Grassroots change

The August/September 2013 issue of OUTBack magazine features the sustainable farming success story that I wrote about the Wright family property “Lana” near Uralla and the Soils for Life organisation.

This is the final post on this blog - I've moved over to janenecarey.wordpress.com

Slow writing

I'm relishing a slow-writing process: being able to read, reflect and gradually construct a story by allowing the ideas and sentences to rise up in their own time instead of being forced. I'm working on a feature for Outback magazine about sustainable farming, and my deadline is a luxurious four weeks away. Since leaving the Express, I've done a little bit of writing in my new capacity as the editor for the New England Writers Centre newsletter, but mostly I have been employed as a casual academic at the University of New England. In trimester three, I marked assignments for a unit on publishing and editing; currently I'm teaching grammar and formal academic writing to first years. This freelance feature is a gift that dropped in my lap, and it's doubly satisfying because the topic - agricultural practices that are both regenerative and profitable - is so important.

Hats in the air again

I've left the Armidale Express, after spending three and a half years there as a journalist, senior journalist, and occasionally acting editor. It's a cliche to say it was a difficult decision, but it was - so difficult that I had to make it quickly and emotionally. Reason was unreliable, always telling me that of course you can cope and certainly things will get better.

In a Facebook post, I said:

I've been like one of those frogs swimming in increasingly hot water for several months; now I've suddenly jumped out of the pot. But it is sad, I did love being a journo.

One of my friends responded that I was "Still a journo. Now a free one." Time will tell if she is right.

For now, all my former hats - from IT, business, writing and academia - are in play again. A few have settled tentatively on my head already. I will be running memoir workshops in Sydney this month and mentoring overseas students as they write about their experiences of studying in Australia. There are also a couple of part-time PR gigs in the pipeline, possibly, and this morning I agreed to take on a hefty stack of university marking in one of the communications units at UNE. And my husband hasn't been backward in coming forward with a to-do list of Hutchinson Software work either.

I'm looking forward to all of it - and time in between to do my own writing.

Step back in time at Saumarez Homestead

A feature in the Live, Love, Play magazine focusing on the ladies of the White family

Profile of Richard Torbay MP

Intro, on the front page: here And the main story inside, The rise and rise of Richard Torbay

The latest from Wendy James

Having just filed a news story for the Armidale Express about how and why novelist Wendy James caricatures Armidale in her new novel, The Mistake, as well as a book review detailing what a tremendous read it is, I went looking to see if the feature I did on Wendy and her sister Rebecca for the Sydney Morning Herald was out there on the wild web somewhere. And it is! Well, at least in plain text form. It's available here

Depicting the year, a day at a time

Yesterday it was my turn to contribute to the 3six5 project, a worldwide online chronicle of 2011 from 365 points of view. My entry, about early morning walks, magpies and Mum, is here