Petite Pocket Post Books

Sometimes when I need to take a break from writing or even thinking about writing, I get out the scissors and glue stick, some magazines and old wrapping paper, a packet of small envelopes, needle and thread and make some petite pocket post books.

I fold and sew two envelopes together into a little booklet, trim the flaps and set to work with scissors paper and glue.

Sometimes I tear the paper, sometimes I cut before I collage, sometimes I add text, sometimes I leave it blank, whatever it is I make sure I leave room for the flaps of the envelopes to open to roomy spaces where I can tuck tiny pieces of fine writing paper where you can leave messages to yourself or a dear one, things you perhaps wouldn't normally say.

I put a picture on my online store, just to show them off really and hey presto I got an order.

Then I made some more.

Here's some pictures of the latest lot fresh off the line...

 $9 plus postage

Order yours now at the Writers Journey Shop 

Scrap booking — a creative tool for writing

Whenever I start a new writing project the first thing I do is go out and by a large size plain page scrap book or visual diary.

Just like in primary school I make a frontispiece page with the title of the book and some ilustrations or cut out pics pasted in.

Then I start adding clippings, images, random ideas, jottings, around the topic and themes of my idea.

It is a great way to bring colour and texture in and to embrace the creative process especially in the early hunting and gathering stage.

It is a way also of setting up what I like to call the image field of the story.

Art directors and designers working in film and theatre do it. Why don't we?

Author Margo Lanagan  who attended our Draft Buster workshops in Petersham has taken scrapbooking to another level.  She even set up a special scrap booking table in her writer's studio.

Have a look here at how did this for her novel Sea Hearts. 

A scrap book is a place you can return to again and again when ever you get stuck or need some fresh ideas to get things moving.

It is also a fun activity to do with others.

Spend a few hours with fellow creatives messing around with fabrics, paper, magazine cuttings, images, scissors, glue and create an image field for your next book, short story, poem series, movie/theatre script, event exhibition or life project.

Use this technique to create settings, develop characters and uncover story subtext. Map a hero's journey or explore the unknown potential of your themes.

Getting mind out of the way, allow the imagery oyu collect on the pages of your scrapbook to lead you into surprising places and hidden narratives.

Enjoy a relaxing and effective way to brainstorm, troubleshoot and generate new energy for your work.

Heading out next

November 1–7, 2018. Bali Residency. Seven days just to write! At a beachside hacienda with inhouse mentors and feedback from fellow authors.

March 1–15, 2019. Moroccan Caravan,A creative adventure into the heart of Moroccan culture. Tangier, Chefchaouen, Fes, Tissardmine. For artists and writers.

Oct 6–12, 2019.Haiku Walking In Japan, A haiku walking tour for artists and writers along the sacred Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage route following ancient trails though deep, forested valleys in remote countryside.

www.writersjourney.com.au

Catherine Rey's previous work.

 From Readings Review of Rey's previous novel Stepping Out.

"The difference between a novel and autobiography,’ muses the narrator of this clearly autobiographical novel, ‘[is that] novels are closer to the truth. They’re full of the confusion, the violence and the hue and cry of truth.’ This intriguing reflection, in the midst of a ‘novel’ where the French narrator’s name is the same as the author’s, captures the elegant, intense, fiery and occasionally philosophical nature of Stepping Out.

Catherine runs away just two months before she turns 18, giving up everything for her married lover, a house painter. The two key relationships in this novel are with Marco, the lover, and Catherine’s brilliant, acerbic, deeply narcissistic mother, who left her with her grandparents at three weeks old, and has flitted in and out of her life ever since. But just as important is Catherine’s devotion to her writing. Rey reminds me of her fellow European Sybille Bedford, who also wrote evocative autobiographical novels about her eccentric family. She explores class, literature, family and feminism; all woven into a compelling story that interrogates the changing social mores of 1960s France. "

Abstract from Life Writing Journal

In the Asia-Pacific region, literature is plurilingual. Even Australian literature is not necessarily written in English. There are several contemporary Australian authors who write in languages other than English and many who write in various Englishes. This article examines one such example by analysing the life writing of Catherine Rey. It focuses upon the self-reinvention that this French author performed by migrating to Australia in mid-life. Focusing on the first-person narrative Une femme en marche (2007) and drawing comparisons with self-reflexive essays by this author, the article teases out the contrasts between Rey’s representation of France and Australia as spaces for literary creation. It then interrogates how Rey reinvents herself through linguistic play within her life writing. Using theories of ‘translanguaging’, the article analyses the ways in which this author blends French and English to probe the gaps in languages, to nuance literary representation and to create new linguistic forms to express her self-narrative.

New novel by French Australian writer

French Australian author Catherine Rey launches her new novel in Feb 2018!

Catherine Rey was born near La Rochelle in France. At the age of 41 she left her job as a schoolteacher and moved to Perth where the grandparents who raised her had earlier lived for 20 years.

In 2005 she received a PhD from the University of Western Australia for her dissertation on the adoption of French as a literary language by the Eastern European writers Emil Cioran, Milan Kundera and Andrei Makine. She has taught at the University of Western Australia and Edith Cowan University and was a fellow at Western Sydney University in the Writers and Society Research Centre.

Rey's novels include  include L'ami intime, Les jours heureux, Eloge de l'oubli, Lucy comme les chiens, and Ce que racontait Jones, which was shortlisted for the Prix Femina and the Prix Renaudot, and published in Australia as The Spruiker's Tale in 2005.  Une femme en marche, was published in Australia by Giramondo as Stepping Out in 2008.

Her first English language novel The Lovers will be launched on Feb 27 at Potts Point Bookshop.

 The Lovers is an arresting tale, a mystery with a slow burn tension, which revolves around the disappearance of Lucie Bruyère. The novel unveils the truth about her charismatic yet subtly controlling partner, the world-famous artist Ernest Renfield. The suspenseful story, both police investigation and multi-voiced Rashomon, ends in a dramatic and powerful illumination.

Michelle de Kretser says: “I found The Lovers utterly compelling. This impeccably crafted novel told from multiple perspectives offers the page-turning suspense of a mystery while resisting easy resolution. It is ultimately a meditation on making art: the cost it exacts and the solace it brings.”


Here is my review:

Catherine Rey's gripping mystery unfolds in true Durassienne style. Like the novel and play L'Amante Anglaise, written in the late sixties by the French writer Marguerite Duras, the action of The Lovers hinges on an interrogation, only in this instance we never see or hear the interrogator voice.

After a party in a country house near Sydney, a French woman, Lucie Bruyère is missing. Over time as each character reveals themselves to the investigator Officer Lawson, the reader gets to play detective. But it's not just forensic evidence that is of interest in this case but potent themes of the hostile family, the migrant outsider, cultural landscapes, language, music, art, philosophy and more. So much so that clues to our own struggles and failings and the traps of our own lives are revealed.

The inspiration for the novel, Rey told me, comes from the Magritte painting The Lovers, which represents two heads embracing, each covered with a white shroud, and the question of who is behind the curtain. 

Having lived in Australia for almost 20 years this is Rey's first novel to be written in English. To my mind the title The Lovers, also tips its hat to Marguerite Duras' famous novel The Lover reminding us of the rich French literary lineage Rey hails from and how fortunate we are to have an author of her calibre in our midst.

Read more about Catherine Rey's other work here.