Emily Paull

(It's probably just me, but whenever I write "Writers Festival", I always feel I should be writing "Writers' Festival."  I mean, the rule for placement of apostrophes is "Whose item is it?  Place the apostrophe after the answer."  So e.g. Who owns the shoes?  The boy.  They are the boy 's shoes.  Who is the festival for?  The Writers.  So it is the Writers ' Festival.  But apparently not.  Must remember that.) ANYWAY. Sleepy little (lovely little) Perth had its socks rocked this weekend by the arrival of the literati.  They swept in from their garrets, wearing capes, rose coloured glasses with circular lenses and carrying bongo drums.  Okay, so perhaps they were a bit more... normally... dressed, but Frank Moorhouse DID have red suspenders.  A must-visit event for writers and readers alike, the festival promised (among other things) fiction writers, journalists, chefs/cooks, historians and general smarty-pantses...

I thought I would kick off a new round of reviews today and just give you a little taste of the kind of literature that I am trying to promote. Jon Doust's Boy on a Wire was published in 2009, and is a memoir style fiction about growing up in Western Australia during the 1960s.  The book's protagonist, Jack Muir, comes up from Glenoralup (near Bunbury?) to begin his years at the suitably vague 'Grammar School', an Anglican (?) school for boys that we are told is near a river.  My guess is that it is supposed to be Guildford Grammar, although the book's acknowledgements site Christ Church as being a reference.  I think that the setting is supposed to be largely amorphous- the school could be any boys school at the time, the trials faced by Jack could be anyone's trials.  And that is why we like Jack, as a reader, despite him being a trouble maker. Jack suffers from what everyone calls 'Pink's Disease'- a build up of Mercury in his system that ...

Love it or hate it, it's just over a week until Valentine's Day; that mushy, gushy day of holding hands and/ or throwing popcorn at people holding hands during movies/ picnics/ skydiving lessons etc. I've had my ups and downs with Valentine's over the years.  There was: Palentine's Day of 2009 (i think it was 2009) in which I saw the Wolfman with a bunch of other Singletons, the Valentine's Day I got dumped a few days before and had to call in depressed to work, and most memorably, last year, the Valentine's Day on which History Boy ordered a picnic off of the internet and took me to the foreshore to sit on blankets amid a sea of thirty-somethings who had the same idea.  (It sounds like I am poking fun... I'm not.)  This year it was my turn to plan Valentine's, and not to be outdone, I've planned TWO.  But more about that after the fact. Whether you're loved up and feel like mooning on the couch, or single and needing a little Mr Darcy in...