Author: Anne Skyvington
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7 ancient artefacts in the British Museum
1. The lion statue that features in the central courtyard of the Museum once sat at the top of a building and weighs 7 tons. It had a much fiercer look back then, with shining jewelled eyes and a fuller jaw. Its softer look appealed to me and reminded me of the lion in the…
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Oxford Town, Oxford Gown, 2008
We sped in a First Great Western train towards Oxford via Slough and Reading, passing through picturesque countryside, woolly green hills dotted with slate-roofed red brick houses; no water restrictions here; verdant pastures and flat crops under a vaulted cloud-filled sky. So different from drought-ravaged Australia. We stayed at St Catherine’s student college and were…
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Londinium
Tonight: Despite our best-laid plans, our travel was initially upset by the Qantas engineers’ “requirements” (strike). We were bused to the Ibis Hotel in Darling Harbour in Sydney to spend our first night, instead of in Singapore. Once we got to Singapore, we managed to grab six hours’ “horizontal time” at the Traders’ Hotel, before…
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A Country College Residence for Women
Armidale Teachers’ College in the New England Tablelands, was an impressive building where we went for courses each day during the week. We trudged up the hill with a group of friends from Smith House, situated in Barney Street near the town centre, to the college at the top. At the College, we were joined…
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My Brother Donny
My brother Donny was brave. He could climb the tallest trees in the valley where we grew up. I was three and afraid of the dark. Dad sent me back to my room in the middle of the night. He wanted Mum all to himself. I climbed in next to Donny and felt the flip…
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Keeping It Real
An editor at a recent workshop stressed the importance of “keeping it real”, when writing fiction. That is, at least partly, why I started off on the writing journey with memoir. From there I moved on to writing memoir using fictional techniques of characterisation and events. From this sort of creative memoir, I graduated to…
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Creative Nonfiction: a modern genre
I have finally purchased a Kindle. Amazon had just released this bigger model (9″ diagonal) that suited me well, since I was wearing reading glasses at the time, and often suffered from tired eyes. Today, in 2018, they have slick new 6″ ones that my partner has just purchased. I love the pictures in the…
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Organising a Book Launch
I have been very busy these last few weeks and months, assisting with the organising of the “Bondi Tides” Anthology. We have had to make decisions on the venue; food and drink; readings; invitations; publicity; flyers; the person to launch the book; sale of books; and protocol. The editor of the anthology, Carol Chandler has…