Tag: Kate Holden

Writing isn’t like breathing. Writing is grace.

28 February 201323 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog

Kate Holden, My fourth post – I had intended to write twice as many, in an inspired burst of blogging hyperactivity, but after peaking early in the early 2000s with a regular blog (back in the frowsty old dear days when people said, ‘A what?’) I have never again recovered the focus and the steam and the dedication, and alas, this month of February hecticness and an especial dose of personal frenetics too fell victim to lack of puff and excess of distraction. So, many thanks to Southerly and its people for inviting me to burble away here, and thanks…

Readers block

26 February 201323 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog2 Comments

Kate Holden Ironically it was tonight, a hot, smothering, still Melbourne summer’s night when it’s all I can do to keep my dull eyes fixed on the telly, never mind think about great literature, that I had one of those moments when something true about my life with books hit me. I was trapped on the couch under the warm, soft weight of my little cat Boo, who was giving me a very rare and precious honour by taking her siesta on my hot lap, and thinking idly of how great it would be to get into bed later, and…

Holding yourself by the throat…

17 February 201323 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog5 Comments

Kate Holden I just heard Richard Ford tell Margaret Throsby on ABC-FM that, in writing, what writers do is make themselves smarter than they really are. He likened the creative process to a crucible, one which was hot and focused, and which made him seem smarter than he is. And this fits in perfectly with what I was thinking last night: that writing is very much about vanity, and embarrassment. It’s always astonishing to me how little we talk, in essays, interviews, in teaching students, about the psychology and emotions of writing. Those things are what brim in us every…

Moving books

11 February 201323 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog2 Comments

Kate Holden This post is a little late: the dilatoriness due not to lack of enthusiasm but the fact that I am in the middle of one of life’s cataclysms – moving house. And by ‘moving house’ you know that I, as a writer, primarily mean standing, hands on hips in the middle of my living room, gazing with an abruptly urgent sense of incredulity at the dozen or so tightly packed shelves that form the main decoration of my home. Moving house, in other words, means moving books. I am a forty year old writer and arts graduate from…

February blogger – Kate Holden!

4 February 201323 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog

Many thanks to Judith Beveridge for her excellent posts to start the year. This month, out guest blogger is Kate Holden: Kate Holden is the author of In My Skin: A memoir and The Romantic: Italian Nights and Days, both published by Text. For six years she wrote a regular column for The Age and has published essays, short stories, and reviews in Griffith Review, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, Meanjin, The Monthly, The Big Issue and others.

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