An inspirational woman

Most of the time as a writer you're writing articles, content and reports about subjects you don't always care about — occasionally though, you get to put your hand up for something really interesting. Earlier in the year, working on a project with Disability Services, I was writing the arts and culture section for people with disability. Because our project was, from the ground up, largely in consultation and involvement with the disability sector and those living with disability, I managed to meet a woman who was working at National Disability Services (NDS).

Michelle was a world-class dancer diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) at the height of her career. The website we were developing was designed to be a government disability page without the government spiel. We didn't want to begin pages by telling people how many millions of dollars the state government had invested in the program or about how 'wonderful' this program, or that initiative was. The purpose of the website was to get people living with disability where they needed to go, whether that be funding, respite, support or medical aid. The tone and language was plain English, friendly, encouraging and aimed to provide useful information to people to enable them to make their own decisions and live as independently as possible.

A great feature of the site was having real life stories about every day people and their situation, not to 'inspire' people, but to bring disability out from the dark and get people talking.

I jumped at the chance to interview Michelle and we spent an entire afternoon sitting in the NDS breakout room drinking coffee and talking. She's had an amazing life, such an accomplished dancer. But Michelle has had a lot of difficulties as well, not just dealing with her MS, but her personal life as well. But these are off the record, deeply personal details that she's shared with me and I'm not at liberty to share in an open forum.

The great thing about Michelle's story is that, while she uses the aid of a cane, and has her good and bad days, she hasn't let her disability get in the way of what she loves. Some time ago Michelle made a short film, Nerve Ending — a dance she choreographed herself and it was the first time she'd decided to do this since being diagnosed. It's an incredibly powerful film, and perhaps made more so to me because I know her story.

Her life would make an incredible book — maybe if I'm lucky one day, I'll put my hand up for that.

Read my article on Michelle Ryan.

Smiles and nostalgia

You know I moved to Brisbane in August 2006, and into this very apartment five years ago on Riverfire. Not much has changed apartment-wise, I've updated the furniture and moved things around - the rent has gone up $20 in all that time. Back then the cost of this apartment was over my price range, but unless I wanted to house-share (unappealing) or live in something that closely resembled a crack den (even less appealing), I had no choice but to up my price limit. Fortunately, my landlords are the owners and more concerned with good tenants than raking in the income that most landlords have the luxury of these days.

My income has increased over the last five years, but my rent hasn't. It was a great move that has allowed me the convenience of not having to move, while all those around me pay significantly more to live further out. But it was a stable refuge during a time that wasn't stable - the second half of 2006 being a difficult time for me, but with a permanent job (although one I didn't love) and a good place to live I was doing okay. Frankly, Brisbane was a stepping stone to ride out a few family matters I had on the boil before moving somewhere more my style (read: Melbourne).

But things in 2007 started to improve - I made friends slowly, but reluctantly. I didn't much see the point considering I had no ambitions to stay in this town. But good friends can be annoyingly persistent and Shirley wouldn't take no for an answer when it came to being part of my life. Then came Kelly, another work friend and then Gloria, who was on secondment with our team from the Melbourne office.

Work was busy that year, but then most of my friends were work people, so it was a melding of a busy work life that had some level of social activity in it. I also spent a lot of that year flying around the country revisiting with older friends - people I'd met in London and people from uni who I hadn't seen in a long time. I even managed a friendly dinner with an ex-London flatmate in Melbourne - and this was a housing situation where we all walked our separate ways as soon as the keys were handed back and, I was sure, none of us would be friends again.

Probably mid-2007, a friend of Shirley's invited us to join their trivia team at the Regatta and that's when Nick and Scott came on the scene. Probably a couple of weeks after some more Tuesday night trivia games, I was out shopping when I got a random call from Scott inviting me to a BBQ at his and Nick's house (and that Tiff would be there). Basically, that's where it all kicked off.

At the end of September that year, I would meet Sara, Rachel and (my now boyfriend) Richard at Nick's terribly drunk birthday party at the Normanby. An event I actually didn't plan to go to, but it was the year I was reading Yes Man and Tiff basically drove to my house and made a point of knocking on my door and pointing out that the pub was around the corner from me. I was later to learn that Richard also had no intentions of going out that night and was only there as a result of Sara dragging him along (so she could 'spend time with' her now partner Nick).

That was a funny night, Tiff and Scott where sort of secretly together, but not saying anything. Nick and Sara were definitely keen, but not saying anything. And Rich and I were... well, just meeting as friends.

It was the next week that I got a random email from Sara (I assumed she got my email address off of Nick's birthday invite) asking if I'd like to hang out some time? My recollection of Sara at that point was some friend of Nick's I'd spoken to at drinks for maybe an hour at most. My second thought was, 'This girl is cool - why is she approaching me?'. So I agreed to 'hang out' and the rest of us just found ourselves thrown together over 2008 into the primal beginnings of a very close circle of friends.

We all have 'other friends' of course, which we sometimes bring together, but we also always find that the other friends don't stay too long. We've been told we're a hard nut to crack into - which is funny because there's always random people around. I guess the way I like to think of this group is that we'll make our own fun no matter what anyone else, the situation or the weather is doing. This is a group of people who have virtually nothing in common with each other, and yet are all up for whatever is thrown on the table. I like that about them.

This time last year Nick and Sara move to Sydney for Nick's work. Though we travel to see them or they come up to see us, and Rich and I hang out with Tiff and Scott and Rachel when we can, the dynamics have been very different the last year. Not bad different, just different different. Harder to get everyone together. Not as many crazy parties, weekends or activities. But Nick and Sara are moving back at the end of September. :) This is exciting to all of us.

These people are basically the reason I never left when my two year hiatus in Brisbane came to an end. I've moved cities/countries four times in my adult life and this move was by far the hardest because as you get older it's more difficult to forge those types of friendships. When I moved to Perth I was going to uni so you are naturally in an environment (and at an age) where you will make friends. When I moved to London I worked for a company where all the staff were under 30 - so my work was also my social life. That was much harder to do with no connections in Brisbane and working in a company where the average age and gender was 45 and male. But somehow I managed it.

I personally am a little over Brisbane - and have been for some time and feel I know enough people in Melbourne to form a network of friends again. Granted, nothing like the ones I have here... but it's possible. But it's not so easy when you have a partner to think about who is less inclined to uproot his life as easily as I have done many times over.

Today I am staying up too late involved with looking at old photos of ourselves when we hardly knew each other at all.

Oh Mexico! by Lucy Neville

After graduating from university, Lucy Neville decides to take off and live abroad. Oh Mexico!, a funny and adventurous tale of Neville's two years in Mexico City, doesn’t fail to entertain readers while exposing them to the culture, poverty and corruption of Central America.

As Neville writes, ‘…when Mexicans go to live in other countries, it’s because of the necessity of finding a job. In my case it was the necessity of avoiding getting a job.’

The truth of this statement is possibly what makes her first novel such a page-turner. Many of us love the idea of downing sticks and throwing off responsibility to go live in some exotic location - Neville allows us to do this from the safety of our armchairs.

Finding work as an English teacher, Neville becomes surrounded by the local characters who attend her classes even though they all speak perfect English. One of the most entertaining weekly classes is a group of women whose favourite pastime is to complain about their ex-husbands and how they can make their lives difficult.

Through Neville’s words we learn what it would be like to work in a city that is largely corrupt. Her employer is consistently at least two months behind in paying her wages, there are ‘good police’ and ‘bad police’, and drug trafficking and pirated videos make up a large percentage of Mexico’s employment.

Oh Mexico! gives us an insight into the rich history, warm nature and cultural celebrations and beliefs of the Mexican people without becoming overwhelming. Neville has a knack for providing just the right amount of information so that readers have an understanding of the lives of the many characters surrounding her.

Neville’s sense of honesty is refreshing for her age, she doesn’t appear smitten with the idea of moving to another country in search of who she is, her goal is simply to avoid becoming the job-chained adult we’re expected to become once the degree is in our hands. And, as Neville points out, living in a foreign country looks good on your resume, even if you’re not doing anything to further your career.

Like many before her, Neville finds herself in the emotional cycle that comes to foreigners living in a country very different from their own, but she doesn’t dwell on this for pages. Instead, Neville brings humour to the book with anecdotes such as telling the taco men that she ‘…loved Mexican bottoms, and that I was a lesbian (I didn’t like ‘sausage and eggs’). But I would come back tomorrow and try out heterosexual sex.’

No travel memoir would be complete without a love interest, and in this case, Neville finds herself with two, torn between her flamboyant and attractive housemate, and a warm and loving work college. She needs to make a decision soon since her family are about to drop in for a visit and land in the middle of all the chaos.

Oh Mexico! is filled with with, colour and warmth and is a hugely enjoyable read, written with a vibrant and refreshing style. Neville proves the point that avoiding getting a real job can lead to achieving what we might never have otherwise imagined.

Published on Media-Culture Reviews.

Marching Powder by Rusty Young

Travel books are my equivalent of Mills and Boon or 'Chick Lit'. Light hearted, easy to read novels that excite the travel bug in me and allow me to become a traveller from the safety of my couch when I'm in between those fortunate times my backpack gets dusted off for a new adventure.

I read a lot of travel literature, and there are some good ones out there like Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures, Absurdistan and Geoff Dyer's Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It.

There are also some not so good ones, like To A Mountain in Tibet (I recently reviewed - see previous entries) and the one that made me want to stab the author in the eye and lament the fact that tree had to die for the 238 pages of drivel he slapped together: Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?

But I don't believe that any travel book has kept me so captivated as Marching Powder by Rusty Young. This one has been on my 'to read' list for many years, but sometimes when you're reviewing books you get bogged down in literature you don't always want to read. So when I finished off the last two books I had to review for the year (taking a break), I couldn't wait to crack the cover of this one.

It's the story of Thomas McFadden, a British cocaine trafficker who is caught and charged with trafficking 800g (was actually 5kg) of cocaine out of Bolivia. This story is of his time in the infamous San Pedro prison and shocking and also funny stories from within it's walls.

I picked this book up on Friday and finished it Saturday. There are very few books that keep me entertained for two straight days where Internet and TV sometimes find a way to interrupt, but Marching Powder did it. I even spent all of Saturday at Richard's house on the couch turning page after page, sometimes sharing a particular story, while he cleaned his house. I was a nice enough girlfriend to go with him to the laundromat, but even then we sat side-by-side waiting in silence while we read our respective novels.

Marching Powder was one of those novels that I was sad to close the cover on and found myself at a loss with it no longer in my life. I have since started reading another book, but it fails to hold sense of charm that being in San Pedro prison did - although it is John Birmingham's follow up to Felafel, so judging from his experience in share houses they don't seem too dissimilar to prison conditions.

If was going to recommend any book to read this year, Marching Powder would be the one.

To a Mountain in Tibet by Colin Thubron

The latest novel, by prolific travel writer and novelist Colin Thubron, To a Mountain in Tibet takes us on a very personal journey to Mount Kailas—one of the most sacred and rarely traveled to mountains in the world.

After the death of his mother, Thubron decides to trek through the central Himalayas with only a Nepalese guide and cook. A trek that turns out to be a relatively isolated reflection of his life, with focused memories of family members who are no longer with him.

As much as I wanted to enjoy this book it was a little like a lukewarm bath; I couldn’t wait to get out. This is a deeply personal and sad book, which is written well and exhibits a great reflective style, but also one filled with tremendous detail on the history of the Tibetan people and their customs.

While ordinarily I find this form of travelogue interesting, there was little in this book that engaged me as a reader. Much like Thubron’s arduous journey through the cold and desolate landscape, I found myself trapped inside his meandering thoughts for an arduous 218 pages, gasping at altitude. His memories and personal beliefs seemed detached from the story itself, which had the potential to provide some colour to the landscape, but instead the reader remained but a slightly distanced observer.

This novel requires a great deal of concentration and reflection and I wonder if memories are sometimes like diary entries—perhaps only interesting to those who experienced them.

I have read similarly themed novels on treks through forbidden cities of Tibet, but feel, unfortunately, that others have done it better.

Having said this, there appears to be unanimous admiration and appreciation of this book out in the world, gracing bookstore ‘staff recommended’ lists and with glowing reviews. Perhaps I lack the concentration required to fully appreciate the story at hand.

My appreciations lies more towards the author himself, tackling such a journey in his seventies—and appearing to be less affected by the journey than some of the locals who are traveling with him!

Thubron lacks no skill to turn a phrase and produces beautifully crafted sentences throughout the entire novel, with lines like, ‘Easy to imagine this an apocalyptic fracture in the order of things, a portent of sacred chaos, or at least a fanfare for the dawning holy month. I stand outside my tent, distracted by some dream I have forgotten,’ scattered across the novel like nuggets of written gold.

To a Mountain in Tibet does indeed read like some dream that is forgotten, but is being remembered again in the way that can only be remembered when we have the silence to do so.

Published on Media-Culture Reviews.

The Honey Spinner by Grace Pundyk

I came across this author a few years ago when I saw her at a travel writing seminar at the Brisbane Writers Festival. She just described her travels in search of honey, how it was made around the world and the political and environmental effects the honey industry had on it's countries with such passion that it made me want to read her book.

At the time I was about to take off to South America so I compiled my list of books I wanted to buy from the festival and decided to wait until I got back before breaking the bank on yet more books. Not sure why it took me three years to finally purchase the book, but here I am, finally done with it.

I've never been a fan of honey, it's too sickly sweet for my taste buds, but as I sit here typing this I'm sucking on a teaspoon of liquid gold with flecks of honeycomb, so I'm wondering if Grace has converted me.

Throughout the entire book I kept wanting to re-taste honey to see

if I had mistaken the taste that this woman wrote so passionately about. Grace writes about thick, dark yellow honey from the middle-east and her favourite honey, from Italy, that it made me reluctant to just go to the supermarket and buy some plain Australian generically manufactured honey like Capilano in a squeezy bottle.

However, this morning I had to trundle over to the Bi-lo since Rich was out of milk and I was in desperate need of coffee, I spotted a jar of Beechworth with a full honeycomb inside. I'd never seen honey like this on supermarket shelves (possibly because I'm never in the market for honey) so decided to buy a bottle. My first spoonful was exactly as all my previous experiences with honey went - cringe and then say, 'Meh, it's honey'. My second spoonful, however, I started to reconsider - I could see how this could be appealing.

I doubt I'm suddenly going to be converted into a honey lover, I'm thankful honey has no expiry date so I can keep it in the cupboard for however long it takes me to use - probably in some baked good or something. But this was an interesting book, if not exactly what I was expecting.

The book traces Grace's travels through a few select countries in her search for beekeepers, discusses their methods of beekeeping, the issues they have with a declining honey market, blended honey, bee diseases and logging. Like all non-fiction books, this one had it's moments of struggles when my brain wanted to run free amongst some fiction rather than focus itself on the subject at hand, but I'm glad I read it. I'm fascinated by how bees work, how the hives work, what the beekeepers job is and this book answered all those questions.

With my burning need to read The Honey Spinner out of my system I need to move onto my ever growing pile of books to review.

A cubicle with new view

I'm having one of those mornings where I got up at the usual time, made coffee, put the bins out, did some banking (because all of this occurs on a Wednesday) and now I'm sitting here procrastinating looking through my Flickr photos.

It's one of those days where going to work seems like the worst possible option and I'm dreaming of dusting off my backpack and taking out my camera for a new adventure.

I'm not usually the type of person who has too many personal items in the office. A habit from being a serial contractor, I suppose. You don't want to get too settled because you'll just have to move it all again. But after two years in the same place (albeit, I have moved around different roles since being there) I'm noticing some decoration of the cubicle occurring. Mostly by way of photos.

Travel photos mostly... and some of Richard. Because once work was an important part of my life (getting to the writing positions I wanted), now seems just like any other job. I used to have no trouble working buckets of over time, but now I can't get to the weekends fast enough. It's just not that important to me anymore. Spending time with my friends and Richard and going on holidays - that's mostly what I care about. Hrm, when I think about it... travel has always been my goal of working... so yeah, I guess not too much has changed in that regard.

But here I am procrastinating further by writing in this blog. Putting off the need to go iron some pants and make the bed and put on some makeup - turn into work Denver. Blergh. Least work Denver now has some pretty inspirational photos to look at in her cubicle with no view.

So... I'm just going to have wee rant about work for a bit, because the last few weeks have been difficult to tolerate. Not exactly easy when your partner is feeling equally unsettled in his job and dreaming of greener pastures, but I'm trying to keep on until the project completion.

Initially, I thought I would like to stay on for a long while, but circumstances, which I won't go into here, have changed my mind and I think I'll be happy to leave once the disability project has finished. Not that websites ever really finish, they continue to grow and expand, an every changing life form of their own.

But for all my complaining and restlessness I'm having an inspiring month - I've been given the Arts and Culture section to write on our website, much to my delight, since this is an area close to my heart.

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with a member of National Disability Services (NDS), who we liaise closely with for this project. She's a former professional dancer who developed MS ten years ago, naturally bringing her extensive and international dance career to a halt. Michelle is an amazing presence, however, very enthusiastic about our project, filled with ideas and she brings a great deal of energy to the table, while lately I feel my energy levels are running on empty. Speaking with her gave me a bit of a boost and I plan to ask if we can do a feature story on her for the website.

Today, I spoke with the Executive Director of Access Arts Queensland, an organisation dedicated to accessible arts in all it's forms, specifically focusing on communities and people with disability. In my job I'm fortunate to see up close the small differences that communities and people driven organisations can do for their community and those at a disadvantage. As I sat in Emma's office, blind with her yellow guide dog at my feet, it was great to speak with her about all the work Access Arts do around the state and how much knowledge can be gained from speaking to these types of people.

Next week I'm less out and about and am in conversations with Arts Queensland, and while another government department, seem very enthusiastic about having a say and feel they will have rich resources to draw from. I only hope so, because while exhausting and having to deal with challenging members of my team, in the end this is the type of job I always felt fit my personality. A writing position that, albeit somewhat removed, makes a small difference in the world. In this case, the world of Queenslanders with disability.

Putting it down in writing helps remind me of that.

4 years without a car

When I first moved to Brisbane I decided against getting a car, still fresh with living in London thoughts of not needing a mode of transport. I lived in Spring Hill and had public transport, why would I need a car? I managed in London without one for two years... of course, London transport is significantly better than what Translink offers. I did okay living so close to the city and working in the city or city fringe areas, I even walked to and from Milton when I worked down that way - it was great exercise and I didn't have to worry about paying for insurance or registration or the increasing price of fuel.

However, after four years I had decided what I would gain back with a car was time—where it would normally take me 10-15 minutes to get somewhere via car, it would take me at least 40-60 minutes via walking and public transport. And since none of my friends have the ability to appear anywhere on time, it also meant I had a lot of waiting around time for people too rude to show up when arranged.

I'm also someone who likes to go out and explore other suburbs and while I managed some of this via public transport, there was none of the 'jump in the car and go far south, or north or east' as I used to do back in my Perth days.

So I started looking for an affordable secondhand car, but I couldn't find one that was what I wanted or didn't require some work. I wasn't interested in a project. I didn't want to buy a fifteen year old car and spend months getting it up to scratch. I just wanted something I could drive straight away without any fuss. Eventually, it dawned on me I should just buy a new car—I'd never owned a new car and well, why not? I'm earning more money now than I've ever earned in my life, I'm doing a job I like and want to keep going with long term, it's a little inconvenient to park on the street in Spring Hill, but my rent hasn't increased by some miracle in two years and I'm happy to stay here, the boy has extra parking at his place—it all seemed to be working out fine.

So I got my ex-Mazda dealer dad to suss out some deals for me, because of course, I'm a Mazda car person and always will be. They're just a fantastic car (I would go into a rant about why, but that's a whole other entry). He managed to get me a great deal in Mackay—and even with flights up, fuel and driving back I was still better off than buying direct here in Brisbane.

After much running around with the bank (getting contracts signed, finding JPs, transferring monies etc), who said I passed a loan application with flying colours, I secured my new car and made plans to get up to Mackay with the boy to drive the new green machine back home. :)

Twelve hours of driving and it's sitting outside my little art deco unit waiting for my council parking permit so it can stay there every day without fear of a fine. ^_^ So exciting! Back in the wheels again.

Pilgrims by Will Elliott

Two friends of mine introduced me to this Brisbane author and insisted I read his first book, The Pilo Family Circus. A sucker for horror fiction I started it straight away. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting and took me some time to get into; however by halfway I was hooked. Pilgrims is no different, although I’m not a fantasy fiction reader, the story was not so fantastical as to keep someone like me from continuing on to the end. Probably a good thing since it’s the start of a trilogy.

A mysterious door appears below a train bridge where our lead character, Eric, passes it every day on his way to and from work. One day the door opens and they discover there’s another world beyond the door along with some other world characters who have popped in and quickly disappear.

You can probably guess where this is going, right? Yes, the protagonist, Eric and his friend, the bum who lives under the train bridge open the door and go through to the other side. Where they discover they’re suddenly on a journey with some interesting and varied characters from the other world.

I liked this book because it takes you on a journey with it’s characters, always picking up and discarding people along the way and in the background a war is brewing. Hugely funny in places, much to Will Elliott’s style, and terrifying in others I really can’t wait to break the spine of book two: Shadow.

Community Recovery

Virtually the entire department I work for has been out on Community Recovery since the floods hit Queensland. Of course, once the floods started taking out more and more towns, they kicked up the training sessions to twice a day for… well, I think they’re still running.

I only did my recovery training a few weeks ago since I was tagged as someone who needed to be in the office (whichever available office we could work from while ours was being flood affected) so I could write and post stories to our website. When Cyclone Yasi hit and again I was needed for more story preparations and it seemed like little chance of me going anywhere.

Now we’re back in our office, and most of the team is back from leave/Community Recovery/other life commitments, I got the call and was placed inIpswich for a week. Slightly less interesting than the previously thought placement of Cairns or Townsville, but also a relief that I didn’t have to go away for 7 days and could come home every night, even if it was a long commute each way.

The whole processes was very tiring given I’d already worked a four day week and come Friday I felt like I should be ending the week with drinks and happy thoughts of two days off. Unfortunately I was starting a new week and wouldn’t get my weekend until the following Wednesday.

The first four days I was lucky enough to be placed in Goodna Service Centre where I could sit in an office and process people’s applications for financial assistance for them. Each centre also housed Centrelink officers, Red Cross, Lifeline and a security guard, so we had no end of support—I really loved working with the people from Red Cross and Lifeline, they’re amazing in their volunteer work and looking after, not just the stressed out people coming through the door, but also us Community workers.

I will admit that being in a people facing environment again was refreshing the first day, everyone was happy with the cheques and assistance I could offer them. Come the second day though, when the Emergent Assistance Grant was no longer available, we saw the more colourful and challenging characters coming out of the woodwork to pile abuse upon us for not giving them what they wanted. I could understand their situation, but unfortunately, I have to follow suit with what services/assistance we’re allowed to offer. It’s also difficult to see people who have already been through so much stress to have to face yet another challenge put in place by the government.

For four days I had people cry, shout, argue, hug me—and while those nice people who sat down to tell me their story made my week, I was also vastly aware of the safety of my silent cubicle back in Brisbane CBD. By day 8 I was well and truly ready to get back to my writer monkey position.

My final day I was sent back to Ipswich Coordination Centre and put on Outreach, which means you spend all day in a Community Recovery 4WD with one other person door knocking in all the affected areas in that region and talking to people about their circumstances, making sure they’re aware of any payments they may be entitled to.

My housing officer I was pared with was happy to hear that I could read a map and made me navigator for the day while she steered the giant 4WD around Goodna and Gailes area. It was a long day, I imagine even longer if you didn’t like the person you were pared with, but I enjoyed it more than sitting in the Recovery Centre. Instead of doing assessments and delivering bad news to those ineligible for assistance, I was actually just talking to people and hearing their stories and providing them information—and as a writer I feel much more comfortable doing this than filling in administrative forms.

My two fatigue days came as something of a relief with me falling in bed around 8pm on Tuesday night.

I’ve already been asked when I can be deployed again—I do like that I have the option of putting my personal life first when I can and I’m playing that card now. But, in the longer term view this thing is definitely far from over, so I expect to be placed again in the not too distant future.

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

In Stephen King’s afterword he writes, ‘The stories in this book are harsh. You may have found them hard to read in places.’ In reading Full Dark, No Stars I found myself putting the book down many times due to the gritty nature of it’s descriptive actions. The queasy feeling would stay with me sometimes long after I’d gone to bed as I imagined all the ways I didn’t want to die.

A collection of short stories, and possibly some of King’s most disturbing writing, Full Dark, No Stars binds together four separate stories which manage to frighten us most because each one could be possible.

Unlike King’s history of threading together the real and unreal until you’re not sure when you’ve crossed over, this collection is frightening purely because such incidents and people exist in our world every day. It’s not impossible to believe these characters and crimes are real and most likely based on real events.

'1992' is a story of Wilfred Leland James who is writing his confession to committing a murder. A man who appears callous in the beginning, leaving this reviewer with little sympathy towards his situation, increasingly descends into his own living hell through a series of chain reactions triggered by his crime. Normally irritated by stories set on a farm, due to the need of the writer to describe how manual labour takes place at every turn, I found '1922' moved along at a steady pace with each sentence earning its place upon the page.

The second story in the collection, 'Big Driver', is about a mystery writer (and let’s be honest, it just wouldn’t be a Stephen King novel if there wasn’t at least one writer character) who survives a horrifying encounter when she gets a flat tyre alongside an empty highway. We’re all familiar with how a scene like this plays out, however the reaction of this somewhat mousy woman is far from cliché. 'Big Driver' delivers an unexpected twist, a twist that left me arguing with its protagonist to deal with her situation in a different way.

While the least gruesome in detail and horror of all the stories, 'Fair Extension' was by far the one I liked least. The story is of a middle-aged man who has been diagnosed with cancer and makes a deal with a jinn-like man to extend his life. Like all such deals, this bargain comes at a cost. Unfortunately, this character seems only to flourish as the story continues with little regard for the cost that balances out his new good fortune. 'Fair Extension' ends without character growth or remorse and because of this it left me cold. I can fairly say I hated the story.

Finally, 'A Good Marriage' is the last story in the book, possibly the most predictable of all four, yet one I enjoyed the most. Where King failed to bring us justice in the first three, I felt the final story brought me the closure I was looking for. A wife discovers a terrible secret about her husband and realises he has kept this secret the entire length of their marriage. This story opens all the questions of how well do we really know anyone, even those closest to us? It sheds light on how easily terrible things can go on without our even knowing.

It’s true, King is the master of bringing our fears to the surface, and he normally succeeds in this by bringing in his much-patented supernatural creature and setting it free amongst our every day environment, tricking our minds into believing it could be true. He plays on the symbolism we see in those non-human beings. But in this book, King only writes those things we read about every day on the news and doesn’t have to stretch our imaginations too far to scare us, because these types of events are happening all the time.

Normally we have the convenience of ignoring that which we don’t want to see by turning off the TV, but King brings those brushed aside situations and places it directly in front of us in the form of Full Dark, No Stars, forcing us to think about what elements and reactions really sit within the human form.

I have painted a dark review, but King has done it again and brought the world a powerfully faultless and cleverly spun read. If you are not a Stephen King or dark story fan, I’d say skip this book. But if you, like me, secretly enjoy being a little bit frightened and occasionally like looking into the darkness of the human soul you will find this to be one of his best collections.

Review published by Media/Culture Words.

Ricotta and Spinach Agnolotti in Tomato Pasta Sauce

My sister, who isn't confident in the kitchen, always asks me to give her the recipe for whatever pasta sauce I cook. I don't work from recipes when it comes to pasta sauce, I tend to just make it up as I go. So, I thought I'd document some of my cooking.

Add some olive oil to a pan and heat over a medium heat.

Crush some garlic and brown slightly in the pan (only takes a minute or two crushed). Depending on how I feel I'll sometimes chop up the garlic or will just add the whole bruised clove in the pan for flavour (removing at the end).

Add a tin of diced tomatoes (you can use fresh tomatoes, but they will need to be seeded and it does take a bit more preparation) and cook for a few minutes, stirring as you go.

It's usually about now that I add the agnolotti (or pasta of your choice) to a pot of boiling water. Add a good bit of salt to the boiling water and cook until al dente (or as per the instructions on the pack).

Back at the sauce add a 1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste (it's up to you how thick you want the sauce and how tomatoey you want the flavour. I usually add 2 because I like the tomato flavour).

Stir through again and simmer for a few minutes.

(Optional) I like to add some red wine to my pasta sauces, just because it adds a nice flavour and takes out a bit of the tomato tang. If you don't like too much of the acidy tomato flavour you can add a teaspoon of baking/bi-carb soda. Let it simmer again on a low heat until it thickens.

(Optional) Again, this is an optional ingredient, but I like to, stir through a 1-2 tablespoons of basil pesto. Simmer.

By about now your sauce should be nice and reduced and getting about ready. Add some salt, stir and then take it off the heat.

Sprinkle in some fresh basil or other herbs, I sometimes use oregano or coriander, depending on what's on hand.

By now your agnolotti should be done. Drain and add to your sauce.

Serve and enjoy. :)