STOP PRESS 
Rodney Jensen’s short story “The Salty” has been selected for an anthology of 12 contributors in the inaugural Art & Words project for the Northern Beaches in 2019.
All stories will be matched with selected artists, who will develop artwork to be included in a printed anthology which will be displayed and available for purchase at the Manly Art Gallery & Museum and all Northern Beaches Library locations. The anthology and original artworks will also be on exhibition as part of the Manly Arts Festival from Friday 6–29 September.
REVIEW
posted 09 October 2018
“The Sea” by John Banville, Picador 2005 
Reviews should really be written when the book has just been read without allowing peripheral considerations to crowd in and diminish the emotional impact.
As I write this I have tears in my eyes after turning the last page. I was unaware, when I commenced reading this work, that it chronicles through the eyes of the story-teller “Max”, his state of mind after experiencing the death of his wife from terminal cancer. Some of the pages dealing with this were hard for me to continue reading because of their poignant power and my recent similar experiences.
But that is only part of a much broader canvas in which Max takes up residence in a guest house in coastal Ireland to escape from his former marital home. The sea is a powerful environmental backcloth to the past and the present. Here Max recollects episodes from his flaky memory including the time holidaying in the same place with his family, including memorable adolescent experiences with a flamboyant well-heeled family having creative parents, boy/girl twins of his own age and the enigmatic Rose who acts as the twins’ tutor.
To say much more would be a spoiler to the powerful climactic episodes which contrast so sharply with the lyrical and poetic descriptions of place and character which mark Banville as one of the great novelists of the recent past. “The Sea” deservedly won the Man Booker Prize in 2005.
NBWG Team Wins Top Award From WABIAD For ‘The Guitar Wizard’
A group of 10 authors from the Northern Beaches Writers’ Group collaborated to write ‘The Guitar Wizard’ in the open category of WABIAD. The writers were: Emily Antonio, Leah Boonthanom, Bronwen Bowden, Jacqui Brown, Rodney Jensen, Chris Lake, Tony McFadden, Kylie Pfeiffer, Zena Shapter and Sonia Zadro.
‘The Guitar Wizard’ in its final form was launched on 30 June 2018
‘A Noise on an Island’ was launched on 16 June 2018
‘A Fearsome Engine’ was launched in November 2016
