|
Nova WeetmanThe Guardian |
Recently, I found a letter my mum had written me years ago when she was on holidays in Vietnam. The paper is thin and ratty on the edges, but the...
Many years ago, a friend from university invited some of us to his mum’s beach house at Walkerville South. His mum had bought the house super cheap...
Not long after my mum died, I talked to a friend’s mother about grief, and I compared what I was feeling to the loss she was experiencing after her...
When I was younger I was so terrified of public speaking that I went out of my way to avoid it. If I was forced to address a crowd, I didn’t sleep...
Throughout my 20s I never thought about owning property, because I was too busy enjoying living with friends in a string of share houses. Some of the...
After years of indoctrination from my native-animal loving parents, I arrived at adulthood wary of domestic pets. We didn’t have any when I was...
When my daughter went overseas on her gap-year adventure, my son and I found ourselves alone at home with the cat. Except for the odd Sunday morning...
When I was a child, the highlight of visiting my grandmother was being allowed to take her rubbish to the communal refuse room. The room had a chute...
As a kid our long summer holidays were mostly spent at the Croydon pool, with plastic containers of white-bread sandwiches, wedges of watermelon, and...
One year when I was very little, my mum hand-sewed a beaded cream dress with a taffeta skirt for a plastic doll I owned, to turn her from my toy into...
Since a dear friend died of melanoma at the age of 33, I have semi-religiously visited a dermatologist to have my skin checked. Over the years I’ve...
On the final day of the last school holidays, my friend and I went to the Royal Melbourne Show. Neither of us has young children any more, but a while...
A s a children’s author I spend much of my time in schools talking to young people about writing and explaining my love of reading and why that...