Their eyes locked across a crowded room at the cocktail bar. He looked well-heeled and handsome, and his brazen gaze told her he knew it. But she was his equal with pert features and confidence. They raised their glasses to each other. And then found themselves crushed shoulder to shoulder at the bar.
In my writer bio on Tall And True, I mention I've enjoyed a one night stand. It was November 2003, but I remember the night like it was yesterday. I had worked up to it for two weeks. However, though I'd practised my lines, I suffered first-time jitters as I took the stage to perform my stand-up comedy routine.
Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman opens at a brisk pace: "Jacky was running. There was no thought in his head, only an intense drive to run. There was no sense he was getting anywhere, no plan, no destination, no future. All he had was a sense of what was behind him, what he was running from."
My son loved books. And I loved reading to and with him in his early years and watching him grow into an independent reader. However, in his teenage years, he became a "reluctant reader". Thankfully, my son found audiobooks. And with a family account, he and I are building libraries of our favourites.
The policewoman at the front of the Court is trying to catch my eye. I have a thing for women in uniform. It's what attracted me to my wife. That night we met, in the pub across the road from the hospital where she worked as a nurse. I couldn't stop fantasising about the front zip on her uniform.
The night became preternaturally dark, but still Elias kept moving. He had been walking for around four hours. When he stopped for a moment to look up, he could make out the lightless form of the mountain. A firmament of brilliant stars, the Milky Way, stretched across the sky.
In 2019, approaching the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I found a timely book in a secondhand bookshop: The Berlin Wall, 13 August 1961 – 9 November 1989 by Frederick Taylor. The book inspired me to write about my contrasting visits to Berlin as a backpacker in 1987 and 1995.
It was a hot drink. Hands flaying, trying to disengage from his depraved grip, fighting off his unwanted advances. First and last date with this man. So, this is internet dating? Disparaged and feeling sorry for myself, I drove off. Nothing expected or implied. How simple? I was old enough to know the risks.
Product managers are highly sought after professionals in the tech industry. They have to have a variety of skills that not everyone has. You could become a product manager with a coding bootcamp online, but this doesn’t mean you will get the first job you apply to. That’s why you should prepare for the interview.
Covid-19 was the best thing that happened to my daughter. Her cocaine supply dried up, and she discovered she was an introvert. She turned twenty-four on the first of May, a May Day child without a cause. It was not always so. Dux in Year 10 and a black belt in taekwondo, before she fell prey to anorexia.
Forty-eight-year-old Corbett Thomas, a one-hit wonder of the 90s, now works as the lead sommelier at Napa Valley’s hippest restaurant. Set to become one of the few Master Sommeliers in the world, Corbett self-destructs during his final exam, ruining his last chance at recapturing the stardom of his youth.
When mum opened the passenger door, the dog, named Jessie, jumped up and straight onto Mim's lap, licking and wagging her whole body. Mim had a huge smile on her face. 'Mae, look who's here!' The little dog jumped through the car and onto the kid's lap. Mae was a bit unsure. Jessie was full-on.
Señora Gabriela is a respected storyteller. Her exact age is unknown, but it is years more than ninety. One warm afternoon, Señorita Margarita, a fourteen-year-old girl, spies on her. The girl knows it's wrong, but she wants to learn where Señora Gabriela hides her treasure chest of untold stories.
The writer John Banville observed, "Memory is imagination, and imagination is memory. I don't think we remember the past, we imagine it." I have vivid memories of my early childhood (I believe they're memories, not imagination), which is why the #5YearOldSelfie challenge on social media caught my eye.
There were many grammatical errors, typos and howlers over the ten years I published my dog club newsletter. In my defence, I caught most of them during the final read — after I'd photocopied it! Oh, how I wish I'd had my editor and proofreader friend, Grammarly, back then.
