Wintering

Hello friends,

Here in Prague there have been some last days of sunshine before winter starts with a passion, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to go out to enjoy it because I’ve been ill with a cold-that-turned-into-an-infection that lasted a couple of weeks. What an introduction to winter this year!

Nevertheless I’ve been busy the past few months and wanted to update you on what I’ve been up to.

A few book reviews:

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout in the Sydney Review of Books: I wrote about the latest book by an author that I love and whose writing has meant a lot to me. So it is with some disappointment that in reading Oh William! I come to the realisation that her work actually upholds a belief in social mobility and the ‘American Dream’ - an inherently conservative position that supports the status quo. You can read the review here.

Lemon, by Kwon Yeo-Sun, translated from Korean by Janet Hong in the Sydney Review of Books: this is an older review that I forgot to mention in my last newsletter. A Korean crime novel that explores the nature of truth, grief, loss and our need to make meaning from tragedy. Here it is.

Good news: I was shortlisted for the Woollahra Digital Literary Awards in the non-fiction category for my review essay of ‘On the Line’ (by Joseph Ponthus, trans. by Stephanie Smee) published in Kill Your Darlings. You can read the shortlisted essay here.

Asian Women Writers

I’ve recently completed a first draft of my crime fiction novel, so I was delighted to be accepted onto the mentoring program Asian Women Writers, where I will get to be mentored by Abigail Fenton, Editorial Director at HQ stories. You can read my profile here.

Prague Writers Workshop

We had our first workshop! It was on ‘Writing Audio Drama’ and it was so successful that we are doing another one on 16 November.

You can read more about it as well as see some photos from the workshop here. Also, you can subscribe to the Workshop Substack for updates and news:

Last, but not least, I had the opportunity to go to the wonderful city of Sofia, Bulgaria for the first time as the reporter for the Europe Jazz Network’s European Jazz Conference 2022. It was great meeting the all the different cultural operators across Europe, and most of all, discovering Bulgarian music!

Hope you are all keeping warm this winter!

May