Soothing the Savage Magician
The life of a professional magician isn’t always easy. There’s the death-defying, the hair’s breadth escapes, the daring what ordinary mortals would not. And then there’s the problem of skin care. Harry Houdini toured Australia in 1910. A tireless self-promoter, he embarked on a series of stunts to publicise...
SWF Writer Overnighter
On Friday 18th May I was lucky enough to be part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival ‘Writer Overnighter’ at the Powerhouse Museum, and what fun it was. I’d never been to the Powerhouse before – a sad gap in my vast store of museum love – so I was...
A Splendid 1920s Advertisement
Get rid of the grey and add some glow in the dark! ...
1971 – The Giant Alien Amoebae Are Coming To Get Us
Ah, 1971, what a year! Even though it was technically well inside a new decade, the spirit of the previous ten year was unwilling to die. In some ways, the early seventies were the culmination of the Sixties, in music, fashion and culture. And in good taste, of course....
I Want the Moon Back
I’ve been re-watching the 1998 HBO series ‘From the Earth to the Moon’, and it got me thinking. We went to the moon. Can you get your head around that? We, collectively, as a species, went to the moon. That moon, the one way up there – we went...
1899 Imaginings: London becomes Venice?
A great feature, thanks to Retronaut, with some splendid, inspired imagining of London streets as canals. ...
History is a Fantasy Writer’s Best Friend
I visit many schools and libraries, and speak to a lot of young people about books and reading and writing. One of the (many) things I tell them is that history is a fantasy writer’s best friend. As a fantasy writer, I love what history can offer. As well...
Talbot Mundy – Adventurous Writer of Adventures
Almost forgotten today, Talbot Mundy was one of the great adventure writers of the first half of the twentieth century. It was fellow bibliophile and curiosity seeker Stephen Bresnehan who put me onto Mundy, sending me a copy of ‘King – of the Khyber Rifles’, a thrashingly good tale...
Relaxing in my library
I lie, of course. It’s the Enlightenment Room at the British Museum. But if I had a library in my home, it’d be something like this. With ladders to reach the books on the second floor. Of course....
Snappy Ad
I love this one....