I’ve been thinking about time. The inevitability of it. The invisibility of it. How much of it passes during which we feel as if we are in a state of In-between one thing and another, when in fact we are simply forgetting to acknowledge that every given moment is, in and of itself, a state of completion. This microfilm is part of a larger project I’ve been working on about these liminal states in which time passes by. I have yet to complete the full film as time has gotten away from me. Ironic isn’t it?
New Literary Voices
Here is a little snippet of what I discussed at the New Literary Voices event at Stanton Library in North Sydney on August 5th 2025. Hoping to chat with more audiences and field lots more interesting and engaging questions in the near future.
From the Event Bulletin:
On Tuesday 5 August Stanton Library hosted the inaugural event of their local writers’ program, New Literary Voices in North Sydney, a program developed with local writers to support local writers. It was a very successful evening, with three local writers talking about their books. Writers were Arek Sinanian who talked about his thriller Art of Deception, Rosalie Horner talked about her historical fiction book Waltzing Mathilde Letters to a little girl and Margaret M. MacDonald talked about her book Pursuing Echoes the third book in a six-part science fiction series she is writing. Forty people attended the event and really enjoyed this new format and concept. The writers did a great job which is reflected in the audience’s feedback.
“I thought it was excellent. Interesting authors with different genres made it more enjoyable and made me think. 15 minutes was the perfect amount of time + question time.”
“There was a good spread of topics, great insight into the creative process and some useful rules to follow.”
“It was excellent”
What is a Literary Schrodinger's Cat?
What to voice as a voice?
Self Promotion is one of my biggest dreads. BUT, once I’m in front other humans, I can talk excitedly, endlessly, and somewhat eloquently, about my work.
I’m happy to have an opportunity to do that very thing with two other local authors as part of another wonderful event hosted by Stanton Library.
Of course… now that means I have to figure out what to talk about.
How do I take topics I could blab about for hours and narrow them down to an informative yet entertaining “segment”? Which part of which book can I read without betraying my dyslexic tendency to stumble through my words like they’ve been tossed into a ball pit? And of course this also comes with the challenge of doing my part to fill the audience.
Oh no… Self Promotion.
Okay, I’ll make this one as simple and painless as possible.
Please join us for what is sure to be an informative, entertaining and free event on Tuesday August 5th at 6pm.
Hopefully I would have figured out what to talk about by then 🤓
Why you won't know what color my character's eyes are, but will know if they prefer to spell it colour
What inspired The Phoenix Effect
Thoughts from a Shower Seminar
You Cannot Ctrl Alt Delete This!
I am so farfing sick of hearing about AI!
Yes, of course I have thoughts, feelings, opinions, and fears about it. Yes of course these conversations are important to have. And yes, of course I want to scream to anyone who implies the possibility of total replacement that they’re completely ignoring the deep-seated human need to tell stories and create art, which we’ve been engaging in since the dawn of humanity, regardless of how many tools were there to assist us. But the conversation has gotten as exhausting as the daily appearance of a new AI tools in every piece of tech I touch. Stop waving, shimmering, and shoving pop up’s in my face already!
So rather than jump into the torrent of talk, I opted to use my unartificial, unstaged, unrehearsed and unmade-up self to express some of the obscure and unusual ways in which me and my work are unreplicable. We all are.
United We Stand
I undertook a thought exercise this week.
What would I say to my homeland if it were one of my friends who had just gotten back together with an abusive ex?
Here’s how it went…
It’s not your fault.
Incredulous people will ask how you didn’t see the red flags, the blatant lies, the overt actions against your very well being. They will say “Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?” Those most heartless will tell you that everything you experience from the point on is your own doing.
But it’s not your fault.
No one is above this experience. There is no such thing as being too smart, too strong, or even too wise to be taken in by an abuser. Confidence degrades. Self-worth evaporates. Fears overtake. It happens to all of us. That’s when they sweep in.
They see your vulnerability and know how to use it. They promise to protect you from all that you fear. They put your broken ego back together with sticky tape. They carry an air of a better future. No one is immune to that caustic combination of desperate need and promised fulfillment.
All you did was believe it. Some part of you still believes it.
That’s not your fault.
Don’t waste energy being mad at the the part of you that got you into this situation. That will only create more fissures for them to crack open.
But…
Everything is going to get harder now. They are in your house. They are with you from the moment you wake up in the morning to the moment you close your eyes at night. They will tell you what to say, what to do, how to feel. They will offer you glimmers of acceptance and joy with one hand while chipping away at your foundation with the other. This precarious balance is what keeps you hanging on, for fear of falling into the abyss.
They will make you fear things you never feared. They will make you hate things you never hated. They will keep you from the things love and may even rob you of them entirely. But know that they do this because what they fear most are the thoughts, feelings, passions and ideas born from within your soul, because they cannot control them.
They are your greatest weapon.
I won’t tell you how horrible this is. The words would be meaningless until you’re able to see that for yourself. I won’t pull you away from this situation. Even if there was a cage keeping you from it, the need for it wouldn’t leave you until you’re able to walk away on your own. But I am still with you.
I will commiserate your loses. I will applaud your triumphs. I will waste no energy on judgment. I will help you rebuild yourself. I will remind you of your inner weapons.
I will be with you when you win this battle.
Three Simple Syllables
I recently deleted a comment I made on Facebook.
It was not insulting or inflammatory. It was nothing controversial or salacious. It probably wouldn't have even sparked discussion let alone debate. I had simply observed an oddity in an image a friend posted. This oddity had nothing to do with them. They had not created it nor were they likely to know who had. They could neither change it nor did it bear any consequence to them. Pointing it out achieved nothing, so I erased my comment.
Not long before that, I composed a blog post and decided not to publish it. The post was well written (of course) and contained witticisms about an annoyance that I have no doubt many people can relate to. A good vent is healthy, a literary one even better, but once it's out of your system need it exist any more? If the opportunity to educate those responsible for said annoyance presents itself, I will gladly use a clever turn of phrase to help them better their ways. But posting what was essentially a one way discussion felt fruitless, so I chose not to.
In both of these instances, I found myself asking a pointed question. What does this contribute?
The word itself seemed to smack me out of stupor...
Contribute.
I was never one to post comments or actively fuel the flames of online debate, because I always thought it encouraged too much impulsive negativity, no matter the topic. I decided to actively avoid even looking at, let alone sharing, anything born from ignorance, xenophobia, or hatred of any ilk. In a world where views legitimize perspectives, I refuse to give such things my eyeballs.
And then I realized that what I was refusing to do for the hordes of hatred was exactly what I needed to do for the passion driven waves of positivity.
Contribute.
I, like many people in the face of what I have come to call the luditrocities of our world, have been struggling to figure out what I can do to better any aspect of it. I mean really, what it the actual $%*#! can any of us do?! When the most recent anvil dropped upon our already cartoonishly flattened skulls (or have there been several since?) I opted to take a step back and say to myself you'll figure it out.
I saw the many calls to arms going out to all the artists in the world to use their arts to speak out, to share their perspectives, to educate, to generate empathy, to open narrow minds. I'm a true believer in the power of art. But the more I saw those reminders the more I thought yes, I know... but how?
And the answer was so simple.
Contribute.
So, as we enter this new year in this seismically unstable world I resolve to do one simple thing.
Contribute.
