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I feel quilty. I haven't written anything here for months. In the beginning this was going to be my record of my writing journey, but somehow I became sidetracked. That other road I'm hurtling down at the moment is my 3 year creative writing course at Swinburne University. For the past months I've been flip flopping between the novel I'm currently writing and the academic research and write up. A requirement of this course is to keep a reflective journal in which I jot down plot lines, analyse my research and record my emotional roller coaster ride through supreme optimism and down right fear of failure.  At the moment I am somewhere in the middle. Could it be possible that I'm actually balanced?

'The Story of the Story: Ethics, Therapy, and Life Writing'  Conference, 28th September 2009 at Flinders University, Adelaide. Three intense days of intimate, revealing presentations. However, to their credit,  the organisers allowed plenty of time, not only for questions, but for the delegates to chat over coffee and cake. This conference was so different to the large scale and constant rush of Illinois. I'm also pleased to say that this time we had access to computers and could augment our talks with PowerPoint presentations. I'm sure my five 'picture' slides, were enough. I didn't want people to suffer from PowerPoint overload. The masterclass on ethics with Margaretta Jolley was thought provoking even though many of us will contine to grapple with thorny ethical issues

Sunday was a warm sunny day and Endendale Community Farm at Eltham an excellent venue for this festival run by the Eltham Bookshop. What a title, World Matters: End of Certainty: Celebration of new questions, of fresh alternatives: history, politics, philosophy, international relations, gender, social/cultural studies. So many interesting debates and the opportunity to showcase the work of many authors.

I'm back from the fastest overseas trip ever. In one go I traveled from Melbourne to Los Angeles to Chicago and finally arrived at Champagne Urbana in Illinois. I've been finger printed, xrayed, checked for swine flu, oink, oink, and passed all scrutiny. This time it was travel-on luggage only and I was amazed how well I managed with everything I needed for 16 days weighing only 7 kilos. I'm convinced that is the way I will travel in the future, fast and lean. 

I could write a book about the Fifth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry at the University of Illinois and how wonderful it was to have the support of Barb Biggs and Susan Bardy. Wonderful, generous women. Susan introduced me the the gurus of autoethography, Carolyn Ellis and Art Brochner. I came away totally inspired and relieved that my paper was well recieved.

A highlight of this trip was visiting my pen friend of 35 yrs, 93 year old Martha Bogert. We had four wonderful days together and Patt, her daughter even drove down from Santa Fe, picked me up at Albuquerque, drove to Portal Arizona, cooked delicious meals and took me back to Albuquerque. We've arranged for her and her partner to visit us here in Australia in February for a trip down to Tasmania. But that's another story....