If You Find Me

Hey, I know I haven't posted for a while, but a quick recommendation for you -

If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch was a refreshing easy read that I highly enjoyed. She juxtaposes two different ideas of the woods. That of the innocent and adventurous Winnie the Pooh, and the reality her character experienced. The duality of the symbolism and the thrilling mystery and tension of the book keeps each line coming. For a quick but worthwhile read, I highly recommend it.

Reading Dickens

 - Hey, this is an article that I wrote a while ago for my local paper, however it's still one of my favourites.

In these past few weeks of university I have had the task of reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Upon learning of this task I was admittedly apprehensive. Some time ago I was kindly advised by a nice lady in the local bookstore of several books by Dickens which would serve as easy introductions to his literature, yet upon beginning The Old Curiosity Shop I was curious as to where this lady had got her information from. Either she had never read the book herself and had seen some entertaining film interpretation of the novel, or she had a sadistic need to see her fellow readers suffer. For though this was several years ago, the beautiful, illustrated, red leather bound copy of the book I had bought to read in appropriate style, remains in my book case, and I remember thinking, if that was one of Dickens’ easier reads, then I hope never to read any of his heavier works for as long as I live. I was further assured of my position when my mother’s book club tried to read A Tale of Two Cities. I had the pleasure of watching my mother suffer a similar torment, where merely trying to understand the sentence she was reading resulted in her forgetting what the prior sentence had been about. She grew quite worried when, two chapters through the book, she had no idea what she was reading, and resolved to give up and face the next book club, book unfinished. She was relieved, therefore, when no one in this quite experienced book club, managed to finish the book. There may have even been some referrals the book that included the phrase ‘wrist slitting.’

So upon learning I would have to read, and finish Great expectations, you can imagine my concern, if half of A Tail of Two Cities stirred suicidal thoughts in a book club, what would reading all of Great Expectations do to me?

If The Old Curiosity Shop was any indicator, than I would have to reread every second paragraph, and loose the will to live a fifth of the way through. However, I have good news for any student who may have to undertake the same challenge. Thus far I have only had to re-read every third or forth paragraph in the book, and am now a quarter of the way through and still floundering along. I don’t know what that lady in the bookstore was trying to achieve by pointing me to The Old Curiosity Shop, but Great Expectations has been, psychiatrically at least, far less damaging.

So rest assured all fellow readers, and remember, if you fail to complete the novel, there are always the movies.

Sand Art

To this day this is one of my favourite videos, her art is so fleeting and emotive, like evolving poetry just slips through her fingers.

Poetry Slam

Hey, I'm working towards getting a poetry slam on in Gawler soon. Check out my flyer -

Book Thief Interview

I love this book, and this movie, and for others that love it too, here is an interview with the author of The Book Thief.

Creative writing group

My creative writing group had their first meeting on Tuesday. I walked into the cafe not knowing what to expect, hoping I would have some time to compose myself and ready myself mentally for bringing this together, but one girl had already arrived. Thrown right into the thick of it I stumbled through introductions with smiles and an awkward clunkiness to my mind. Thankfully all the people who came were wonderful.
We sat and talked about where we wanted the group to go, and I asked everyone to consider personal goals for themselves to reach by the end of the month.
I had been worried about people being unable to find the cafe, that seems to be the common drawback for nifty cafes, they tuck away too well. A few people did arrive late, but we got them up to speed, sharing what we had done so far and asking their opinions. Seven people, including myself arrived, just enough so, thus far, I have not forgotten anyone's name. The cafe was wonderful, we had a fabulous room to ourselves with vintage designs and wooden tables - a perfect writers' hub. We then went over time just talking, so all together, I think we did well. This week we'll all try to compose our own spoken poem, and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with. Our local paper, thus far, has done a story, which again may attract new members, and soon I might put some photos on this blog.
One of the biggest keys to being creative, they say, is to surround yourself with creative people. My biggest hope is that each of us will be able to feed off of each other to enrich our work and come up with splendid pieces.
Should be interesting!

Short Videos

One of the things on the list of ways to stay creative is to watch new things. Movies are one option, but what I love are short beautiful films on You Tube. Already on this blog I have shared a puppetry music video, I'll Forget You in Time, and my own puppet short film, Shadow's Land but now every few weeks, I would also like to add a new short film I've loved from You Tube. None of these will be mine, but just nice things I've seen.
The video below is from the University of New South Wales, hope you enjoy.