Old writer on the block

The writing diary of a well-mellowed science writer who cares about the public understanding of science and knows the ropes. This blog bounces between my curiosity, the daily realities of professional writing, the joy of pursuing nature, and my recycling of ideas that won't be in some book or other as far as I can see, but still needed sharing. I welcome comments and suggestions! Spam will be blocked and reported. For my books, see http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/writing/index.htm

Thursday, 2 April 2026

Epigraphs, aphorisms and quotes with teeth

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  Ask yourself, where would you go to find bits like this to kick off an essay, a talk, a chapter or a book? The purpose of computing is ins...
Tuesday, 31 March 2026

Where did Australians get their own language?

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There is room for a very interesting dictionary of  Australianisms. But I have no time to collect such a list. Richard Twopeny, Town Life in...
Thursday, 12 March 2026

Something completely different

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  I have decided to recycle some old research. The result is a new blog called salient quotations. You will find the entries here:  https://...
Wednesday, 18 February 2026

Diary of a project

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  Or, I am going dotty. Some of my older friends know that I used to do stipple doodles. Some of my former colleagues know that I used to do...
Sunday, 15 February 2026

I Aten't Dead Yet

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 I have been unwontedly silent for a bit, getting what is definitely going to be the last book ever  sorted. Currently called Fables, Fibs a...
Tuesday, 11 November 2025

Cryptogams of North Head

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Nobody really talks about cryptogams these days. Cryptog r ams , yes, but not cryptogams. In the 19th century,  cryptogams  were the 'lo...
Wednesday, 5 November 2025

You don’t have to be crazy to be a writer (It does help, though.)

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This is a resurrection of an article I wrote ten years back, because it says a few important things, and it had been locked away behind a pa...
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About Me

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Peter Macinnis
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Peter Macinnis turned to writing after his promising career as a chiaroscuro player was tragically cut short by a caravaggio crash during the Trompe L'Oeil endurance race. He recently did remarkably well in the early rounds of the celebrity underwater cooking program, Moister Chef, but he was disqualified for using dried fruits and desiccated coconut. He has a pet leech named Gladys, which has lived in a container on his desk for the last six months, as part of another book, and he is an expert echidna handler and ant lion wrangler. He wrote both the score and the libretto for the acclaimed opera Manon Troppo.

Sorry, that’s not quite right. I write and sometimes broadcast about science, for young and old. I write mainly about science, environment, or social history for both adults and children, depending on how the fit takes me on a given morning. I usually have one book coming back after editing or in production, one being edited, one being written and one or more being actively researched.
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