward: poetry writing and blogging.

One of the main search terms that found my blog was: “theme +passion to create”. I am thrilled that I came up as a reference point under “passion to create”.

I am grateful for my blogging buddies, my referring sites, my new and enduring friends developed through Susannah Conway’s ‘Blogging from the Heart” and “Unravelling” e-courses as well as the Australian women writers and blogging communities I connect with. I am especially grateful to:

Victoria at The Mojo Lab who continues to inspire and support

Liv at When Ideas Fail for all our connections and her beautiful reflections

Tammy at Rowdy Kittens who gave me the first thrill of a flood of readers and a taste of what could be

Ellen at Choose Your Own Journey for connecting on choice and authentic journeys

Evan at Living Authentically for being such a faithful reader and commenter especially in the quiet times and for all those readers who have stayed the distance quietly

Sage at The Path of Possibility, my poetry teacher and muse who encourages me here still and to whose writing I return regularly for poetic encouragement and structure

Susannah Conway – for her blog, books, inspiration and fabulous e-courses which have kept me renewed and alive and connected with kindred souls across the world…and for being the best role model for enduring creativity ever: “using creativity to set us free”, being one of her core mantras.

I am also really grateful to all the recent people who have subscribed to my blog in the midst of its current silence – you have come from all different places especially my current Unravelling team – and I am honoured. It’s been a real spur for me to return. Thank you for your faith in me to write again.

So it seems this blog is as much about practising transcending as it is anything else. My spiritual name given to me by my yoga teacher is turiyamani – ‘transcendental jewel’ and that is very much what all this is about, finding a way to keep it happening, here and elsewhere as creatively and positively as possible. And in that, to shine.

There’s a sense of keeping on, resilience in writing here so I am going to keep transcending and not give up. I thank you for sharing the journey and hope you will stay and keep transcending also in whatever is your journey and passion, keeping the faith and the practice of what you love.

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reading notes writing

Celebrating Australian Women’s Writing

February 24, 2013

awwbadge_2013

The ‘Australian Women Writers Challenge’ is one of my projects for 2013. I undertook this challenge in 2012 and had a wonderful reading and connecting experience and looking forward to extending and enriching that this year.

So what is the challenge? You can read more about it here but basically it’s a reading and reviewing challenge to lift the profile of Australian women’s writing. It was started in 2012 by Elizabeth Lhuede in response to an under-representation of women’s writing in Australian literary prizes being awarded. It has since developed into a strong, diverse group of readers and reviewers celebrating and sharing writing by Australian women.

You can choose your level of engagement in the challenge and there’s no pressure to complete as such, just a target to aim for. Last year, I aimed high (read 10, review 6) and in a busy year managed most of the reading and none of the reviews. This year, I am aiming a little lower (read 6, review at least 4) and hope to over-achieve!

So why am I signing up again and why is it important?

I have a great love of Australian women’s writing. My Australian literature bookshelf is about 80% women writers. This love developed naturally during my university literature studies and has endured. It’s my history, lineage and backyard; they are not the only writers I enjoy but they are the writers closest to my experience with all the local references, influences and language especially as it relates to the experience of women.

I am engaging with the challenge in 2013 again to broaden this experience further; in 2012, I learned about so many new Australian women writers and so many diverse reads. I have been enjoying deliberately seeking out writers that are new to me and genres that I don’t normally read.

It’s important because the profile of Australian women writers has been under-represented in terms of awards and book reviews, as surprising as this is. Read this post on the background to the challenge to get a feel for some of the issues. The AWW Challenge has done much to celebrate and raise awareness about Australian women’s writing and I for one am very grateful for the community and experience, as well as the profile being generated. The challenge has resulted in a powerful ground shift that has attracted national and international attention.

Reflecting on 2012

In 2012, I read 7 books towards my target of 10. Because I didn’t get to the review in 2012 and in case anyone is looking for potential reads for this year, I’ll list my reads and add a few brief comments.

Searching for the Secret River: A Writing Memoir – Kate Grenville‘s account of the research and writing experience of ‘The Secret River’ was always going to be an engaging book for me, being about a number of key interests: writing, family history, genealogical research, fact and fiction and the intersection between them. One branch of my family also settled in the area Kate was researching and writing about so it was all close to home personally and a fascinating read on how fact and family story came to be a work of fiction.

Sarah Thornhill – Kate Grenville followed on from ‘The Secret River’ so a natural next read and it didn’t disappoint as a close study of what is what like for strong willed women in colonial times with all its many challenges, especially in terms of culture and gender.

When We Have Wings – Claire Corbett was thrilling and a read that took me right out of the present to another world where people can grow wings and society is separated into those who can fly and those who can’t. Technically brilliant, especially in its descriptions of the experience of flying, and a well constructed story in a whole new space and time, I enjoyed ‘When We Have Wings’ thoroughly. This review by fellow AWW Challenge participant, Mark Webb provides more detail. Well worth reading – a fantastic debut novel from Blue Mountains based writer, Claire Corbett.

The Light Between Oceans – M L Stedman was one of the books I picked up and bought from reading the back blurb when looking for a new Australian Women Writers read in 2012. It soon emerged that this book was gaining interest all over the world and with good reason. Set against a wild West Australian coastline, featuring a remote lighthouse and with a twist and turn plot and gut-wrenching life decisions, it was a highlight for me in 2012.

Poet’s Cottage – Josephine Pennicott was another book purchased without any prior knowledge as part of AWW2012. Set in Tasmania, with a family history to uncover, a murder mystery, some wonderfully eccentric characters and an inherited cottage with secrets, it’s another atmospheric read.

The Engagement – Chloe Hooper – spooked me completely one night. It’s a suspenseful, intense and mysterious ride, with the engagement as much with the reader as between the two main characters who form a dubious connection that takes on a life of its own on a remote western Victorian property. Read for its sheer intensity.

Disquiet – Julia Leigh is a tight and very disturbing novella about an Australian family returning to family and chateau in France, escaping turmoil but arriving to just as much dislocation. Everything is like a film still, the language sharp and fresh; it’s aptly titled.

What have I learnt from 2012?

  • AWW is a great journey; read outside your usual genres, discover some of the Australian Women Writers – recent or past – that you haven’t encountered up till now
  • You don’t have to review in the order that you read and you don’t have to review everything.
  • Don’t over-complicate the reviewing; I started by researching the background of novels for my reviews and I made it all too complicated for myself. Revisiting all the furore that surrounded fact and fiction in ‘The Secret River’ got me all confused. In the end, I had to remind myself, it’s not an academic treatise for university.
  • The AWW reading and writing community is fantastic. You can connect on the blog, through twitter @AusWomenWriters or hashtag #AWW2013, through Goodreads; there are readers, writers and reviewers from all walks of life reading so diversely and widely, it’s a treat. Even though I didn’t review, I tweeted and blogged and contributed in that way – it was fun, I made some valued connections with like-minded readers, I found a whole host of book bloggers I didn’t know about and I learned a heap.
  • The consolidated reviews are excellent and highlight the work of AWW readers and writers across all genres. Check out the review listings here – with reviews all neatly sorted by genre, there’s plenty of inspiration and information.

What am I planning to read (and review) in 2013?

I’m currently reading ‘The Scrivener’s Tale‘ by Fiona McIntosh, classified by AWW as ‘speculative fiction’, a genre I haven’t engaged with extensively. Other books on the list are:

  • Sea Hearts, by Margo Lanagan – there have been some fabulous reviews on this book, especially Elizabeth Lhuede’s review and want to experience this book for myself
  • Fishing for Tigers by Emily Maguire – loved blogging buddy Liv White’s review and interested in the Vietnam setting
  • Sydney by Delia Falconer – this book is physically exquisite and about my home town; I loved Delia Falconer’s ‘Service of Clouds’ and her celebration of the Blue Mountains in that novel so I am sure ‘Sydney’ will also celebrate its heart
  • Joe Cinque’s Consolation – Helen Garner – because I love Helen Garner’s hard-hitting analysis in her non-fiction works and I haven’t read this one
  • The Secret Keeper – Kate Morton – loved her previous books and Kate is enjoying high praise including as top voted Australian writer in a recent booktopia poll.

Well, that’s my six books, for now anyway – I am sure many more will vie for my attention this year. It’s such a rich field of pleasure, the work of our Australian women writers, so let’s celebrate and document it.

A special thanks to Elizabeth Lhuede for initiating the challenge in 2012 and maintaining the hard work of holding it all together for the benefit of us all.

I hope you’ll join the challenge!

My #AWW2013 reads lined up and ready to go!

My #AWW2013 reads lined up and ready to go!

3 Comments
reading notes

Book voyeurs unite

September 4, 2012

I have loved the phrase ‘book voyeurs’ since I read about it in the Guardian ages ago. David Barnett writes:

I think it was Sarah Crown who first set me off. “Is it just me?” she asked (while accepting the cliche of that opening phrase), “is it just me, or are the contents of other people’s bookshelves/bedside tables/desks/whatever ALWAYS more interesting than your own?”

Well, is it just me, or … look, does anyone else have an unhealthy obsession not just with what people have on their bookshelves but what they’re actually reading right there and then?

I used the concept to create a couple of posts here and here on what I was reading; ‘Reading Notes for Book Voyeurs‘, an ‘occasional series’, I called it. Very occasional, as it turns out. I do weave my reading in and out of my blog posts, so perhaps this is why it seems more, but there it is, a series of two! Time to pick up the pace here, it seems for all the book voyeurs amongst us.

Reading is one of the great loves of my life. I have toyed with the idea of a separate book and reading blog, but the general advice I have gleaned out there is ‘don’t start a second blog’. I also have trouble with managing the time and content for one, so not keen to try and manage two. So I’m working with the concept that this blog is about my theme of transcending and what helps rise above, cut through, triumph over the negative and overcome, and I include books and reading here.

If anything has had the power to help me move through, overcome, make sense of and negotiate the world, it has been books and reading. A large part of my life has been dedicated to honing my skills in this area, personally and through studying literature, literacy and language; my career path includes being a teacher of reading and writing to adults, so this theme runs strong.

I find it helps to have a theme and focus, a meaningful reading project, to anchor my love of reading in a busy stream of activity. This year’s reading project is the ‘Australian Women Writer’s 2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge‘. I have chosen to read 10 books in a range of genres and review 4 of them. I’m loving the AWW 2012 challenge and the community and activity it’s inspiring. Having a long and enduring love of Australian literature and women’s writing, it’s been wonderful to connect with this space again. Designed to refocus and re-engage people with the writing of Australian women, the challenge has been wildly successful with 1000+ review, a great website, twitter feed, Goodreads site and a rich community of readers and writers to engage with.

I’ve so far read 5 of my 10 works by Australian women writers this year and have just started my sixth today. I am sure I would not have become aware of some of these books if not for the challenge and being more generally attuned to the work of Australian women writers. Plus I’ve connected with some fabulous bloggers and writers who share my love of Australian literature and good writing.

So far, I have read:

Searching for the Secret River: A Writing Memoir, Kate Grenville

When we have Wings, Claire Corbett

Sarah Thornhill, Kate Grenville

The Light Between Oceans, M. L. Stedman

Poet’s Cottage, Josephine Pennicott

And I’ve just started the gorgeously suspenseful, ‘The Engagement‘ by Chloe Hooper.

The reviews are yet to come and are in the planning stages and yes, I need to get onto them as the year is marching away. I started to work on my review of ‘Searching for the Secret River’ with some research on the net, and found I had quite forgotten the furore around history and literature that surrounded ‘The Secret River’ in 2006 and must admit that minefield put me off and somewhat stalled my review writing.

In any case, I will work on my planned review mindful of the background issues, but my reading of both ‘The Secret River’ and ‘Searching for the Secret River’ was positive, tapping as both books do into my key interests of family history research, writing about this, trying to gauge what might have happened in the spaces of fact, if imperfectly, and understanding also that writing novels in historical contexts requires some fictionalising.

All this made me reconsider the act of book reviewing in the context of this blog and also AWW2012, and what form the reviews should or could take. I guess this may be part of the challenge of the Australian Women Writers Challenge for me: finding a meaningful way to write about these works that fits with my theme of ‘Transcending’ here and honours the tradition of resilience that these books are borne from, with Miles Franklin, the pioneering Australian women writer as its symbol and inspiration,

I’d best get back to reading the very engaging, ‘The Engagement’ and also working on those book reviews but I welcome your comments on:

  • books and reading as part of ‘Transcending’
  • your experience of books and reading and how they have helped you overcome, move through
  • book reviews and blogging generally – how can they come together?
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