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One year. One one family of four. Seventy-two appointments. And that’s without counting work, school or sporting commitments. I actually tallied. Because, the year prior, I’d felt like our calendar was endlessly full of clutter. And I desperately wanted to learn whether, when someone asked to catch up or we yet again couldn’t find a window to get away for a bit of respite, I might have been … imagining we were that busy? Appointments always live in the margins of life: doc

by Klaire Johnston I was recently recommended a Nora Roberts novel. Let me say this upfront, and with respect: Roberts is a prolific, profound, wildly successful writer. She has built a career most writers can only look at in awe. Me included. So when I picked up one of her books for the first time - mid-career, mid-empire, long after she’d proven everything there is to prove - I expected to witness perfection of the craft. I was completing a ‘Write Your Novel’ course, so I’d

When you become a writer, something subtle and irreversible happens to the way you read. Books stop being just stories. They become constructions. Sometimes this a joy. You notice the elegance of a sentence, or a phrase doing the heavy lifting. You see how a chapter ends with a hook, and how a character’s choice echoes something planted a hundred pages earlier (and maybe you give a little cheer!). Most of all, you recognise economy. Restraint when describing things. That'