Freewriting is a practice I first learned about in Spilling Ink (A Young Writer’s Handbook by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter). It’s simple: Once a day, begin to write and don’t stop – don’t take that pen off the page or those fingers off the keypad - for five minutes. No thoughtful pauses to get… Continue reading Freewriting
Author: Catherine Austen
I'm a Canadian author of books for all ages. My short stories are published in literary journals including The Fiddlehead and The New Quarterly. My books for young readers have won multiple awards, including the Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book Award and the Quebec Writers Federation Prize for Children's Literature. I live with my family in Gatineau, Quebec.
Friday Fable: The writer and the Goodreads reviewers
You may have heard the old tale, The Bear and the Bees: One day a bear was rooting around in a fallen log where there just happened to be a beehive. One little bee was on her way home with some pollen when she spotted the nosy bear and stung him on the snout to chase him… Continue reading Friday Fable: The writer and the Goodreads reviewers
The Beach Bag and the Booker Prize
You may have heard the old story of the Rooster and the Jewel: One day, a rooster was scratching at the straw in the farmyard, looking for nourishment, when he came across a string of pearls (dropped by a wealthy landowner on his way to evict the poor farmer because he couldn't make rent, what with the drought and… Continue reading The Beach Bag and the Booker Prize
Balls in the air
Did you notice the new blog name? I got an email from a total stranger asking if I was still alive and I figured it was time to get back to blogging and Facebook and all that putting-myself-out-there stuff. So here I came. And imagine my surprise when I saw that I'd given myself a deadline to… Continue reading Balls in the air
What’s in a Name?
I have to name this blog. That was on my to-do list two years ago and it's still there. Which doesn't bother me much -- it's not like it's the sole task carried over year after year. I've lived in Quebec for two decades and haven't made it past intermediate conversational French. An unnamed blog isn't much of… Continue reading What’s in a Name?
Catherine Austen 