Emily Paull

Finishing a big project is a funny thing.  First of all, it's incredibly hard to know when you are finished as a writer, unless the option to make changes is taken away from you... say if your book is actually published and for sale in book shops.  Even then, you can still make changes, but what's the point, really?  But up until you get that magic 'Yes', it sometimes feels like you may be moving those commas around forever. For all intents and purposes, right at this moment, Between the Sleepers  exists in a temporary 'finished' state.  I know that there will be more work to do, but I hope that the next time I work on it, it may be under the guidance of an agent or publisher.  Who knows though, it could just be me and my red pen working on draft number twelve... The other thing that is funny (as in funny strange, not funny haha) about having finished a project is the sense of being untethered that comes with it.  I've been working on that book on ...

A Book Spotlight is not a review, but a feature of a book by a person I know and admire. Susan Midalia is best known for her critically acclaimed short story collections, The History of the Beanbag and other stories, The Unknown Sky and other stories   and Feet to the Stars and other stories.  In each of these story collections, she has demonstrated her great skill at getting inside the heads of characters from a wide range of backgrounds and ages, and telling their stories.  In The Art of Persuasion , her first novel, that character and point of view belongs to Hazel West, a 25 year old ex-teacher who is living in a share house with her best friend Beth and just trying to make it in the world.  Once a teacher, Hazel is now not entirely sure what she wants to do with her life, and so to pass the time, she decides to read the classics, starting with A-- so she begins reading Jane Austen.  The book in question is Persuasion , Jane Austen's last written no...

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Holly Ringland Harper Collins 2018 Given the amount of buzz that has already surrounded the release of Holly Ringland’s debut novel, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart , it would be unsurprising if the book did not live up to the hype.  In recent years, booksellers and reviewers have seen the promise ‘the most exciting debut of the year’ emblazoned on numerous covers, and have collectively thought, “surely that cannot be true for all of them.”  But when it comes to The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart , the only disappointing thing about it is that readers will have to wait until April 2018 to experience it.  The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart tells the story of Alice Hart, who goes to live with her estranged grandmother after a family tragedy.  Traumatised, Alice takes solace in the assortment of women who live at her grandmother’s property, Thornfield, where native flowers are grown and the Victorian art of floriography—or communicating...

A Book Spotlight is not a review-- it's a feature of a book by a person I know and admire. I don't think it would be incorrect to say that Laurie Steed's debut book has been a hotly anticipated one.  And I say book and not novel here, because for the longest time, I think a lot of people thought that the first thing we saw from Laurie would be a collection of short stories.  He is the short story maestro, the guru, the go-to person for all things short fiction in Perth.  And yet, his recently publishing novel, You Belong Here  is in fact... a novel.  Perhaps it would be more correct to say it's a novel in stories.  There's a bit of room to move there, which I like. It is the story of the Slater family, Steven and Jen and their three kids, and follows snippets of their lives (the good times and bad) over a couple of decades, all set to an atmospheric soundtrack which I am informed is also available as a Spotify playlist.  Steven, who dreams of b...