*I wrote this earlier in 2022 for Tim, who went through a bit of a health hiccup. Seeing him made me contemplate my very long friendship with Tim and his brother. While I know this piece isn’t finished, I’ve decided to publish it. Life is short. You should say stuff. Where are your friends?...
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Social Media for Good
In the late 1970s my family and I lived in a small town called Ruakaka, north of Auckland. I went to Ruakaka Primary School for a couple of years and it was there I met Michelle. We were in the same class and became very good friends. When my dad got another teaching job,...
Continue readingWhat would Susie do? Write
About twenty years ago, I taught a class full of enthusiastic kids. It set a high bar and ruined me for the remaining years I spent in the profession. I met one of those kids, Susie, a couple of weeks ago for brunch. We agreed that we were both lucky to be at that...
Continue readingWhat is your voice?
You’re a busy business on the up and up. Things are going well. You’ve got your socials sorted, your website locked down and your marketing strategy in place. Tick, tick, tick! Good job. Unless you’ve made a really bizarre business decision not to communicate with potential and exisiting clients or customers, there are so...
Continue readingOld Gold
I found a folder on my desktop with some things I’d written over the years. This one was probably the first piece about my work that I wrote for myself. There was no call-to-action, no hard or soft ask, not even an intention to publish it. I just wanted to write it and share...
Continue readingHighlight the Good
A long time ago, I was an English teacher. One of my students wrote this in her journal: “I’m so ashaymed I cant spell”. And the ‘a’ in “can’t” was a ‘u’. Yikes. What do you think I did with that sentence? Circled the errors with a red pen? No way! I left those...
Continue readingMusic Metaphor
On a Sunday afternoon in Hobart, this group made beautiful music together. Known as a session, one member of the group starts out, ‘follow me’, and the others listen and study, then gradually join in. And for as long as I was watching, it was a different ‘leader’ for each song. They trusted each...
Continue readingHomework
Homework for a 12-year-old this week goes a little like this: Instead of writing a new piece, focus on improving the six writing traits from an existing piece. FYI, the six writing traits are: sentence fluency ideas* organisation word choice voice conventions (e.g. grammar) Critically reviewing your own work can be pretty tough going,...
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