I wrote this as part of the teachers’ notes for The Very Hard Book I was asked to contribute to. I thought it’d be worth sharing them here as well: The art for The Very Hard Book draws heavily on surrealism, a movement that dealt intensely with philosophical ideas, questions of perception, reality, paradox, memory and mental imagery. The cover...
Read MoreWriting tip #51:
1. Get a teapot. 2. Get a packet of Lapsang Souchong tea. 3. Make a pot of Lapsang Souchong tea and sit down to write. You may add a bit of milk but no sugar allowed. 4. Write, drinking the tea as you proceed. Lapsang Souchong, with its distinctive strong, smoky flavour, is a fighting tea. It gets you poppin’. 5. Crucially, however, cold Lapsang...
Read MoreTimed out
While working away at a book draft, I formed a new theory about why writing is so riddled by procrastination. What I’m doing as I sit down to write is trying to communicate with myself from the future, who is currently holding the finished book in his hands and trying to save his past self all the trouble. “How’s it looking?!?” I...
Read MoreListed
Argh! has recently been longlisted for the 2020 Australian Book Design award. It’s also made the CBCA 2020 Notable books list. So I’m...
Read MoreSex.
In both of the books Julian and I have made together, there are no human or animal characters (with the possible exception of the reader, who plays an active part in the proceedings). The first book consists of an all-microbe cast, the second features only aliens. If it were up to us, we’d dispense with the notion of the characters’ sex/gender...
Read MoreHappy accidents: observations on making music
On definitions: I’ve been playing the guitar since I was a teen. I’ll be the first to say I’m no good at playing the guitar, but that’s no surprise – I’ve had no formal training, and I have never really practiced properly, so I am technically very limited in what I’m able to do. Here’s an odd question, then:...
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