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Review: Kutsuwa T’GAAL Pencil Sharpener
The Kutsuwa T’GAAL pencil sharpener sold to Japanese school children comes highly recommended by pencil enthusiasts. Let’s find out why.
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Single Colour Book Covers
This collection of book covers features black, white and a single colour. Further down, let’s take a look at the wide range of covers utilising only black and white.
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High Key Colour Palettes in Book Cover Design
When talking about ‘colour’ artists are talking about several things rolled into one.
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Wake For Susan by Cormac McCarthy Short Story Analysis
If you weren’t told who wrote “Wake for Susan” (1959), I doubt you’d guess it were by American author Cormac McCarthy.
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Coloured Pencils: Prismacolor or White Label?
Today I’ll compare two brands of coloured pencil which come in large sets. I can’t compare any other large coloured-pencil sets because I have only tried Prismacolor and Brutfuner.
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The F–k Princess: A Fractured Fairytale (The Frog Princess)
Princess Brunhild sprinted across the palace gardens, hitched her skirts and leapt up the marble steps, three at a time. She ignored the guards and skidded across the parquet floor, careening to the right. She blundered elbow first into the front parlour. “Lower your cups!” she yelled. Both older sisters did as directed. By the…
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Describing Australian Landscapes in Literature
How do Australian authors describe Australian landscapes, making it fresh every time? Here are some examples.
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From Rain Man to The Maid: Autistic Archetypes in Contemporary Fiction
Autism Awareness (TM) is starting to impact reader interpretations of texts which seem to star Autistic main characters.
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Flash: A Short Story
I will meet my husband tonight. I’m not yet sure what he looks like. But, like the perfect pair of shoes, I’ll know him when I see him. I’ve met him in my mind, in these daydreams I call ‘flash forwards’: a hazy, pale face with brownish hair. Well, that narrows it down. Tonight is…
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Lemon Girl
Callous and Unemotional Traits After Charlie’s psychologist talked to her mum, Charlie overheard her mum leaking Charlie’s private business over the phone. “Hun,” Michelle began. ‘Hun’ meant Lionel, Charlie’s dad. Michelle had shut herself inside her own bedroom, but Charlie heard everything from the other side of the wall. “Are you sitting down, hun? Because we…
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Lemon Girl
Is it possible to become an ethical psychopath? Charlie wrestles with her urges to create havoc by puppeteering her peers.
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Mrs Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat by Roald Dahl Short Story Analysis
“Mrs Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat” is a misogynist short story by British author Roald Dahl, and an excellent example of Hate Your Wife humour. You’ll find it in Dahl’s 1959 collection Kiss, Kiss. I call this story “Mean-spirited Gift of the Magi”. WHERE TO LISTEN You may be able to unearth the BBC dramatization…
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Drafts and Rewriting: How many “drafts” do authors really write?
How many drafts do fiction authors really write. Also: what counts as a draft?
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White Literary Taste
Did the 2020 efforts towards diversity and inclusion in the wake of George Floyd impact the systemic racial bias in publishing and reviewing?
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The Floating Camera Technique In Writing
Here’s an example of the floating camera technique opening a novel by Marian Keyes: June the first, a bright summer’s evening, a Monday. I’ve been flying over the streets and houses of Dublin and now, finally, I’m here. I enter through the roof. Via a skylight I slide into a living room and right away…