Dry River Writings
I’ve never been in jail, and I wasn’t educated in a 20th-century British boarding school. So I’m not used to being referred to by my surname and it’s a bit jarring reading the reviews of Long Road to Dry River on Goodreads. ‘Severn is a master wordsmith’ (thanks ‘Lib Kilian’), ‘Severn’s writing encapsulates what is…
Our neighbour Hanno finds the walk to school arduous. So when he goes to pick up his big sister Eve in the afternoon, Jens takes him in the wheelbarrow. And sometimes after a big day at kindy, Eve hops in too for a lift home. Jens and Tash used to have one of those Dutch…
I wheeled down to the road at 5.30 am, moved by the concept of the ‘driveway dawn service’. I wasn’t sure if my Bermaguee Street neighbours would be partaking, and when I reached the street, mine was the only light. So I headed up to the cenotaph in case there’d been a social-distancing rebellion –…
Who could have known, back in December when I started the immune-suppressant Ocrevus treatment for my MS, that a pandemic was brewing? I’ve been feeling particularly exposed and even asked people at my March book launch (more on that later) to refrain from the usually obligatory hugs at the occasion. But now, a month later,…
After Council connected Quaama to the Brogo Dam supply in 1984, they sent a truck through the village collecting everyone’s rainwater tanks. ‘You won’t be needing these anymore—let us do you a favour and remove them for you!’ They needed people to pay for household water now—the last thing they wanted was people collecting their…
Write what you know, they say—and I know night. Jet black, dark of the moon night. Crisp shadows on bright, silvered lawn night. Still night of hush and mopoke hoot. Howling night of seethe and crash. Doona-burrowing, extra blanket, bed-beanie night. Night of sweat and swelter, sheet-tangle, turn and tumble. On a steamy summer night,…
1.30 am, New Year’s Eve. The FiresNearMe text: Put your plan into action. I hear a vehicle down on the road, coming in from the forest. Then another. Soon, a constant stream. 2 am. We’re backing down the driveway, in two cars. I have the dogs, food for them, water, my walker, and the Mechanic…
Thanks for your kind enquiries—my initial Ocrevus infusions are done, and nothing to report, no adverse reactions. As for any benefits, I won’t know until March. But something new—our neighbour’s bees have been descending en masse onto our birdbath, the shallow one. It must be the only accessible water source within range. They mostly cluster…
Hilary Mantel, on winning Bookers for her consecutive novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, compared it to waiting for a bus: ‘You wait 20 years for a Booker prize and then two come along at once.’ Two major events, years in the build-up, are culminating for me in the next couple of months.
It was my dirty secret for a while. Then I mentioned it to a friend … who confessed to a similar habit. And slowly they came out of the woodwork—other addicts. Or aficionados. In any case, many friends and neighbours with a predilection for jigsaw puzzles.