Alison Stewart writer

Trek Across a Magic Kingdom

alisonstewartwriter — Sat, 04 May 2013 04:27:32 +0000

Cape Town’s Table Mountain is one of the seven natural wonders of the world, a UNESCO world-heritage listed area. Its hikes – the main one being the Hoerikwaggo Trail which runs 80 kilometres or so from the top of the mountain to the tip of the Peninsula at Cape Point - rivals some of the world’s great walks. But not many people know about this as the walk or parts of it are poorly publicised and can be difficult to organise.

Hiking Table Mountain, the mountain which Nelson Mandela has called “a gift to the earth” is something I should have done a lot earlier; I grew up on its slopes.

From 1000 metres up in the air, you occasionally glimpse Robben Island. As I consulted my excellent interpretive guide to the Table Mountain National Park, Mountains in the Sea – Table Mountain to Cape Point, produced by South African National Parks, I found Nelson Mandela’s words pertinent:

“Over centuries the mountain has stood as a symbol of human capacity for hope and freedom, whether for the Khoikhoi tribes fighting colonial domination, for Indonesian and Malaysian slaves who for generations buried their leaders and holy men on it slopes, or for twentieth century political prisoners. It is … a sacred and precious place … To us on Robben Island, Table Mountain was a beacon of hope. It represented the mainland to which we knew we would one day return.”

For someone growing up under apartheid, who took the mountain for granted, as with many other things, I now understand that this mountain is not just any mountain.

I hope you enjoy my article, published as the cover story on May 4, 2013 in The Sydney Morning Herald Traveller/The Age Travel and other Fairfax newspapers. Here is the online link, followed by screen shots of the cover and double page spread:

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/trek-across-a-magic-kingdom-20130502-2iu9u.html

Short break at Tower Lodge, Hunter Valley

alisonstewartwriter — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 01:06:58 +0000

Rob and I spent a relaxing weekend at Tower Lodge in the Hunter Valley. You can find the story in Luxury Travel Magazine’s Summer 2013 issue. Here’s the PDF:

Luxury Travel Tower Lodge, Hunter Valley

Climb Every Mountain – cycling in Provence travel story

alisonstewartwriter — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 04:26:24 +0000

Here’s my story on cycling in Provence. It was the cover story in The Sun-Herald Travel on January 15, 2013 – see below - and you can also read it online at smh.com.au:

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/activity/active/climb-every-mountain-20130111-2cjto.html

Stairways to heaven – Cinque Terre travel story

alisonstewartwriter — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 04:19:42 +0000

Please have a look at my recent travel story about walking in Italy’s magnificent Cinque Terre. It’s in Sydney Morning Herald Traveller on January 12 and you can read it online at:

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/stairways-to-heaven-20130111-2ck9o.html

Reading Marathon Reviews reviews Days Like This

alisonstewartwriter — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 06:45:18 +0000

This review is from Kate at Reading Marathon Reviews

http://readingmarathonreviews.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/review-days-like-this-by-alison-stewart.html

Tuesday, 27 March 2012

Review: Days Like This by Alison Stewart

I was extremely excited about this book since A. It’s set in Australia, B. It is similar to John Marsden’s Tomorrow series [which I love] and C. It was a fantastic YA read, that needs more publicity! The genre of dystopian is rapidly growing, [these have to be some of my favourites] such as The Hunger Games, these books mainly take place in America in the future, which does not seem as real to me but since this book is based in Australia it had a great connection to me and made it seem real.

Days Like This follows Lily, who has not stepped outside of her house since the Wall was built, in Sydney. “The Warming” has stripped the land bare; anyone living outside the priviledged area around Sydney is left in the barren wasteland to perish and is shown no mercy. Life at home has been dreadful for Lily and her twin brother Daniel, only her little sister is shown love from their parents, when Daniel disappears, Lily knows she is also in danger and must escape.

I found Lily very likeable, she loves her family and willingly risks her life to save them. Lily is strong, stubborn and clumsy, she seems so real and full of courage she was able to make me admire her.

I love how Alison Stewart has used a mixture of characters, made some loveable, others dangerous and many heroic, making the plot thicker with mystery and suspense. The plot was amazing, the mysterious that surrounded this future world made me turn the pages fast with eagerness! Unfortunately the ending was a huge disappointment, it was rushed and ruined the book, I think it could of been made into two books and built on, more of the mysteries solved but overall I thought it was a fantastic book.

Royal Canadian Pacific Express luxury train trip

alisonstewartwriter — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:10:22 +0000

My cover story on the Royal Canadian Express luxury train trip from Calgary to Vancouver was in The Sun-Herald Travel and Sunday Age Travel on November 4, 2012.

Read it here:

Royal Canadian cover

Royal Canadian cover story

Or look at it online at:

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/five-days-in-a-rolling-time-capsule-20121102-28nzy.html

Paris Postcard travel story

alisonstewartwriter — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 07:43:38 +0000

A recent trip to Paris took me back a few years. Read about it here:

SHDD31FBA07OCT12

Or you can find it at The Sydney Morning Herald’s online site here:

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/a-trip-down-memory-lane-20121005-273ue.html

Elizabeth Braithwaite on Guilt and Responsibility in young adult texts

alisonstewartwriter — Tue, 29 May 2012 01:21:57 +0000

I was interested to read Elizabeth Braithwaite’s recent paper on the complex issues of guilt and responsibility in young adult texts that deal with environmental disaster.

The paper, published in Barnboken Journal of Children’s Literature Research Volume 35 (2012) and titled “The hope – the one hope – is that your generation will prove wiser and more responsible than mine” examines the concept of guilt in a selection of texts. The texts include Brother in the Land by Robert Swindells, The Last Children by Gudrun Pausewang, Nuclear War Diary by James E. Sanford, The Carbon Diaries 2015 and The Carbon Diaries 2017 by Saci Lloyd and my own Days Like This.

The first three texts, published in the 1980s deal with nuclear disaster while the last three, published in 2008, 2009 and 2011, deal with climate change.

Elizabeth Braithwaite argues that in post-nuclear texts for young adults, the emphasis tends to be on the perceived responsibility of the young adult reader’s generation to work towards preventing the disaster from becoming reality, rather than on the guilt of the adult generation that caused the disaster.

It is encouraging to read a serious discussion dealing with possible responses to my book and others. While I appreciate that writers write primarily to create a vibrant environment with an absorbing plot, it is also gratifying when a critical reader also understands and initiates a discussion about writers’ intentions. Days Like This, and the deliberate choice of the dystopian genre (when my other young adult books are firmly realistic) sprang from my real concerns about the state of our world, rather than merely the desire to write a plot-driven and sensational story.

One of my most critical concerns has been the rise of the individual, combined with the collapse of community from which all manner of ills arise. In Days Like This, people’s dismissal of global warming leads to dramatically diminished resources and a deeply selfish world. This savage individuality finds form in the pursuit of power at the expense of community and is taken to extremes in the manipulation of people to serve the desires of a few.

As Elizabeth Braithwaite discusses, while there is some focus on the guilt of adults who might have contributed to the reality of the disaster, the book hopes to encourage its young adult readers to examine confronting issues like individualism over community and the neglect of climate change to mention two, and then to work through what they really do value. Because in the end, it is this generation, these young adults, who are on the cusp of having the power to make the important decisions. And how better to capture their imagination than to try and write a disaster novel that allows its readers to look outside their world into a future whose course they do indeed have the power to influence. The intention is to challenge readers to examine what they really value. Do they value a sense of historic and literal place, the natural environment and the dignity of the individual or would they prefer a world that satisfies them only materially?

Writes Braithwaite: “Rather than the opposition between young adult and adult, as in the nuclear texts, or between the responsible young adult who relates to those around her and the selfish adult or other young adult, Days Like This sets up an opposition between present and past: the past of the text being, as Stephens explains above, the reader’s present. Days Like This also puts forward compassion for others as the way towards the best kind of society:

Let us put that bad time behind us and look to the future. Let us never return to a world that forgot its people. Let us try to respect and value one another, even those who forgot how to do this.

(Stewart 2011, 284)

I encourage people to read Elizabeth Braithwaite’s paper. You can find it here: http://www.barnboken.net/index.php/clr/article/view/15316/22276

Elizabeth Braithwaite is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Memory, Imagination and Invention at Deakin University.

Days Like This Young Contemporaries review

alisonstewartwriter — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:18:43 +0000

Kate reviewed Days Like This on her website, The Young Contemporaries, on March 27, 2012. Thank you Kate for your positive review. Here’s some of it: “I was extremely excited about this book since A. It’s set in Australia, B. It is similar to John Marsden’s Tomorrow series [which I love] and C. It was a fantastic YA read, that needs more publicity! … Days Like This follows Lily, who has not stepped outside of her house since the Wall was built, in Sydney. “The Warming” has stripped the land bare; anyone living outside the priviledged area around Sydneyis left in the barren wasteland to perish and is shown no mercy. Life at home has been dreadful for Lily and her twin brother Daniel, only her little sister is shown love from their parents, when Daniel disappears, Lily knows she is also in danger and must escape. I found Lily very likeable, she loves her family and willingly risks her life to save them. Lily is strong, stubborn and clumsy, she seems so real and full of courage she was able to make me admire her. I love how Alison Stewart has used a mixture of characters, made some loveable, others dangerous and many heroic, making the plot thicker with mystery and suspense. The plot was amazing, the mysterious that surrounded this future world made me turn the pages fast with eagerness! … Any people that are fans of The Hunger Games or James Marsden’s Tomorrow series, this is a must read!”

You can see the entire review here: http://youngcontemporaries.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/review-days-like-this-by-alison-stewart.html

Mount Nelson Hotel Cape Town high tea travel story

alisonstewartwriter — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 06:35:24 +0000

Here’s my story about Cape Town’s “Nellie” – the lovely old Mount Nelson Hotel which offers a gorgeous high tea. The story was in Sun Herald Travel and is also online:

Mount Nelson High Tea Sun Herald Travel

and online at: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/high-times-at-the-nellie-20120218-1tfl4.html