Thursday 28 June 2007

Kate Rossmanith's lovely feature in this month's The Monthly eclipsed, for me, the cover story on Rupert Murdoch's new wife, Wendy Deng. I did read the latter piece, too, and enjoyed learning about Deng's outgoing personality and aspirations.

But Rossmanith's little piece touched me. It ends with a sigh. And it uses the dreaded 'I'. It didn't put me off. There seems to be a welded-on convention in the world of media to avoid using the personal pronoun. In a feature I wrote last year, I used it. But Rossmanith's a lot better at it than me.

The article is about Far North Queensland and crocodiles, being a study in miniature of how locals treat these rough beasts. Avoid going near the water in the evening. Just watch for odd-looking logs that weren't there yesterday. It flows along so easily and smooth that the terrific ending just crept up on me. The surprise was full of pleasure.

A writer to watch for (another: last year I discovered the fun of reading Chloe Hooper's feature articles; she won a Walkley).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It was an excellent issue of The Monthly all round, I thought.