2021-08-13 00:59
The realities of remote learning and working necessitate a kind of family ballet, a coordinated effort of who gets to use which space at which time. As such, for example, I’m writing… Read More
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Karen Andrews - Learning Through Life And Creativi Blog
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Personal blog of Australian author and publisher Karen Andrews
2021-05-25 21:05
One weekend recently, I was scrolling through Netflix and came across the movie Everest. Curious, I clicked on its profile to find a little more information and not only did it have a stell… Read More
2021-04-28 00:25
Simply put, My Year Of Living Vulnerably by Rick Morton is terrific. (You can read an extract here.) The book is structured around his twelve-month exploration into love and vulne… Read More
2021-04-19 01:19
The description of None Shall Sleep by Ellie Marney on the publisher’s website goes like this (follow this link and you can also read an excerpt):
“It’s 1982, an… Read More
2021-03-23 23:16
With the exception of Underland, the books listed below were all first released at some stage during the height(s) of the pandemic crisis in 2020, amid lockdowns and other challenges. I kn… Read More
2021-03-16 02:17
A Non-Exhaustive List of Non-Bookish Things I’ve Been Reading That Are In No Particular Order (but you will see a theme)
The Victorian Department of Health Twitter feed of a morning t… Read More
2021-03-02 00:54
Some people cooked their way through 2020 lockdowns, putting their energy into sourdough and cake and so on. Looking back – and it’s astonishing to me that some parts of&n&hellip…Read More
2021-02-21 22:27
As I sit down to compose this post, cockatoos are screeching out conversations amongst themselves as they sit atop trees in the neighbouring yards. Soon they will take flight and cast large… Read More
2020-11-13 02:51
Welcome to my Christmas book recommendations series. If you missed them, here are the links to my picture book and junior fiction posts. Again I’d like to mention that out of all thes… Read More
2020-11-08 22:16
Welcome to post two of the Christmas 2020 book recommendations series! We began with picture books and will now roll on to junior fiction. As there can be a crossover of sorts sometimes bet… Read More
2020-10-27 23:20
Hello! It’s time for my annual Christmas book recommendation series! Wait – stop. I can guess what you’re thinking. It’s still two months until Chris… Read More
2020-10-19 02:58
I’m sitting down to write this on the morning our lockdown restrictions in Melbourne have considerably eased, such as an increased movement radius and many others. I was jubilant… Read More
2020-09-21 04:02
Hello, friends.
Is combining two reading months into one post is cheating? Perhaps it is. And there’s nothing I’d like more than time to write a few long, rambly posts abou… Read More
2020-08-11 01:16
The monthly reading recaps get further and further delayed as the year progresses. I apologise. I blink and days pass. Melbourne has entered stage four lockdown, from which – hopefull… Read More
2020-07-06 01:03
I blink and we’re already well into another month – and I’m late, again. First, a tiny bit of writing news. Recently, I was a shortlistee in the Nillumbik Prize for Contem… Read More
2020-06-02 02:22
Here we are another (late) monthly update and 2020 continues in its… 2020 fashion. I’m finding it hard to come up with adjectives anymore. I’ve finished my first intense… Read More
2020-05-01 03:15
I was going to write this post yesterday, but I’d reached a point in an essay draft where I could see the end was closer than I realised and not some far off wish. With some crafty pa… Read More
2020-03-30 06:52
I tipped the last of my day moisturiser onto the palm of my hand yesterday morning. Smearing this SPF 15 cream into my face has been routine for almost two decades, part of whatever you cou… Read More
2020-02-28 01:47
I blink and another month is over. I was planning on writing a separate, longer post to explain this absence, but also there’s no time like now. It’s also related to my reading… Read More
2020-01-31 01:22
Hello and welcome back for 2020! Earlier I waved my children back to school and then I got to thinking about the day and date and realised – oh! I’d better do my reading check-i… Read More
2019-12-16 22:49
Hoi An
Another year (almost) over, can you believe it? Nope, me either. Which means, among other things, it’s time for my annual ‘year that was’ recap – full of the… Read More
2019-12-11 20:14
Previous posts in this Christmas recommendation series include picture books, junior books, middle-grade books, cookbooks and fiction.
Home Work – A Memoir of… Read More
2019-12-09 19:46
Previous posts in this Christmas recommendation series include picture books, junior books, middle-grade books and cookbooks.
Love is Strong as Death – Poems chose… Read More
2019-12-04 22:43
Previous posts in this Christmas book recommendation series include picture books, junior and middle-grade books (as well as cookbooks). As ever, these recommendations are fluid, meani… Read More
2019-12-02 22:35
Previous posts in this Christmas recommendation series include picture books, junior books, and middle-grade books.
We have one 100% vegetarian, one most-of-the-time vegetarian (me) a… Read More
2019-11-27 20:25
As you’ve probably deduced by now, this month has been consumed by my Christmas reading recommendations series. Putting that together takes a lot of work (and reading!) and so this mo… Read More
2019-11-25 20:42
If you’re interested, you can read earlier posts in this series for picture books and junior reads.
The Fowl Twins: Book 1 by Eoin Colfer
The opening paragraph of the promotional blur… Read More
2019-11-20 20:40
New to this Christmas book recommendation series? Read the introductory post covering picture books. These junior reading selections are a new edition this year and I should’ve done i… Read More
2019-11-18 20:01
Welcome to my annual Christmas book recommendation series! Over the coming weeks, I’ll be posting my picks for the books that have nabbed my attention at the time of the year wh… Read More
2019-11-05 22:51
First I want to preface this post by saying that I know the topic is hardly original; similar articles and listicles will be written soon – if they haven’t already. Hit me up w… Read More
2019-10-28 20:09
For a while over the American summer, Three Women by Lisa Taddeo was one of the hottest books around; if you weren’t reading it you knew about it due to the number of people Inst… Read More
2019-10-24 01:13
Five years after running the marathon, I was back at the Melbourne Marathon Festival. An almost carbon copy day, too, as the projected forecast was going to be clear, calm and warm. As I wa… Read More
2019-10-11 03:35
Friends,
If you’re reading this direct on/from the blog, take one last long look around. If you’re reading via RSS or email, click on through to get that final glimpse. Because… Read More
2019-09-30 04:11
I’m sliding in by the skin of my teeth today to post this month’s reading list. We have had visitors and just – well – life, in general, has kept me away from my com… Read More
2019-09-11 23:24
Writing can feel like a game of totem tennis. Do people still play? I think so. You know what I’m talking about, right? When you stick a pole in the ground and a rope is attached to t… Read More
2019-08-29 03:44
There’s a recommendation that’s sometimes given to bloggers (at least, it used to be), and that is not to apologise if they are returning after an absence if it wasn’t sig… Read More
2019-08-14 00:28
There are parts of the early days of parenting that can’t be easily forgotten. Take my second born, for example. Riley was an infamously picky eater, and I mentioned this here on the b… Read More
2019-07-29 21:33
Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson is a memoir told through free verse poetry that recounts her sexual assault at age thirteen and the repercussions of that experience throughout the… Read More
2019-07-24 21:02
Here we are, halfway through winter. I thought I’d give an update on an experiment – or challenge – I’ve somewhat quietly (until now) kept to myself. Except for news… Read More
2019-07-15 21:53
The latest installment of things I love and want to share!
Public Libraries
I know, I realise this is slightly cheaty because I’m never quiet about my love of public libraries. But th… Read More
2019-07-11 00:55
The program to the 2019 Melbourne Writers Festival was launched last night and I spent a long time going over it, tucked up and cozy as a heavy rainstorm passed over the city, trying to fi… Read More
2019-06-24 00:43
Fiona Wright is one of my favourite writers (as I’ve said before). Insightful, yet accessible, Domestic Interior is a poetry collection that celebrates the experiences… Read More
2019-06-10 21:40
I’ve been reading Jason Kottke’s blog for over a decade now and enjoy his occasional series ‘media diet‘. I thought I might take inspiration from this because so far… Read More
2019-06-02 21:19
Beef stew in Ho Chi Minh City
Normally I write a travel post full of written content and the quick video I pop together is there to supplement the material, not making much of a difference… Read More
2019-05-26 22:33
I would like to begin this month’s reading recap with The World Was Whole by Fiona Wright, her latest book which proves again why she’s one of the country’s… Read More
2019-05-20 23:23
This is part three of the series of posts to our recent trip to Vietnam. You can find the one about Ho Chi Minh here and Hoi An here.
We were told that the north of Vietnam was typically a… Read More
2019-05-13 21:03
You can read Part 1 (Ho Chi Minh) of our travels to Vietnam here.
Hoi An was planned as being the dedicated ‘rest’ part of our trip and I admit I anticipated this part the m… Read More
2019-05-06 20:55
The flight from Melbourne to Ho Chi Minh is a survivable near eight hours in length. I use the word survivable deliberately, as a person who dislikes being on a plane full-stop and really b… Read More
2019-04-29 21:00
This month I’m going to begin by talking about the book I’m currently reading – Imperfect by Lee Kofman. We’ve just returned from a two week holiday in Vietnam… Read More
2019-04-21 20:58
This is the third and last in my series on our trip to Tasmania – you can read about our visit to Port Arthur here and about what we did in Hobart and Richmond here.
1. Where to stay… Read More
2019-04-14 21:13
If you’d like to read Part One of this series, beginning with a trip to Port Arthur, you can find it here.
I hadn’t been to Hobart since 1987. I don’t remember much &ndash&helli…Read More
2019-04-07 20:59
Port Arthur is a fascinating place to visit, full of history and surrounded by beautiful, almost brutal, landscapes. Its popularity is deserved, but there are a few tips below that will help… Read More
2019-03-24 19:58
I have nothing but praise for Becoming by Michelle Obama. It is an intelligent, layered, comprehensive and fascinating biography, about which I’ll go into more detail in a moment… Read More
2019-03-05 19:59
This post is sponsored by amaysim
Riley had been asking for a mobile phone for at least the latter half of last year. We heard all the typical pleas for getting one, including the evergree… Read More
2019-03-03 19:56
To quote the International Women’s Day website, “International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women… Read More
2019-02-24 20:26
Two things stood out about this first title when I first saw it on the bookstore shelf before Christmas. First the title – Hell Ship – in that evocative block font and… Read More
2019-02-17 19:59
My father passed away on the 19th of February 2009 while I was somewhere up in the sky on a plane, trying to rush home and see him before it was too late. But I was too late.
My original pla… Read More
2019-02-10 20:28
There’s a little over two months to go until our team and dozens of others line up to attempt the 100km Oxfam Trailwalker here in Melbourne. I won’t lie – I’m nervou… Read More
2019-02-05 20:37
If you’re a beginning or emerging writer, you might have heard of Submittable already. In case you haven’t, here’s a brief explanation: Submittable is an online submission… Read More
2019-02-03 21:28
This post is sponsored by Philips
I’ll never forget the afternoon Riley walked out of class after the home bell and complained that his tooth was hurting. He is rarely sick and has a… Read More
2019-01-30 04:48
Welcome to the annual blog monetisation recap – this is the sixth (!) time I’ve written such a post and I hope that it provides a bit of insight and information for anyone who… Read More
2019-01-27 20:02
Normal People by Sally Rooney was the second book I received for Christmas. It is the 2018 Man Booker Prize longlisted international sensation, so much so that British booksellers… Read More
2019-01-20 20:01
Part of me wonders at the use of writing this post midway through the first month of a new year (I have a little voice singing the line ‘The past is in the paaaaaast!’ from &lsqu&hell…Read More
2018-12-29 01:55
Before I begin I would like to extend my belated good wishes for the holiday season. I hope it was spent in your favoured ways surrounded by your favourite people.
As I have been a writer-i… Read More
2018-11-28 20:01
I picked up Why Will No-One Publish My Novel? A Handbook For The Rejected Writer by Fay Weldon from the library because I love a writing ‘how to’/guidebook (I wrote one!) a… Read More
2018-11-25 20:17
I’ve extended this Christmas recommendations series to include cookbooks this year because there are always so many that come out that it can be hard to keep up to date with them… Read More
2018-11-21 19:49
I didn’t need any more convincing to pick up Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami after hearing that this novel is his homage to his life-long love of F. Scott Fitz… Read More
2018-11-19 19:58
Boys Will Be Boys by Clementine Ford is the follow up to her immensely successful and terrific Fight Like a Girl. Ford is an intelligent and courageous thinker who is also re… Read More
2018-11-14 20:07
It’s young-adult day in my Christmas recommendation series. If you missed them, you can find the picture books and middle-grade posts if you follow those links. I’ll say again t… Read More
2018-11-12 20:05
Welcome to this middle-grade edition of my Christmas recommendations list. If you missed my picture book post, you can find it here. The middle-grade market is particularly exciting at the… Read More
2018-11-06 20:16
It’s time for my annual Christmas book ideas/gift guide. Welcome! I put a lot of time and effort into these series of posts to come up with titles that enjoy and recommend. As ever, e… Read More
2018-10-29 20:01
Keira has taken to watching old videos on my YouTube channel. “You haven’t uploaded anything new in months,” she complains.
It’s curious how trends and moods change… Read More
2018-10-23 20:00
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson is a short novel that has stuck with me since I finished it. Here is the delightful opening paragraph.
“My name is Mary… Read More
2018-10-17 00:26
The Art of the Score Podcast
Anyone I’ve seen lately who’s expressed even a passing interest in movie music in the past will have had my iPhone shoved into their faces to show t… Read More
2018-10-02 02:20
The official release date was 1st October 2008. I forgot – I thought it was the 2nd. Today. Happy double-digit birthday, my first book baby.
*
This year has been one of big shifts and… Read More
2018-09-23 21:01
“Karen Andrews’ reputation as a writer, editor and publisher precedes her” Books+Publishing
My Creative Process is the online course I developed which only runs twice a y… Read More
2018-09-18 21:02
Not that it was planned in any way, but the theme of the month appears to be non-fiction/memoir. I began with Get Up Mum by Justin Heazlewood, an account of his experience as a 12-year… Read More
2018-09-10 00:18
The following is the second of the two interviews I salvaged from the audio taken at the Williamstown Literary Festival. The first interview with Emilie Zoey Baker is here. I also had to gr… Read More
2018-09-04 23:47
Group photo of the winners, highly commended, judges, actor-readers and special guests
I was one of the lucky winners at the Literary Nillumbik ceremony on Saturday 2nd September. The full… Read More
2018-08-28 21:04
This month’s reading pile features three very different books (poetry, essays, a novel), each resonating with its own heartbeat. I’ll begin with Axiomatic by Maria Tum… Read More
2018-08-19 23:59
As discussed last week, this is the first of the two promised interviews that I managed to salvage from the audio taken at the Williamstown Literary Festival. Here I’m talking with Em… Read More
2018-08-12 23:28
The Creative Life Podcast: Episode Thirty-Two
This is a significant, soul-searching and (for me) sad episode. Except it’s not a ‘true’ episode because I haven&rs&helli…Read More
2018-08-06 23:57
We’re deep into literary festival time of year and coming up fast, from the 24th August to 2nd September, is the Melbourne Writers Festival with new artistic director Marieke Har… Read More
2018-07-31 01:49
The Creative Life Podcast: Episode Thirty-One
Today’s guest is Annabel Smith. She is the author of the digital interactive novel The Ark, US bestseller Whisky Charlie Foxtrot, and A N… Read More
2018-07-25 01:09
The Creative Life Podcast: Episode Thirty
This episode’s guest is Kate Mildenhall. Her debut novel, Skylarking, is based on the true story of Kate and Harriet, best friends growi… Read More
2018-07-16 20:59
This month is about finishing off books. I needed a few psychological ‘wins’ and moving titles from my Goodreads ‘currently reading’ to ‘read’ list usual… Read More
2018-07-11 00:59
The combination of school holidays and beginning to write a new book (excite!) has made me a little disoriented. In fact, I had a jolt of surprise when I took a look at the date – how… Read More
2018-06-25 00:30
This isn’t going to be my usual Living List goal after-the-fact recall. They are usually quite long because the experiences typically are, and there’s only so much I can wr… Read More
2018-06-17 23:37
The Creative Life Podcast: Episode Twenty-Nine
Patreon is an ongoing crowdfunding platform. It helps fans and supporters support their creative favourites while offering those ar… Read More
2018-06-11 20:58
No, don’t worry. June isn’t almost over already. I know this post usually comes out at the end of the month, but I’ve moved it forward for a couple of reasons. The first r… Read More
2018-06-03 21:01
Photo, left to right: Speculate Director Joel Martin, Alison Goodman, Trudi Canavan, Jay Kristoff, Earl Livings
I love a good literary festival. Without a doubt, they’ve helped me as… Read More
2018-05-27 21:05
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo is a verse novel about a Harlem high school student, Xiomara, who is struggling with her faith, the Church and her mother – all while beginning to navi… Read More
2018-05-21 00:33
On the 12th May 2018, my grandmother passed away just a month shy of her 91st birthday. Time has sped past so quickly since I’m having trouble keeping up with the days; it’s har… Read More
2018-05-08 01:58
A few years ago I wrote a post about which literary accounts I recommend on Twitter and I think it’s time for another one!
Why? Well, as I say in Trust the Process: 101 Tips on Writin… Read More
2018-05-01 01:11
Hello, it’s May, we now have a fourteen-year-old in the house and I don’t think I’ve taken a deep breath in a long time. So writing this post is my way of taking the oppor… Read More
2018-04-23 23:37
If you’re familiar with local (and international) bestselling book lists of late, you’ll recognise the title The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris. This widespr… Read More
2018-04-17 01:47
“What’s this place?”
Riley asked me this question as we arrived and it was hard to give a short answer. I mean, sure, I replied, “It’s an art museum”, bu… Read More
2018-03-26 23:56
There will be no new podcast episode of The Creative Life this week – I’ve been wrestling with a headache that refuses to go away and threatens, at any moment, to turn into a mi… Read More
2018-03-20 01:30
The Creative Life Podcast: Episode Twenty-Eight
This informal, candid mini-episode was inspired by the fact that this week marks the one-year anniversary of my poetry collection O… Read More
2018-03-12 20:55
The Creative Life Podcast: Episode Twenty-Seven
This week’s guest is Kelly Gardiner – award-winning author, educator and co-host of the Unladylike podcast. Her latest nove… Read More
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