Past Writers In Residence - Peninsula Writers' Club

‘Identity Confessions…’ by Sarah Bacaller

But you are a living vessel, a breathing archive… I wanted to be white. I was seven years old and mad keen on cricket. All of Australia’s players looked white and I didn’t resemble them. I feared—with imminent fury—being perceived as less Aussie, less real, than...

‘If We Weren’t Bound for Life Before This…’ by Sarah Bacaller

The day long awaited had now arrived. The family gathering had a supplementary purpose to general sociality—the slaughter of an elderly, post-egg-laying chicken: a consumer of crumb, who gave no gift in return (apart from her poop fertilizing the earth). The time had...

‘A Dastardly Design’ by Sarah Bacaller

We’d zig-zagged our way across the Peninsula today – from Main Ridge to Balnarring, Mount Martha to Mornington. Time for our last job of the day. Only Wendy and I remained. Ordinarily there were four of us, but Gina was sick and Charlotte had left early. The sun was...

‘People In My Corner – The Writing Process #2’ by Tessa Moriarty

You reach a signpost, “this way for the rest of your life,” and you know it’s the direction you must take. It is a deep conviction, in the marrow of bone. And it’s more than the fact that writing gives you words to speak, or a place to belong, or in story you find...

‘Threads’ by Tessa Moriarty

It’s all you want for them, isn’t it, as a mother, a parent? To be happy in what they do, healthy, good in their heart, and to outlive you. I only have two. Both boys. Actually, they’re young men, and the eldest a parent himself now. But I ‘ve always been more...

‘The Chops For Writing: Giving Ourselves Permission and Space to Write’ by Tessa Moriarty

We all come to writing along different paths. For some it’s a life journey, growing in the magic of words as little ones. Nurtured in a childhood of story-time, exploration and wonder, through the stretch of adolescence and early adulthood to develop the skill and...

‘Becoming: Never Too Late To Start Writing’ by Tessa Moriarty

Six weeks ago, I embarked on Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way twelve-week course to uncover more of the writer within me. I literally picked the book up when I was looking for something else (or was that synchronicity?), while spending a gift voucher at Farrells in...

‘The Garden of the Moon’ by Danielle Davey

He’d regarded it (pleased at the metaphor) as the ultimate trompe-l'œil, smiling as he recalled snippets of the brief, since etched-to-memory, report he’d found in The Argus some years ago. An exciting titbit sandwiched between the dry political news ...’Her...

‘Bertha’ by Danielle Davey

He conceals his true spirit as he now hides me. A respectable facade has been painted, yet inside, hidden deep within, his passions are prone to excitability as readily as mine. God knows you're lying, Rochester. I know...and He knows. Uprooted from my Jamaican home,...

‘Re(pre)sent’ by Danielle Davey

My Babbles has a nasty knack Of keeping monkeys on her back. Her back is filled with 'monkeys' now A tattooed memoir recording how Those she knows have done her wrong She wears these grudges all day long. In actual fact, they do all vary These ink...