Nothing in this book is true—please believe me when I tell you that these stories are complete fabrications. Lies. Fantasies plucked from thin air, dreams recorded after deep sleep, tales spun from nothing. This is what a fiction writer does.

The stories in Divertimento were learning pieces written over a decade or so. University and writing group assignments, competition entries, and stories written just because.

Don’t look for people you know in the pages of this book—they won’t be there. What you may find is a familiar turn of phrase stolen from a shared conversation; a setting described in a way that makes you feel you have been in that place; a situation that you have heard of in gossip or the nightly news. There any similarity ends.

It is the craft of a writer to steal details from life and blend them into a story of sufficient veracity that readers will swallow the tale, plausible or not, without needing to spit out indigestible gristle or bone.

I invite you to read my words and see if I have managed to weave my characters, settings and situations into stories that pass the test. If I have succeeded, all to the good—if not, that’s okay, all writers are on a learning curve and there are always more tricks to discover, more characters to invent, and more places to visit.

Thanks for coming along with me on the journey.

Ginninderra Press, publication date – 24 April 2021
ISBN – 9781761090905 (ebook 9781761090912)
RRP – $30.00

How to order:

https://www.ginninderrapress.com.au/store.php?product/page/2270/Julie+Thorndyke+%2F+Divertimento