by Anne Skyvington | Nov 1, 2023 | Writing Australia
In the Sutherland Shire 32 kilometres south of Sydney is a hilly tree-rich suburb on the edge of the National Park with an indigenous ring to it: Yarrawarrah. It lies next to Engadine with Heathcote and Waterfall further to the south. It takes one hour by train to get...
by Anne Skyvington | Oct 29, 2023 | Writing Australia, Writing Memoir
I’m remembering the Jacaranda Festivals of my childhood at Grafton in northern New South Wales, with a certain nostalgia. Did such a time of innocence really exist? Is this celebration different today? Below is a photo from my sister’s album of her, Sweet...
by Anne Skyvington | Oct 25, 2023 | Writing Australia
Saturday 14 October, 2023 The date will be forever etched in my mind, like that of my father’s death, two days before this date back in 1978. He was the first of loved ones to pass from this mortal coil. Now and for more than half my life, I’ve been an...
by Anne Skyvington | Oct 24, 2023 | Writing Spirit, Writing Topics
The Parable of the Twins I came across this parable at the time my daughter was about to give birth to her first son and was enchanted by it. I had studied “The Republic” by Plato at Armidale Teachers’ College, and had learnt about a similar...
by Anne Skyvington | Oct 17, 2023 | Writing Spirit
In 2008 I attended a Convention in Singapore for followers of the New Kadampa Tradition of Buddhism, introduced to the West by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso in 1977. He now resides at the mother centre in the UK. These festivals are annual events, and I was a novice, trying to...
by Anne Skyvington | Oct 17, 2023 | Short Stories
My Story I’ve always been afraid of things. Psychologists in this country use cognitive behaviour techniques (CBT) on people like me. This involves teaching you how to change thoughts, to over-ride fearful feelings and alter behaviour. It’s a...
by Anne Skyvington | Oct 17, 2023 | Short Stories
A story about a naïve traveller in a strange land I open my eyes wide onto a strange world into which I’ve stumbled as if by accident. All is new and filled with an alien glow, muted colours, greys yet beautiful. Hippies are twanging their guitars along the Seine....
by Anne Skyvington | Sep 13, 2023 | Short Stories
Jeannie is one of these inch worm types. One toe in, one toe back. The cold has always been alien. From birth, really. Even today, she shivers with the water temperature around 20 degrees. Babies are gurgling in mothers’ arms in the pool, for God’s sake. Cassius with...
by Anne Skyvington | Sep 12, 2023 | Poetry, Writing A Novel
High Flight Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung...
by Anne Skyvington | Sep 4, 2023 | Writing A Novel, Writing Australia
I’ve always liked Susan Johnson’s writing, ever since I found a piece by her in the Griffith Review Journal (Number 32), in which she painted a picture of motherhood that I empathised with. I used it as an example of voice in fiction in a post on this...
