It took 30 years as a teacher to learn the most important lesson — The ‘right’ decision? By 1999, after ten years of teaching in very challenging schools, I was already feeling burnt out. Then I was appointed to an even tougher school in another very multicultural area of Sydney. My first morning at this new school, the principal welcomed me into his office, and immediately asked: “Would…

It may be a coincidence but it is worth a try. — I don’t earn $1000 a month on Medium. Not even $100. And I have no idea how to ever achieve that. Really, it’d be very nice, but no. And from what I’ve experienced from being distributed, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to how much your stories earn. …

If you don’t like randomness, don’t read this. Sorry, I’m genetically British. That is definitely a non sequitur, as I think British people are very non random. Orderly. Look how they spontaneously queue, without instruction. When I was thirteen, I read all of Hemingway’s books twice and wrote a fifty-page thesis on why he…

One dog’s experience of divorce. — When my daughter and her three children moved out of our house at the end of 2020, she omitted the dog from her list of things to pack. Actually, she left behind the family spoodle and a decent single mattress. The mattress is no trouble. It sits propped upright against…

A child’s experience of injustice — Warning: This story is a true account of abortion. The café In 1968, when I was sixteen, I worked in a café in a mall on Thursday nights, Saturdays and during school holidays. My mum was the catering manager for the mall, and she worked us hard. There were a…

A story about something no one needs to see. — My husband is a stubborn man. Most days his pockets are stuffed like grocery bags, bulging from his thighs. I suggest a man-bag and wait for the explosion of righteousness. I’m not wearing a man-bag, he yells. And adds, Like Barry. He spits outs out the last word as an…

A poem about public displays of condolence — Is it just me? I really need to know Why the nakedness of death is shared Like flesh on display. They died last night, she whispers Twitter shudders for a second Then responds. Loudly it consoles in a hundred clamoring yammering I’s and my’s Feasting on the still warm public corpse…

Engaging your reader is not what you write about but how, and why, you write it. — A writer recently said that all writing ought to be interesting, or it won’t make money or gain readers. It sounds like splitting semantic hairs, but there is a vast difference between ‘interesting’ and ‘engaging’ when it comes to readers’ interactions with stories. You know the saying, One person’s ‘interesting’…