Beyond Selidor

I have such a tangled mess of feelings about Canberra that I'm not sure I'm the one to recommend it - I find it so hard to separate the city from my self, my history and my feelings about those things. But it was a marvellous place to grow up, and while it's very, very suburban, it can be beautiful too.

I'm fascinated by people's relationship with place, with land(scape) and identity and history and home. (To the extent that I wrote honours, MPhil and PhD theses on several variations on this theme!) 'Visual signature' is exactly the phrase I was looking for, and it's not something that's limited to Australia of course. Do you feel the same about the look and feel of the Philippines?

I am so glad you asked me about whether I'm in Australia right now, because I also love meeting internet people! Unfortunately, I currently live in the UK (I moved to Cambridge for university about seven years ago and never left). However, I am going back to Australia to visit family and friends in December this year and would absolutely love to meet up with you then! My mum and sister live in Sydney and my dad, stepmother and other sisters live in Melbourne, and I'm likely to be in Melbourne for about five days and Sydney for the rest of the time. If mid-December is going to work for you and your partner, I would love to either meet up in Melbourne or we could come for the day to where you are (I would have my own partner with me). But December is ages away, so let's organise the logistics closer to when I'll actually be there!

Yay, meeting lovely internet people!

Six questions:

1. What is one thing you like about creating art?
2. What is a story (novel-length, short story, piece of poetry with a strong narrative element, whatever you like) that has resonated with you this year?
3. You mentioned Australia's 'distinct visual signature'. What would you say is the 'visual signature' of the Philippines?
4. What is one thing that surprised you about Australia?
5. Which three works of literature from the Philippines would you recommend and why?
6. Not really a question, but please tell me about your RIDICULOUS POMERANIANS!