The Afterword

Tag: writing

  • Lunch with the Cat in the Hat

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    Peter
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    If you could have dinner with any fictional character who would it be? If I could have lunch with any fictional character, I would choose the Cat in the Hat. He would arrive without being invited. “You were thinking of me,” he would say, stepping through the door with his striped hat brushing the frame.…

  • The Best $45 We Ever Spent

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    Peter
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    What is the best purchase you have ever made? The best purchase I ever made was our first dog. We were newly married and living in Lismore on the Northern Rivers. One day we looked through the local paper and saw an advertisement for border collie puppies on a farm near Kyogle. We drove out…

  • What Kind of Bike?

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    Peter
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    What’s the funniest misunderstanding you’ve ever been part of? It was probably not the funniest misunderstanding I have ever been part of, but it was the most recent. We were having dinner at the college and meeting someone for the first time. The conversation turned to what everyone had done over the weekend. He mentioned…

  • AntennaPod

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    Peter
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    What app eats up most of your screen time — and do you even feel bad about it? I recently checked the Digital Wellbeing section in my phone settings. AntennaPod consistently comes out on top, anywhere up to an hour per day. I do not feel bad about it at all. AntennaPod is the app…

  • Too Busy Enlarging Our Lives to Live Them

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    Peter
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    If you could erase one trend from history, what would it be? If I could erase one trend from history, it might be the belief that bigger is always better. Bigger houses. Bigger cars. Bigger companies. Bigger cities. Bigger economies. Bigger audiences. Bigger ambitions. We have learned to treat growth as proof of health and…

  • The Same Storm, Different Trees

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    Peter
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    Do you think we’re shaped more by our experiences or by who we are? We are neither fixed selves untouched by life nor blank material shaped entirely by circumstance. We become who we are through the interaction of temperament, experience, relationships, choices and grace. Two people can endure the same event and be shaped in…

  • The Day I Stop Being Curious

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    Peter
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    Are you a lifelong learner? Some people collect jewellery. Art lovers collect paintings. Others collect coins. I seem to collect degrees. One qualification has often led to another, and then sometimes another after that. I now have seven degrees. That makes it sound more deliberate than it was. I never set out to accumulate qualifications.…

  • Writing That Fills Me

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    Peter
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    What’s one habit that has improved your life the most? When I first started writing as a hobby many years ago, I set aside one morning each week. It was a discipline, and for a while it worked. Eventually, though, it was crowded out. I stopped writing for myself during the years when I was…

  • Being Needed and Being Whole

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    Peter
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    What’s a chapter of your life you’d title “The Hard Years”— and what got you through it? People often say that a person’s forties can be the hardest years of their life. That was true for me. I would call that chapter The Hard Years. Not because everything collapsed, but because I came face to…

  • Ira’s Version

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    Peter
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    What is a book you think deserves a sequel? Some books do not need a sequel. They need another perspective. I wrote recently about how much I enjoyed Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons https://theafterword.blog/2026/05/16/a-single-day/. It is a novel about one ordinary day in the life of a middle-aged married couple, Maggie and Ira Moran, as they…

  • When the Villain Tells the Truth

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    Peter
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    What villain actually had a good point? I love the movie, Driving Miss Daisy. The characters are wonderful. Their relationships are beautiful. And it is funny as well. There is no straightforward villain in that film. Hoke is not the villain. Boolie is not the villain. Miss Daisy is flawed, proud, defensive, and shaped by…

  • Where Would I Live?

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    Peter
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    If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? I’m tempted to name a place I’ve never been. Costa Rica. It keeps popping up in my feed, which probably says as much about the algorithm as it does about me. But I am intrigued. The prompt asks, “If you could live anywhere…

  • Before The Problem Starts Shouting

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    Peter
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    What’s a lesson you’ve learned recently that shifted your perspective? Problems often speak before they shout. That is something I have been learning recently. Looking back, there have been situations where the signs were there early in the piece. They were not dramatic. They were not disasters. No alarms were ringing. But there were small…

  • More or Less

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    Peter
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    What do you love now, that you hated when you were younger? When I was younger, more seemed better. I loved to read, and building a library was something I valued. Book by book, shelf by shelf, I watched the collection grow. There was satisfaction in it. A growing library felt like a sign of…

  • Watership Down

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    Peter
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    What is a piece of media (book, movie, song)that changed how you see the world? I loved Watership Down when it came out in 1978. I saw the film first, and was so affected by it that I went on to read the book. That is very rare for me. Usually, if I have seen…

  • Meeting People Part Way

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    Peter
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    Which languages do you speak and how did that impact your life? I admire people who can speak multiple languages. Working in a university college, I spend my days talking with students from all over the world. The are here to study degrees that are taught in English but many of them speak multiple languages.…

  • Keep It Simple

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    Peter
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    What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you? The best advice I would give to someone younger than me is this: keep things simple. That may sound too plain to be useful, but a lot of wisdom is plain. We often make life harder than it needs to be. We overthink, rehearse,…

  • Character Outlasts Achievement

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    Peter
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    What is your top tip to be successful in life? My top tip for being successful in life is simple: character outlasts achievement. We live in a world that measures success by what can be counted, announced, awarded, or displayed. Titles, income, influence, publications, prizes, and recognition all have their place. Achievement matters. Good work…

  • Watching M.A.S.H. for the First Time Again

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    Peter
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    What’s a book, movie, or TV show that youwish you could experience again for the first time? I was late to the party when it came to M.A.S.H. It was not a show we ever watched at home. Then I went to college, and suddenly it became part of the daily rhythm. Straight after dinner,…

  • Practical Compassion

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    Peter
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    What is one way you have grown this year? One way I have grown this year is by learning that compassion has to become practical. Over the years I have become increasingly aware of how much pressure some students carry. International students can carry loneliness, financial stress, uncertainty about accommodation, worries about family, the need…