If you're new here, why not subscribe to our email updates or follow us on Facebook? You can also add us to your Google Reader. Thanks for visiting! The Most Underrated Book Award 2013, which I helped judge, was announced on Friday at the close of the SPN Independent Publishing Conference. The winner was the wonderful'Fish-Hair Woman by Merlinda Bobis (Spinifex...

Some months ago, during my efforts to seek climate-controlled asylum from Melbourne's oppressive summer days, I found myself in an independent bookshop known for its having both superior air conditioning and superior floor stock. Not to mention a superiority complex. Aware that my literary credibility was being assessed by the twin forces of the fauxhawked...

A week or so ago, I read with distinct amusement the commentary of two Twitter friends who were attending the Malcolm Gladwell lecture at Book Expo America. Each was live tweeting the event, and in verbose, manic style, their tweets filling my feed to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. But what made things so fascinating was that their tweets were...

    On Monday I popped along to the Wheeler Centre to see Barcelona-born, LA-based author Carlos Ruiz Zafon in conversation with local writer and broadcaster Sian Prior. As usual, I went bearing pen and paper, and took copious notes. (A video of the event will be forthcoming from the Wheeler Centre, but a sort-of-verbatim transcript never...

Todays guest post on the writing process is by'SD Thorpe, whose book'Getting Up is published through Momentum Books. The writing process. It goes like this. You get up early. You make a cup of tea. You sit down in front of the computer. Turn it on. Do NOT check Facebook, Twitter, email, Tumblr, Instagram or Ebay. Remember your dreams'write one down to...

In Susan Hills A Change for the Better Deirdre Fount finds herself traversing a path that is not the one she intended to venture down. Though she might have stumbled upon it of her own accord, her marathon trek along it is due to a mix of personal inertia and the pressures and expectations of others around her. This is how Ive been feeling about...