On being a writer — Like all writers, I collect quotes and inspirational snippets from writers I admire. Words I store for times when I need reminding what a wonderful thing this writing lark is, how best to navigate its challenges and how to infuse myself with inspiration. Recently I came across these words from…

Where dream and waking collide — After reading an article of mine, where I fretted over using too many adjectives in my writing, my friend Rebecca Romanelli remarked how methodical and thoughtful was my approach to language. About her own writing, Rebecca confessed: I launch into words with inner rebel teen peering over my shoulder.” Screw…

Vision is surely Queen — Brolly: noun (plural brollies) British informal an umbrella. Coronation day and I am jotting my morning thoughts, reflecting how British is the grey sky and drizzle. ‘It will be a celebration of brollies,’ I write. I pause, frown. ‘No, not brollies; the plural elides the “y”of the singular and I…

Alone at midnight — Dear Kathy, It’s been forty years. A long time since we were teenagers. I hope this letter finds you well. Like you, I am happy to let friends come and go — especially go. But there’s something that keeps coming back to me and it puzzles me and it’s why…

And Adverbs — Ultimately you write alone. The judgement that a work is complete…can be made rightly only by a writer who’s learned to read her own work. Ursula K. Le Guin I’m always up for honing my writing. So, it was time I got round to Ursula K. …

Where the motes are golden — A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it. Virginia Woolf There are places in our lives that are golden. Physical places where the air seems to fizz. Places that both envelope and radiate, no matter which direction we wander in…

How about an adjective? — As a teacher, I spend much time helping pupils learn to decode multi-syllable words. Many phonics programs, many teachers, focus on decoding single syllable words only to leave a pupil stranded and alone with multi-syllable. I see this in a pupil’s reaction as they read. A long word looms in…

Whatever you say, say nothing — It was the great Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, who said, ‘Whatever you say, say nothing,’ in his poem of the same name. He was writing about Northern Ireland, but his words could just as well be the tag line for literature written by or with the help of AI. There’s…

Comes to our house — Up and down the stairs, we ran. Glanced beneath our beds, kicked the towels in the bathroom, prodded the bin and in the kitchen ran a hand along the top of the fridge — shook off the dust — pushed the colander off the draining board, peered in the oven…