Sophie Lewis, climate scientist, has posted a great wrap-up today of some of the current thinking on how scientists should talk to the public about climate change. She has kindly quoted a few things I’ve said, but also added some evidence-based insights from real-life experts. It’s a good read. Take a look!

The great thing about being a famous author (I’m guessing here) is you can be incredibly rich and phenomenally well-known and loved, without anyone being particularly sure what you look like. You don’t appear in ‘stars without makeup’ spreads in Who magazine where commentators deride your flaky t-zone. Fans are unlikely to stop you on […]

Thanks very much to Helen Merrick for interviewing me for this year’s round-up of Australian speculative fiction. It felt a little presumptuous to be saying so much when I know so little, but it was a really fun process. The interview is here, and there are links to all the other bloggers doing interviews at […]

Jane bounces her Lychee seeds, what can I say?.

I’m researching and writing a non-fiction book, about preparing yourself to survive climate change. I started writing it because I thought it was an interesting topic, one that hadn’t been covered elsewhere in any depth, and one where I have a bit of expertise (thanks to three years as environment editor at The Conversation). A […]

Thanks to everyone who participated in my ‘what do you read on the toilet?’ survey. I’ve written up the results and revealed all about my own revolting habits in this post for Writers Bloc: The book that…I read on the toilet.

No, not the Miles Franklin, the answers to my survey about what people read while using the toilet. The unedited graphs are below. As to what people read when they have gastro, you’re all very funny: ‘The book of Job’; ‘Any News Ltd publication. I already have the shits and feel physically ill, so I […]

Hey there. I’m writing a pretty ridiculous article about toilet reading habits, and thought I’d introduce some scienciness by collecting responses to an entirely unscientific survey titled ‘what do you read in the toilet?’. This survey is, like, totes anonymous: I will not have even the vaguest idea who you are. So go on, fill […]

Before you get published, getting published is the most exciting thing that could ever possibly happen to you. And then when you get published, it is. Being published feels like the opening of a magical door. You’re in. You’re an author. Your book is in bookshops, it sits there in the same place as Middlemarch […]

Thanks so much to Yvette Walker – author of the utterly gorgeous, if you haven’t read it yet you should really get on with it ‘Letters to the End of Love’ – for joining in the ‘Writing process blog hop’. You can read her entry at her Facebook page. Here’s a taster: Every writer has […]

Here’s me on the Wheeler Centre’s ‘Dailies’ page… Last month, threeseparatescientific papers came to the same conclusion: the West Antarctic ice sheet is melting, and it’s too late for us to reverse the process. If you heard the news you’d have realised, at an intellectual level, that we’re in serious trouble and something needs to be done. […]

Here’s a little article I wrote for Dwell Magazine about a super-fancy beach house down on the Great Ocean Road. It had the most comfortable armchair I’ve ever sat it in. (A little weirdness was introduced in editing when the owners decided they’d rather not have their names published…)

I used to be a photographer, back in the days of film and paper and chemicals and darkrooms. I loved everything about taking, processing and printing images, but I couldn’t get excited about high-end cameras, light-meters and so on. I preferred keeping the instruments basic and using my eye and the darkroom to do the […]

Thanks to blogger, tweeter and author extraordinaire Annabel Smith for nominating me for this round of the writing process blog hop. You can read about how she makes the magic happen here. What am I working on now? Last year I had a great idea: wouldn’t it be interesting to write a handbook to help […]

12 debut Australian and NZ authors with a promising future Lisa Hill from ANZ Lit Lovers has written a great round-up of 12 local first-time authors to try out. She has very kindly included ‘A wrong turn at the Office of Unmade Lists’ and it sits alongside some intriguing company, much of which I hadn’t […]

These were all in a work notebook from 2007, kept during the course of a project that went from bright hope to crumbled disaster. Tucked in the back of the book I found my resignation letter. Thanks to @tinyowlworkshop for reminding me I can’t concentrate without doodling.

A week or so back I got into a twitter discussion about whether any authors are any good late in life. Many people felt like a writer’s middle years are their best,and that most make a slow (or rapid) decline into irrelevance. But offsetting age and the loss of faculties, most felt,was that your ‘craft’ […]

In January, I signed up for the Australian Women Writers reading challenge. I figured I might as well go for gold, and selected ‘Miles Franklin’ level: I pledged to read 10 books by Australian women – any genre, published at any time – during 2014. I figured it would take me nine months or so […]

For about 14 years I’ve been working on and off on a novella that became a novel and is now back to being a novella again. I was determined to wrap it up or chuck it out this year, and have been putting in some serious polishing work. Knowing I’d have to write a sales […]

I suspect actual famous people learn not to say stupid things in interviews. Not so me! I reveal many things, including my inability to write a short sentence, in this interview with ace blogger, journalist and author Marisa Wikramanayake.