Author: Anne Skyvington

  • 7 ancient artefacts in the British Museum

    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…

  • Oxford Town, Oxford Gown, 2008

    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…

  • Londinium

    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…

  • A Country College Residence for Women

    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…

  • My Brother Donny

    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…

  • Tirra Lirra By The River by Jessica Anderson

    Tirra Lirra By The River by Jessica Anderson

    Where does the title of this book come from? In 1978, Jessica Anderson won the the Miles Franklin Literary Award for her fourth novel, Tirra Lirra by the River, published by Macmillan. It has rarely been out of print since. Yet many readers are unaware of the origin of the title. It comes from a…

  • Water Memories

    Water Memories

    My very first water experience is in my mother’s womb. I’m safe, secure, warm. I swim, mermaid-like, do somersaults and swallow the magic fluid. I imagine that I’ll never leave this watery place. At Waterview the humid scorching air engulfs us; the heat, ruthless, tears at our skin and sends us kids scurrying towards water.…

  • Keeping It Real

    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…

  • Creative Nonfiction: a modern genre

    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…

  • Organising a Book Launch

    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…