The Yin-Yang of being a writer

Journalist, Walkley award winner and Order of Australia recipient Tracey Spicer draws inspiration from precious moments of solitude.

It might seem odd sharing a photo of paddleboarding to describe a writerly life. But the thinking must come before the writing.

I spend an awful lot of time by myself walking, paddling and meditating. In these exquisite moments of solitude, the mind is allowed to wander.

This doesn't necessarily means that writers are lonely. The counterpoint to this silence is the joyous cacophony of a writers' festival. It is the very definition of a yin-yang experience.

Tracey Spicer AM BBus(Comm) MAICD is a multiple Walkley Award winning author, journalist and broadcaster.

In 2019 she was named the NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year, accepted the Sydney Peace Prize alongside Tarana Burke for the Me Too movement, and won the national award for Excellence in Women’s Leadership through Women & Leadership Australia. For her 30 years of media and charity work, Tracey has been awarded the Order of Australia.

Her 2023 novel Man-Made, exposes the next frontier of feminism through the lens of artificial intelligence.  It won the 2023 Australian Business Book Awards, Social Responsibility, and was Longlisted for the 2023 Walkley Book Award. Man-Made is her second novel, following her 2017 memoir The Good Girl Stripped Bare: From bogan to boned and beyond -- a full-frontal 'femoir'.

(Note - this book is brilliant and a must-read for all women. Extra special thanks to Tracey for this blog, as possibly the busiest person on the planet :)