AustLit

'Reading ‘nonfiction’ can be like staring into a dark hole dug in the side of reality with just a penlight. The writer has excavated reality’s detail and arranged it neatly into words for our examination. Reading fiction, on the other hand, can be like staring at the stars for signs of the future: luminous and beautiful but not particularly illuminating, unless you’re an astronomer.' (Introduction)

'I have finally finished shredding my novel.

'It had been the work of many days, feeding it into the machine sheet by sheet and watching the pages re-emerge as linguine. It’s not surprising the story was bad. I wrote it soon after my husband died, leaving me with three young children, so the raw ingredients by weight were exhaustion, desperation, false hope and uncertain talent. It was a testament to one thing only: the discipline of writing every day. It was not a Jeanette Winterson creation – ‘a long story, and like most of the stories in the world, never finished’ – but brisk and banal.' (Introduction)