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Sulari Gentill’s A Few Right Thinking Men
I grew up on a literary diet that had a healthy portion of crime fiction in it and these days if I see one crime novel that sparks my interest then the entire process of hunting down the whole series one by one begins. This is also one reason why I am so glad that the first book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series never fully grabbed me in the same way – I would still be trying to get through all of them decades later.
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Tips for being a science journalist
A brief summary of my seminar (part of the UWA Science Communication Seminar series) on 6 August 2010.
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53 free ways for science journalists to brush up on their science… and counting
This is a list of FREELY AVAILABLE basic science primers, courses and videos that science journalists can take to brush up on their beats/niches/topics of interest. NOTE 1: MOOCS = Massive open online courses = free, short, online, provided by universities to give you a primer in the basics of a scientific topic of study. Both MOOCs and the Coursera courses will use Youtube videos so don’t eliminate them on that basis. NOTE 2: Coursera courses vary in length and whether you get a certificate at the end and are offered at different times so some of the ones listed below may drop off and on again depending on when…
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AWW 2013: Interview with author Marj McRae
Last week’s review for the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2013 was Marj McRae’s Not A Man. This week, I got to ask Marj a few questions about her writing process and about the novel itself.
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AWW 2013: Marj McRae's Not A Man
“The hero is an eunuch.” said the author Marj McRae. “Wait, what?” was my reaction. She emailed me the link, I downloaded Not A Man in e-book form and dove in. An eunuch – I expected there to be a few descriptions of not so very nice things – violence and rape. I mean, it’s a young boy being castrated. And frankly, I was stunned by the level of research and detail. I now know a lot of very interesting things about castration and about Oxford. That’s right, Oxford. As in Oxford University. You see, Shuki, is not content with the fate of other eunuchs – lovable as along as…
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7 myths about writing
I thought I’d talk about myths about writing, just so we get all those nagging doubts out of the way. One thing that really depresses me is when I meet someone and they find out I am writing a novel and then they go: “Oh, wow, that’s so great – I could never do that!” Now, I guarantee you that one person out of ten has actually looked at themselves long enough and become sufficiently self aware to know that they cannot write a book for whatever reason. I can also guarantee that I have never actually met this one person. I tend to run into the other nine. I…
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Book review: Boris Akunin's Pelagia & the Black Monk
Marisa Wikramanayake reviews Russian author Boris Akunin's second novel in the Pelagia crime fiction series: Pelagia & the Black Monk. This review was previously published on Blogcritics.com
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Book Review – Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals
Marisa Wikramanayake reviews Terry Pratchett's latest novel in the Discworld Series, Unseen Academicals and lists links to buy the book online. Sometimes you just get lucky. Lucky is what I am. Terry Pratchett's latest novel Unseen Academicals gets released today (Oct. 6th) in the United States but if you are in Australia, it's already out in hardcover in the stores for $49.95 AUD. Amazon has it here for $14.03 USD.
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Book Review: Pelagia & The White Bulldog
Marisa Wikramanayake is a freelance editor and writer. Here, she reviews Boris Akunin's Pelagia & The White Bulldog, the first in a crime fiction series involving a nun as the detective and set in 19th Century rural Russia.
