They say women should never make a relationship their entire life. They say we should have our own friends, hobbies and careers and shouldn’t look to a man for financial gain or to complete our lives like the final piece in a complicated jigsaw puzzle. They say that when two people come together it should…
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Wouldn’t it be wonderful if schools taught mapping using paintings and stories instead of drab contour lines? In her latest memoir, aptly named Position Doubtful – mapping landscapes and memories, artist and award-winning author Kim Mahood masterfully paints rich Australian landscapes and people. She paints using pigments. She paints with narratives. The book’s title takes…
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It’s one of those cold winter mornings where my bed feels like a blissful cocoon, warm and safe and impossible to abandon. I wake before dawn and the whole world is encased in this transcendent beauty, like I’m the only person whose mind has sacrificed the land of dreams for a glimpse of reality….
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There are two types of people in the world, according to Nicole Trilivas’s protagonist Kika Shores: those who travel, and those who don’t. Kika belongs to the former category: she enjoys the thrill of walking through a city whose name she can’t pronounce, and finding herself an alien culture with nothing but a well-worn backpack….
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At the heart of any great book, whether fiction or non-fiction, sci-fi or drama, lies a character arc that we can personally relate to on some level. The core of all good books often pulls at our heartstrings at a moment’s notice, leaving us breathless and wanting more. With Robyn Hennessy’s memoir, Worthless, the average…
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This is the final instalment of Really Honest Postcards from Lyon, April Smallwood’s six part series on life as a young Australian expatriate in France. You can look back over the series here. Dear Ike, I love that the French expression for placing an object down so as to not surprise you is, ‘Op!’, and…
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Be sure to check Lip in two weeks for the final instalment of Really Honest Postcards from Lyon, April Smallwood’s six part series on life as a young Australian expatriate in France. Dear JM, What is the latest and how is your heart? I was watching a talk by author and social researcher Hugh Mackay…
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Be sure to check Lip weekly for new instalments of Really Honest Postcards from Lyon, April Smallwood’s six part series on life as a young Australian expatriate in France. Dear Michelle, I’ve been cooking a lot of Filipino dishes lately – adobo and sinegang mostly; kare-kare oxtail stew is next, because it calls for peanut butter. Like a…
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Be sure to check Lip weekly for new instalments of Really Honest Postcards from Lyon, April Smallwood’s new six part series on life as a young Australian expatriate in France. Dear Shelley, Lyon is a pretty lady. She’s got two great big rivers, the Rhône and Saône, which rhyme, and an old city boasting that classic cobblestone…
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Be sure to check Lip weekly for new instalments of Really Honest Postcards from Lyon, April Smallwood’s new six part series on life as a young Australian expatriate in France. Dear Laura, So moving overseas with the one you love is chancy. It’s kind of like having your first baby in that you need to…
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Fifteen year old Sok collects facts in the back of her notebook. At the end of school she approaches the teacher’s desk to tell me that television was invented in 1922. Sok’s English is better than most other students, and she quickly realises my skepticism. She grabs her book and points to a scrawling script…
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Be sure to check Lip weekly for new instalments of Really Honest Postcards from Lyon – April Smallwood’s new six part series on life as a young Australian expatriate in France. Dear Siobhan, No-one will hire me on this visa. I’m absolutely entitled to work but the French aren’t interested in an Australian…
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It doesn’t feel like all too long ago that I was sitting drafting the first of my Lip articles about travelling Australia on my own. When my travels were stretched out in front of me, it felt like forever, but now that it’s almost over it seems my endless days are numbered. I can now…
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When I think of backpacking, I think of dragging a battered backpack along the road and changing from buses to trains to coaches to trains to buses. I’m not sure if this next admission will make me lose my Backpacker Cool Points (Ha… like I had any of them) but in the whole time I’ve…
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