An Odd Pair — After that, Leonard and I began to meet regularly. It was surely the oddest start to a friendship, and our friendship may have been one of the odder kind. He liked good coffee but couldn’t be persuaded to set foot in the beachfront café — or any noisy, busy building…

Fragile — I felt compelled to find out what was going on, even though I really, really didn’t want to know. So I headed up the beach, closer to the commotion, as if I were just walking in that general direction anyway. They were all engrossed in their argument and paid me…

Letting Off Steam — As the pain in my feet ebbed, I grew restless. Swatting away the March flies became a bother and the day was warming up as the cloud cover rolled away eastward. I’d brought neither hat nor sunblock: the plan was an early stroll before breakfast, not a morning on the…

Them Ol’ Beachwalkin’ Blues — I stood on the crest of the dune. The sea before me was seal grey under an iron sky. White rows of surf rolled and crashed. The previous day, the onshore gale had been strong enough to keep me away from the Beach. Overnight, it had subsided to a blustery…

Inertia Overcome — I met Geoff through work. Our workplace was a correctional centre in country New South Wales. It wasn’t an auspicious situation for romance. I was a nervous young community corrections officer doing her first stint in a male prison. I’d been warned about the us-versus-them culture among the prison staff. …

Strange Peculiar — Between the Rip and the Barwon River curves a south-facing arc of fine sand, backed by scrubby dunes. It’s ten kilometres long. A distinct geographical feature, it should surely have a name. Yet I’ve consulted maps and questioned locals, and it doesn’t seem to. The westernmost section is Raff’s Beach…

Discoveries in Discovery Writing — When I began publishing stories here on Medium at the beginning of 2021, I didn’t really have a plan. I just started with a place and an ensemble of characters, and wrote episode by episode, as new developments popped into my head. Two years and a couple of hundred episodes…

Thoughts about illustrating my stories — One of the many things that Medium has gifted me as a writer is a delight in illustrating my stories. My main interest is adult fiction (interspersed with quasi-factual meanderings like this one). In this field, the word is deemed sufficient. Illustrated stories are for kids — or for magazines…