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Anne Skyvington

The Art of Creative Writing

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Life Stories

Life StoriesMemoirWriting

A Well-Loved Pet

Zac followed my partner along the footpath near our home, one afternoon when Mark was walking towards the gym. An Aussie Terrier, starving and weary. These gym sessions were daily events and sacrosanct at the time. This day, instead of continuing on his route, Mark bent down, picked the skinny runt up in his arms and proceeded to knock on dozens of doors up and down the hills, asking: “Does anyone know this dog?” No-one answered in the affirmative. We rang several vets in the area, looked out for ads and put up notices. Nothing.  zac-thirteen

Once the two children saw him, his white coat shot over by a splattering of deep grey and a dash of beige round the eyes and ears, they fell in love. Fast. Two weeks later and our daughter had fallen so madly in love with the little mutt, it started to look as if he was ours to keep. And we had finally settled on ‘Zac’ for a name.

Like many adoptive parents, we dreaded, during the days that followed, the knock on the door, or the phone call that might announce the arrival of the ‘natural’ parent or parents of this undernourished, but otherwise perfect, little fellow. Luckily that never happened, and he fitted into our household like another family member.

He was the gentlest little creature. He put on weight quickly so that I didn’t have to carry him on long walks anymore. He loved chasing the ball that my husband threw almost to the moon.

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A Well-Loved Pet was last modified: February 7th, 2022 by Anne Skyvington
December 7, 2016 0 comment
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Life StoriesTravelWriting

Adriatic Romance … Rijeka to Titograd

My Travel Journal through Italy and Yugoslavia in 1968

My journey from Paris towards the Ukraine in Russia continues … with entry into our first Communist country, Yugoslavia, and the drive along the spectacular coastline there.  Once again we are delayed by car troubles, this time a forced stopover at Camp Borik, a beautiful lakeside camping ground near Zadar, where we meet up with young Italian men, who take us dancing and romancing. Pulling ourselves away, with regret, we continue ever onwards towards Dubrovnik, Titograd and Kaselin.

  The 4th Day, July: The Adriatic Coastline in Italy

The romance of the Adriatic coastline!  It had captivated us from Venice onwards. We’d made good headway and reached Trieste—beautiful Trieste—on the rocky Adriatic seashore at 8.30. The sun had gone down; the sky was pink. We passed along the cliff road leading around the city.  The youth hostel was marvellous, like a palace set in trees at the foot of the hills, overlooking the sea.  We were given the last beds.  I took a cold shower and changed into my one sun dress.  We rushed out with little over half-an-hour to eat and return to the hostel.  Luckily, we found a tiny bar, where we were served pizza and gelato very quickly and sat there, marvelling at this beautiful Italian environment. We recognized other Australian voices as we went in to sleep at the hostel. Liz moved out on to the balcony. We slept well.

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Adriatic Romance … Rijeka to Titograd was last modified: February 23rd, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
August 29, 2016 1 comment
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Life StoriesMemoirWriting

Memoir Writing

According to American author Marian Roach Smith’s definition, “Memoirs are selections from your life story, shaped by theme, driven by a few burning questions.  So the question the reader brings is: why these bits of your life? The answer to that question will lead you to your opening.”

See her website for more gems about this genre that I love to read and strive to write well.

One part of my life that  I enjoyed was the post-adolescent period of adventure, spent in Paris, France, and travelling throughout Europe and into the USSR during the “Cold War” years. However it was the Inner Journeying that I had to set out on after I returned to Australia that forms the important part of my memoir. I now wonder if these two journeys are too much to include in one memoir?

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Memoir Writing was last modified: February 23rd, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
August 23, 2016 2 comments
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Life StoriesMemoir

River Girl: An Early Chapter of my Memoir in Progress

River Girl

I lived at a place called Waterview, a lush, fertile valley, with a river swollen like a pregnant woman coursing through it. Despite the name ‘Waterview’, the Clarence River was hidden from sight at the point where I was brought up, because of the lie of the land. The irony was that there was water all around us, and yet none to be seen from our place. You could sense the water, though, caught in the humid air that wrapped itself around our bodies, buried deep inside the rich alluvial soil, and trapped inside plants and bulging green tree frogs.

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River Girl: An Early Chapter of my Memoir in Progress was last modified: February 23rd, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
January 23, 2016 12 comments
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Book ReviewsLife StoriesWriting

Brave Novels and Memoirs

I’ve just finished reading a memoir by a writer, Alan Close: Until You Met Me: A Memoir Of One Man’s Troubled Search For Love about his lifetime struggle to have a committed relationship with a woman. It is a redemption story that relates his hard-won victory over his emotional problems linked to this situation.  He happens to be my sister’s neighbour in the delightful subtropical town of Mullumbimby in Northern New South Wales. Susan is a counsellor at Byron Bay High School, and we were talking about the Writers’ Festival held there recently.

Alan is very truthful and open about his past affairs with women, and about his often troubled relationship with his mother. He also relates the therapeutic relationship he entered into with a female therapist that was the catalyst to his finding a mate and committing to her. He talked about his book at the Byron Bay Writers Festival, which my sister attended. Also attending was his partner, Sarah Armstrong, who lives with him and their tiny daughter in Mullum. Alan has also edited a book: Men Love Sex and has written articles for major newspapers and magazines.

Also at the festival were Robyn de Crespigny, who wrote The People Smuggler, Andrea Goldsmith: The Memory Trap (4th Estate 2013),  Mandy Nolan: What I Would Do If I Were You: Dispatches from the frontlines of family life, Sarah Turnbull: All Good Things, and Belinda Hawkins‘ Every Parent’s Nightmare. Other books I’m looking forward to reading are Anna Funders’ All That I Am and Gillian Mears’ The Foal’s Bread.

Brave Novels and Memoirs was last modified: July 4th, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
August 22, 2013 0 comment
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Book ReviewsBooksLife StoriesWriting

Memoirs I Read 2013

Cover of "Salvation Creek : An Unexpected...

Cover of Salvation Creek : An Unexpected Life

Lately I’ve been reading reading reading … especially memoirs, as I come closer to sending one of mine off to a competition at Finch Publishing. I’ve also been attending Beth Yahp’s Memoir Evenings at the Randwick Literary Institute on the last Tuesday of the month.

One of the books I’ve enjoyed recently is Marzipan and Magnolias by Elizabeth Lancaster (Finch Publishing, 2010). It has one of the best ‘hooks’ for a first chapter (Venus Sydney 1981) I’ve read and starts with : “Sometimes I wonder what happened to my first patient in the neurology unit of the inner city Sydney hospital where I worked as a new graduate. She was about twenty-two and called herself Venus. Dyed black hair framed her ultra-white face, and safety pins dangled from one ear. Venus was of ‘no fixed address’; she was tough and cool and she had multiple sclerosis.”  This memoir is motivated by the author’s eventual contraction–is that the right word to use?–of multiple sclerosis. However it’s about much more: her childhood, her passionate affairs with boyfriends and cultures, and ultimate marriage to a German. It’s funny in many parts, especially about her fatal attraction to the (‘loser’?) Seamus and all things Irish, that is until she falls for Martin. It’s about the toughness of the human spirit in the face of physical and emotional challenges in which the role of humour is an important aspect in this story.

Green Vanilla Tea by Marie Williams won the Finch Memoir Prize in 2013. It’s also about challenges in the face of illness, but in this case the sufferer is the author’s husband.  He changes from a loving partner and engaged father, into a stranger who must walk the streets as if in search of himself. Eventually he is diagnosed with early onset dementia and motor neurone disease. at 44 years of age. The most lasting impression after reading this book is the author’s (and their sons’) enduring love for the husband/father which transcends through courage and endurance the devastating effects of his illness. She puts off until the last moments placing him in a nursing home for dementia patients, and manages the terrible symptoms of his disintegration with the help of friends and loved ones who rally around her. In spite of the negative aspects of  the husband’s  slide towards death, it’s the  transcendental aspects of this story that reign supreme. His a paragraph fr m the middle of the book encapsulating the author’s strength and purpose in protecting her husband: “Somehow, even as we ‘lose’ more of Dom every day, he offers us a new way to look at things. To be stripped of your past and to have no sense of your future leaves you firmly in the now. There is no room here for attachments to the things we assume make us happy. From my new world of shredded irrelevancies, there is no mistaking what is important. Through Dominic’s journey of dying I am so much clearer about what bring”s life.”

Another book, Salvation Creek by Susan Duncan was also a memoir I couldn’t put down. It’s a redemption story, told by a middle-aged woman who has lost the two important men in her life to cancer–her husband and her brother–within the same week. then later on, she also  develops breast cancer. From her position as a high-flying editor of an Australian women’s magazine, she makes a brave choice to throw in her career and her past life for a radical ‘harbourside change’. The total love affair does not happen overnight, but she is eventually seduced by the beauty and peace of nature, and builds a life on the foreshores of a Pittwater bay, far removed from the Sydney city centre. It’s a story told with passion by a woman who loves people, dogs, food and nature. Her writing is often over-laden with too many adjectives, images and mixed metaphors, but this is her character–she always cooks too much food for parties too–and she carries the reader along with the sheer weight of her personality. I loved it!

Related articles
  • Histories, Biographies, Memoirs – Roundup #5 2013 (australianwomenwriters.com)
Memoirs I Read 2013 was last modified: February 23rd, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
August 6, 2013 0 comment
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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington

Anne Skyvington is a writer based in Sydney who has been practising and teaching creative writing skills for many years. You can learn here about structuring a short story and how to go about creating a longer work, such as a novel or a memoir. Subscribe to this blog and receive a monthly newsletter on creative writing topics and events.

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Recent Posts

  • Have You Ever Experienced The “Numen”?

    April 27, 2022
  • I visit the Ukraine in 1968

    February 25, 2022
  • In Search of a Voice

    February 19, 2022
  • Armidale: The Gang of Four

    February 18, 2022
  • KARRANA: A Professional Review

    February 11, 2022

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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington is a Sydney-based writer and blogger. <a href="http://anneskyvington.com.au She has self-published a novel, 'Karrana' and is currently writing a creative memoir based on her life and childhood with a spiritual/mystical dimension.

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