Catchy Titles are Crucial
What is it about a catchy book title? What makes us pick up this book, instead of that one? I don’t think it’s just the title but it’s not nothing, either. Off the top of my head, some of my favourite Australian titles (not my favourite books, just the titles) include: Monkey Grip (surely the…
Marsden Online Archive
It still amazes me that I can sit on my couch of an evening (fire crackling, tv blaring, #1 son immersed in the XBox) and yet the miracle that is the Internet means I can read a journal from 1814 in the original. Shall we pause for moment to consider how brilliant that is? The…
Maligning Mr Leach – the gaps are where the mysteries lie
Someone asked me the other day if the biography I’m working on will contain any fictional elements. Um, no. If it did it, wouldn’t it be a work of historical fiction, and not a biography? And yet, I do confess, the temptation to create fiction – to fill in the gaps – is strong. Occasionally…
Paleography – transcribing old letters
Transcribing Elizabeth Macarthur’s letters is at once illuminating and frustrating. I’m currently working on one that Elizabeth sent to Captain John Piper, in 1804. The original is held in the Mitchell Library, Sydney. John Macarthur was away in England at the time and Captain Piper, a good friend to both Elizabeth and John, was stationed…