I Was Not 15 Anymore, And Choices

If Screenwriters Have To Kill Off A Female Character, They Love To Give Her Cancer. We've Seen So Many Great Actresses Go Down To The Big C: Ali Macgraw, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Debra Winger, Susan Sarandon.

Jewish Prayers Are Mostly About Daily Things - The Sliver Of A New Moon, Dew On The Grass, The Bread And The Wine.

My Mother's Family Were Full-on Irish Catholics - Faith In An Elaborate Old Fashioned, Highly Conservative And Madly Baroque Style. I Sort Of Fell Out Of The Tribe Over Women's Rights And Social Justice Issues When I Was Just 13 Years Old.

What's Wrong With Leading The Way? We've Played That Role Before, After All. We Gave The World The Secret Ballot... That Did So Much To Raise Living Standards And Improve Conditions For Workers Worldwide. We Were A Leader In Extending To Women The Right To Vote. We Were Barely A Nation When We Set The Bar For Bravery And Sacrifice By Common Soldiers In Foreign Wars. We Grew Up Out Of Racism And Misogyny And Homophobia To Become A Mostly Tolerant, Successful Multicultural Society. We Did These Great Things Because We Know We Are In It Together. It Is Our Core Value As Australians.

Because I Worked As A Newspaper Reporter For About 14 Years Before Attempting My First Novel, I Learned To Write Under Almost Any Circumstances- By Candle Light, In Longhand, In African Villages Where There Was No Power, Under Shelling In Kurdistan.