From Amazon in paperback and e-book. (Please note that the e-book is available in Kindle Unlimited only until 23 August.) From Amazon in paperback and e-book. (Please note that it is available in Kindle Unlimited only until 23 August 2024.) Bookshops and retailers Cafes and Giftshops
Hey there. I’ve been writing pieces for my blog here for a couple of years at least and it’s hard, hard work finding readers. So I’m moving! I’ve opened a Substack, which is like a shopping arcade for writers and readers, with lots of followers and subscribers milling about looking for good reads. Sounds like … More I’ve moved to Substack!
It beats me how some people go to Cradle Mountain and just take a selfie. You really should venture for even a short walk to immerse yourself in Tasmania’s iconic National Park. When a friend visited for the first time recently, I sent her a selection of walks so she’d know what to expect. There … More Five Walks at Cradle Mountain
On the Facebook group Travelling Tasmania, you often see posts from people asking for help with their five day tour, in which they post a crazy list of the places they intend going. Those of us who’ve lived here for a while can’t help but chuckle, or sometimes groan. It takes longer to get round … More Drive times in Tasmania
If you’re a writer, you’ve probably profiled your typical reader, so you know exactly what they look like. There are exceptions to the rule, and you can’t absolutely nail every aspect of every individual your books will appeal to. My typical reader is a woman, but there have been men who’ve read my books and … More Can you spot your reader?
At long last Saddleback Wife – Slow Food in Tasmania is out and about. If you’ve been waiting for it, thank you so much for your patience! Here’s some blurb about the book and news of its launch. The dream of running a small gourmet farm business is not all it seems! Told with trademark wry … More The Wife is published!
After the long slog of writing, Saddleback Wife is in final draft form at last and talks are happening with a potential editor this weekend. Saddleback Wife is the story of the farm we ran on our five acres in Tasmania. It began with two little sows called Bella and Rosie and went on to … More Saddleback Wife Goes to Edit
A craft brewer’s wife came to give a talk at a farm tour I organized once. She was playing to her home crowd, a room full of farming women and some hopefuls just breaking into the niche farming and produce sector. Feed your curiosity. Nobody was surprised when she showed a slide with a list … More Small Farm Dream
Quite a long time, is the answer to that question. I found an image of me on my Instagram feed recently, seated at a table in the window of my office. In it, I’m beavering away on the draft of my next book, Saddleback Wife – Slow Food in Tasmania. The post was dated January … More How long does it take to write a book?
I started reading as a kid after bedtime, under the covers with a torch. Literally. I’m not sure where I would have got a torch from as an eight year old, but the memory is pretty vivid. Famous Five, Secret Seven, I had to finish them in one go. They mirrored my daytime life, out … More Reading in bed has lasted a lifetime and kept me sane(ish)
Leaving behind everything we knew in the cities of England and Australia, we moved our family to rural Tasmania before it was fashionable to do so, and set ourselves up on five acres. The adventures of our first five years became the material for my first memoir, Apple Island Wife – Slow Living in Tasmania. … More Saddleback Wife – more slow living in Tasmania
I read numerous brilliant books researching Sissinghurst Castle Gardens and its creators Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. Here are ten random things I learned, and some I just thought about. As I read about the demise of wildlife in England since the dawning of the industrial age, it made me wonder what differences Vita and … More Ten things I learned while researching Sissinghurst and Vita Sackville-West
There comes a point in a person’s life where camping and outdoorsy pursuits must be compensated for. If I’m heading to Derby for a weekend’s biking with my son, hoisting my leg over a saddle during the day and sleeping under canvas at night, there will be no cooking on the camp-stove in the evenings. … More Where to eat in Derby, Tasmania
Ann Patchett is the kind of novelist we’d all like to be – successful, award-winning, a nice person by all accounts, and she writes a bloody good book. I read Commonwealth last year with no expectations, and found myself engrossed in a family saga. Well here’s another one – The Dutch House, every bit as … More The Dutch House by Ann Patchett – book review
Unbelievably, it’s fifteen years since we took the plunge and moved to Tasmania. We loved it from the moment we got here and haven’t looked back. Here are eight things we’ve loved the best. Gained a Sense of Space We’ve got five acres. That sounded huge when we first got here, but now we realise … More Eight things we’ve done since moving to Tasmania
Do your short stories consistently fail to hit the mark in competitions? When judging the Tasmanian Short Story competition, I found that many entries fell into the same classic traps, falling short of the mark and sending them to the bottom of the slush pile immediately. Here are my two top tips on how to … More How to begin a short story
Years ago, I saw a picture of Richard Burton sitting on a sunlit step at his house in Switzerland, reading. There was none of the posing of Insta-friendly celeb photos. He wore a warm, soft, creamy cardigan and his attitude was one of complete absorption in the book held loosely in one hand. Alongside that … More How Richard Burton made me want a library of my own
I wanted to do something a little different. We were asked to write a short piece introducing ourselves, for the second unit in my Masters of Creative Writing with Deakin University. So I ‘rang Martin Amis’ and had him interview me as we stood on the rooftops, he in Paris in the 1970s, and myself … More Martin Amis helps you get to know me
There are two points of the year when authors sink into a funk, and that’s March and October when we’re paid. Did you know that writers receive approximately ten percent of the Recommended Retail Price of their book? After publishers take off the costs of production, printing, distribution and marketing and a bit of cream … More The Constant Hustle of Publishing
It’s hard writing a book and even harder marketing one. If you’ve got paperbacks or hard copies out there in bookshops or online, well done. You’ve probably been on a long slog to get to that point. It’s hard work selling books as well and you have to feel for bricks and mortar booksellers. They’re … More On the Shelf
We’re at home today with one child, two from tomorrow. Obviously English is one subject I feel a bit qualified to help mine with. So here’s the first assignment I’m setting my year eleven daughter. It’s based on the film Love Actually, which we’ve watched a few times recently in an effort to keep cheerful. … More Home schooling questions on the film 'Love Actually'
I’ve been on Instagram for a couple of years and posted all sorts of stuff: pics from my farm, food I’ve eaten, and ‘Author Shots’ – a series in which I recreate shots of great writers using myself as… err… the model. But lately I’ve focused my account more on what I love – books … More How to do Instagram if you’re an author or writer
The seventh best chef in the world is in need of a smoke. Alex Atala’s restaurant DOM in Sao Paolo has occupied a doughty spot in the World’s Best list for fifteen years. Now he’s come to Tasmania as the last guest in the 2018 Great Chefs Series, which sees international names working with students … More Shooting Star: Alex Atala does Tasmania
Just before she appeared in The Times and the Daily Mail, I asked best selling self-published author Nicola May if she’d do a Q&A for my blog – on what makes a best seller – both in the writing and the marketing of a book. Nicola is a lovely lady who can be found sharing … More Q&A with Nicola May – what makes a best seller
Bill Bryson doesn’t need reviews, but I write in the same genre, travel memoir, and sometimes my book has nestled thrillingly alongside his in the online booksellers categories (a very comfortable spot, thank you). Reading him again has been a reinvigorating experience, which I daresay he’d be quietly pleased to know. Bryson’s cleverness lies in … More Little Dribbling review
Books are the best gift. Always welcome, often surprising, long-lasting and enriching. I love to give books as gifts, so I’ve gone through my book shelves and chosen a few that would make great gifts for Father’s Day. There’s something for everyone here – whether the man you’re giving to is into health, travel, business, … More Father’s Day Gift Books
This post is mostly for authors – a look at that great and ongoing mystery, how the bloody hell you market a book. You’ve written it, you’ve had it published, held it in your hands and it’s real. Congratulations! But that was the easy bit. Now comes the real challenge – getting the bloody thing … More Marketing Your Book
There are great places to eat and drink in the Tamar Valley – if you know where to look. In a recent feature article in a national newspaper, a prominent chef shared his pick of the Tamar – including places on the central north coast. Bizarre. Below are the places we like to go, and … More Where to eat in the Tamar Valley, Tasmania
Last year when my book was in the final stages of edit, three men in my writers’ group told me they would not buy it because it had the word ‘wife’ in the title. To put their remarks in context, we were having a discussion about the title, and whether I should change it. An old … More Do women and men choose books differently?
Chosen with care and a canny feel for what a person enjoys reading, a book is a great gift for Mother’s Day – or any other day and any of the special peeps in your life. I lean towards British writers rather than Australian and I hadn’t really considered how many Australian female writers I … More Books to gift for Mother’s Day Australia
Are you writing a memoir? Who do you think you are anyway! If you’re not a football player, a celebrity blogger, an ex-politician, comedian or actor, why would people be interested? Plenty of reasons. Memoir and autobiography are a perpetually popular genre. People love getting an insight into other people’s lives, whether they’re famous, unusual, … More How to write memoir
I’ve read a lot of literary fiction and commercial fiction in my reading life, and there’s a constant narrative in my head about the relative merits of the two, and whether there should even be a distinction. I’ve just read Marian Keyes’ latest novel The Break and wrote a review of it for Goodreads, and … More Marian Keyes versus Colm Toibin
If I have one goal in life it’s to appear on the legendary BBC Radio 4 program Desert Island Discs. For fifty years, the Beeb has been casting celebs and other notables away to a hypothetical desert island, on a weekly basis. As aids to survival, they must choose the eight music tracks they will … More The Hot Seat on City Park Launceston
It’s been a turbulent week. Oliver, my Other Half, always says you have to take the rough with the smooth, or as he puts it, the “ultra-smoove”. Once an Essex boy, always an Essex boy. On the upside, Apple Island Wife, the book, the birth, the long-awaited tome, is designed, blurbed, raising its head above … More Launch day for Apple Island Wife!
Describing a restaurant as a safe pair of hands is a damp squib of a compliment if ever there was one. So much better to liken it to the kind of friend it would be, or better still, what kind of lover. If The Gorge Restaurant in Launceston were a swain, it would be worth swooning … More The Gorge Restaurant Launceston: review
Early this year I had one of those ‘oh shit’ moments which I’ve since learned is commonplace in a freelance writer’s life, when you realise that you haven’t actually got any work. Writing a book is quite an undertaking and since late last year I had been working with my publisher on the structural edit … More Writing life and the side hustle
During the long silence, I have not been kicking back on an eastern shore with a plate of oysters (only for a week in the summer). No, I’ve been channelling Dalton Trumbo and hard at work, as pictured, on the structural edit of my book, Apple Island Wife. Just before Christmas, the manuscript went off to … More Apple Island Wife goes to edit
Imagine having a member of staff within your household dedicated to keeping the wine cellar stocked, the laundry fresh, vehicles fuelled and faux pas in etiquette and appearance to a minimum. One could breeze through life with considerably more ease. Not many are in a position to avail themselve of such an individual these days. … More What the Butler Saw
To mark the occasion of being fully funded for publication, author Fiona Stocker met with Martin Amis, literary genius and tennis player of some note, who joined her from a rooftop in Paris in 1980. Here’s what he had to say. FS: “Thanks for joining us, Martin. What are your thoughts on the status of … More Celebratory interview with Martin Amis
So next year, I’m publishing a travel writing memoir with independent UK publisher Unbound, the world’s first crowdfunding publisher. Here’s the latest update from my campaign page on the Unbound website, about how the crowdfunding is going. In a nutshell, almost there!! The book is 90% funded. I have a couple more conversations and … More Crowdfunding with Unbound
I’m a creature of habit, when I’m writing and when I’m not. Every day I have the same breakfast, the same snacks, and morning coffee at the same time. No thinking is required, it’s fuel. My new snack of choice is Vegan Bliss Balls. They’re nutty and sugar free, as required by my doctor. Sometimes … More What food in fiction
Something unexpected has happened – my husband has turned out to be right. This may sound like a trifling event, and it’s only about smoking sausages, but for Oliver to be wholly right and me wholly wrong is unprecedented and has never happened in the course of our marriage. We agreed many years ago that I … More My Smoking Hot Husband
As a writer, it’s lovely to get onto the radio and be able to talk about your book. It helps bring it alive – not just for readers and listeners, but for the author as well! Time passes between writing a book and getting it published, and very often you forget what you’ve written! So much so that … More Interview on Launceston’s City Park Radio
Author Fiona Stocker today won the approval of her livestock for her tales of rural living. ‘She knows great literature when she hears it, that pig,’ said Stocker, pictured on her ranch with Bettina, the Berkshire sow. ‘I don’t know what she’s on about,’ Bettina was quoted as saying later. ‘I only came out of … More Crowdfunding Apple Island Wife
Mr Cumberbatch and I have many things in common. We like a drink at four o’clock. We support our local newspapers and admire good journalism (although I probably wouldn’t choose either of the examples pictured here as my top choice). And we support the arts. He’s got better legs than me, I’ll give him that, … More Learning how to do crowdfunding
There’s a tradition where I live in rural Tasmania of swapping foodstuffs. It’s an edible black market, dealing in things from the river, the land and the larder. Over the years we’ve dealt in eggs, pork, salmon, venison, wallaby patties, Riesling and sausages. We once gained half a lamb when our retired sheepdog help round … More How to Cook a Pheasant.
To ready myself for best seller status, I’ve taken inspiration from Jilly Cooper, whose success and property portfolio in the Cotswolds I aspire to. I had that tooth removed specially. Turns out crowdfunding a book is every bit as much of a ride as one of Jilly’s polo novels! Elation one minute, doldrums the next … More The crowdfunding roller coaster
Fiona Stocker Writer 