9 March 2023

AI *WILL* disrupt writers, and sooner than you think

As a retired business communicator with some 30 years of experience behind me building websites, blogs and providing the content for them, I had left the Business Communication profession behind and embraced my photography and my Masters degree in Creative Writing & Communication. So, when AI came across my horizon, I was ill-prepared for its importance and its ground-shaking nature. Most in my former profession […]

23 February 2023

Writing at the gates of an AI dawn

WOW! This comment from 2022: “Two-thirds of Australian authors are women—our new research finds they earn just $18,000 from their writing” Zwar, Throsby and Crosby, The Conversation 2022 You can’t even live off that! It’s below the poverty line, methinks. And yet, digital writing for businesses is booming: “Aussies with digital marketing skills in hot demand, up 34% in just six months.” B&T.com.au, October 20, […]

5 February 2023

Philomena Cunk: Life on Earth

Based on reviews by friends, Agatha and I sat down and watched the first three Netflix episodes of ‘Philomena Cunk: Cunk on Earth’. I’d seen a few sketches on YouTube and thought them and her hilarious, so Agatha and I loaded up the wine glasses with chilled Pinot Gris and paid close attention to what Netflix was streaming to us. We concluded that the show […]

27 June 2022

I’m not creative, mate

I have known I’m bipolar for a very long time, and I was diagnosed as clinically depressed before my psychiatrist at the time changed her mind about my condition (based on new research) and diagnosed me as bipolar nearly two decades ago. But I’d never felt myself as being creative. This, beside loving acting in plays, beside painting, beside taking photographs and developing them in […]

12 May 2022

Muses

Statement: My best friends are my soul food. Opposite view: Friends are over-rated as creative muses. The traditional muse of the 20th Century was an attractive, usually single, woman who was paid, or not, to inspire the usually male artist. Many male artists fell in love, or lust, with their muses and some muses fell in love with their benefactors.  My best friends are definitely […]

6 May 2022

It’s over

It’s over We had something special But we have it no more I miss you I hated your goodbye I wish I could hold your hand again But I know it would break my heart

1 May 2022

Tequila

Dad loved his Dad jokes. ‘Why did the Mexican throw his wife off a bridge? Tequila’ He had a million of them and the rest of the family suffered for two decades and beyond. But he was a dab hand at fishing off a jetty or a marina. Once, we were holidaying down at Second Valley in a house made of wood and windows when […]

1 May 2022

Fuck off frogs

I’m a little teapot Short and foul mouthed I don’t like children Or cats in my house I don’t like horses, Piss off dogs, Rack off people And fuck off frogs *** A sailor went out to sea, sea, sea Because he wanted to have a great big wee He struggled and heaved But couldn’t relieve So he went back to port and died of […]

1 May 2022

Sitting in the kitchen sink

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. I’ve always been short for my age, and I pride myself on my contortionist skills. My mother, who has dwarfism like me, regularly has to stand on some kitchen steps to wash the potatoes. But here I sit, in the sink, swishing the bubbles to and fro. Randy Newman is playing on the radio, ‘Short People’, and […]