The Sisterhood of the Travelling Anthology

Here is one of my fellow Section Editors of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature, published overseas as The Literature of Australia. It's the lovely Dr Anita Heiss, also co-editor with poet and lecturer Peter Minter of the associated, stand-alone, Deadly-award-winning volume The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature. This photo was taken a few weeks ago in the Red Wheelbarrow, a widely-admired and much-patronised English-language bookshop in Paris, where to her great pleasure she found a copy of the book. As you can see.

In which we regret, not for the first time, that Alexander McCall Smith is already married

'A good choice, Bertie,' said Stuart, as he came in to pay for the petrol. 'And how about some chocolate?'

Nobody had ever said that to Bertie before. How about some chocolate? It was not a complex phrase, but its power, its sheer, overwhelming sense of gift and possibility filled Bertie with awe. Well might more of us say those words to others, and more frequently -- how healing that would prove to be. 'Look, we've had our differences, but how about some chocolate?' Or: 'I'm so sorry: how about some chocolate?' Or simply: 'Great to see you! How about some chocolate?'

-- The Importance of Being Seven