Australia
I am a creative writer (First Class Honours, University of Melbourne 2012) copywriter and journalist. My main areas of interest are philosophy, sustainability and health and wellbeing.
Since 2014 I’ve worked as a journalist and copywriter. My work has appeared in places like The Guardian, Dumbo Feather magazine, Broadsheet, The Weekly Review, Australian Traveller, Domain, Kill Your Darlings, Renew magazine, WellBeing magazine and Mary Journal.
I live by the ocean on the Mornington Peninsula, where I also teach yoga.
In February, a promising young athlete was swept off a beach and never found. Can anything help prevent the increase in drownings at unpatrolled beaches?
Legend has it that in 1915, Hawaiian surfing pioneer Duke Kahanamoku picked a local teenager from a crowd at a Sydney beach to ride tandem on a wave with him. Her name was Isabel Letham. Though some of the finer details of the story have since been disputed, Isabel went down in history as the first Australian to ride a surfboard.
annah was reading a book at Rye's ocean beach on a summer Saturday afternoon when she spotted a family getting into trouble in the water. At the same moment, her friend, Wade Cochrane, who was standing in the car park, also noticed the family.
While the Mornington Peninsula is flush with wineries, cafes and bathhouses, wine bars have always been a little thin on the ground. Enter Banksia Wine Room. The 50-seat venue, which opened in late February, is directly opposite McCrae Beach and breezy yet cosy; a tiny bit fancy yet fun.
As climate change tensions have ramped up over the past two years, there have been two phrases, in particular, quoted and re-quoted: "The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it," and, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
While many of us might picture a couple of burly men and a truck when thinking of a moving company, a few businesses are challenging this traditional model.
Steeped in a sloping site overlooking Tasmania's Tamar River is a house that's designed not to be "greedy" with views but to allow for moments of connections with nature. Rather than jutting out from the hill, the dwelling quietly steps down it, and rather than spreading out across the land, it occupies a modest footprint.
At the very beginning of last summer, I drove out into the high country - Taungurung country - to meet a group of people. I then spent four days and four nights fasting alone in the bush. Just me, a lot of birds and caterpillars, a thousand eucalypts, a yabby (or maybe it was a freshwater crayfish) and, at one moment, a wombat.
For decades, Mike Wiles and his wife Jane lived in a standard 1960s, gas-electric, brick veneer residence in Melbourne's eastern suburbs. Today, the couple lives in one of the most sustainable homes in Victoria's eco-housing estate, The Cape, driving an electric car, growing some of their own food and saving thousands each year in energy bills.
Elise Bialylew is a psychiatrist, mindfulness expert and global campaigner to get as many people onto their meditation cushions as possible - and raise funds for clean water in developing countries at the same time. She speaks with Jane Hone about what mindfulness means, why it's important and she came to found Mindful in May.
At the end of Jane Dickenson and Jamie Russell-Mudge's tea-tree-lined driveway in St Andrews Beach is a world all their own. The rambling 0.8-hectare property - which boasts an abundant supply of fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers, plus a slide, trampoline, wooden obstacle course, greenhouse, firepit and outdoor bath - is a home intuitively yet consciously created to mirror their passions and lifestyle.
I was staring recently at a wall covered in other people's dreams. They were written in the style of manifestation, as if they had already happened. People had described their dream home by the ocean; their perfect partner; their beautiful children; their deeply fulfilling, luxurious job.
How to escape the rat race: the couple that swapped city life for a dream existence
Image: Mikita Karasiou | Unsplash We live in a culture that is very much obsessed with the idea of movement: with growth, with progress, with advancing in a forward direction. In our work lives, we're often expected to be doing more than one thing at a time, and our ability to multitask has become something to brag about.
While I sat on my cushion on the floor of the big Vipassana hall, hours stacked upon hours like an absurd tower that reached up into the clouds and disappeared, I had two big realisations. (We weren't supposed to be having realisations.
Byron Bay: the land of sun, sand and sea. It's the place where wandering tourists bask in soul-reviving sunshine - until it starts raining. Locals and seasoned visitors know that when it rains in Byron, it pours. For those planning to spend their holiday surfing, cycling, walking and sunning, Byron's infamous subtropical rain can throw a spanner in the works.
It was a visit to see friends living and sailing around the Pacific Islands that sparked a deep desire in Billie Woods to live on a boat. The 34-year-old physiotherapist, who is originally from New Zealand, set about making her dream a reality not long after moving over to Western Australia's Albany six years ago.
From dating, to travel, to careers and what we eat, we think the more choices we have the better. But too many options can create anxiety and leave us unsatisfied. One solution is to focus on our needs, rather than desires.
How yin yoga can help us open the front body
I adore the freedom of working for myself and from home. I love that I can start work at 6am or 12pm; that I can peer out the window while working at my desk and then, when the mood strikes, relocate with my laptop to the floor and later, the couch; that I can cook my lunch in my own kitchen; take a walk on the beach to clear my head when necessary; and generally satisfy my mostly introverted tendencies.
Each September, home owners and designers across Australia throw open their doors to showcase and celebrate the latest in sustainable housing technologies. Sustainable House Day grows bigger and better every year, and event organiser Renew says trends for 2019 include several net-zero properties, which produce more energy than they consume.
I was terrified of athletics races at high school. Before a race, I would feel a churning in my stomach like I was going to vomit. But I was a fast runner, and it seemed important that I push myself to do this thing I didn't want to do, so I never backed out.
I dreamt recently that an old woman, my grandmother but not my grandmother, was going through a box of jewellery and delicately handing things to me. She was nearing death, and she was passing on pieces of knowledge, too-she told me every pearl of wisdom she'd ever learned.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. - Max Ehrmann, Desiderata I want you to tell yourself that you are special. I know, I know. There is too much of this kind of thinking these days.
How aware are you, at this very moment, of which areas in your body feel tense, or whether you're breathing into your chest or belly? Unless we are dancers or athletes or circus performers, most of us spend much more time in our heads than our bodies.
Legend has it that in 1915, Hawaiian surfing pioneer Duke Kahanamoku picked a local teenager from a crowd at a Sydney beach to ride tandem on a wave with him. Her name was Isabel Letham. Though some of the finer details of the story have since been disputed, Isabel went
Long thought of as the peace and love capital of Australia, Byron Bay has come a long way since its humble hippie beginnings. These days, every street corner seems to feature a gorgeous new cafe or a shop selling high-end fashion and furnishings, and, as a local friend of mine says, "you can hardly swing a dreamcatcher without hitting someone famous".
OK, January is well and truly under way. How are you going with that plan to get up earlier, do 10,000 steps a day and cut out alcohol? It's at this time of year that many of us realise that we've tried to take on too much with our new year's resolutions.
Ten years ago, Tim Ferriss burst onto the scene with his revolutionary book, The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. His idea? That we don't need to be working the standard 40-hour week, but can make more money while working fewer hours. Tim reasoned
It's one of the first major milestones in a relationship, but how do you know when the time is right to shack up with your beloved? First up, it's important to ask yourself whether you're still in the limerence phase of the relationship - that is, the period that usually lasts between 18 months and three years and has you all starry-eyed and wearing rose-tinted glasses.
If you've ever been mindlessly scrolling through the Foxtel TV guide, your ears would have been graced by the sweet tunes of the Foxtel DJ.You might have Shazammed the hell out of said TV guide and felt a dopey grin cross your face upon being reminded of such gems as Chicane's 'Don't Give Up' or ...
Fifty of us, all clad in white and with red dots on our foreheads, sit in a circle chanting. Our hands are in prayer position. In the centre sits a priest, who periodically sprinkles leaves and pours ghee into a small fire while he leads the chant. Our eyes are
Shadiya Nusrat, 32, and Steve Hocking, 31, spend their days fishing, climbing mountains, bathing under waterfalls, marvelling at Australian wildlife and finding gorgeous crystal clear beaches. At least, that's what they've been doing for the past 12 months.
Like many young Australians, Amy Plant and Richard Vaughan had always dreamed of owning their own home. They didn't, however, want to do it at the cost of their other dreams - namely continuing to travel the world, and perhaps moving overseas one day.
I recently heard someone say that it used to be that at 6pm, everyone would sit down to watch The Cosby Show. It seemed at once a quaint and almost sci-fi notion - millions of people watching the same show at the same time. How things have changed.
Jane Hone is a 2015 MWF programming intern. She completed her Honours in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne in 2012. The critical component of her thesis followed Helen Garner's feminist trajectory from Monkey Grip to The Spare Room, and looked at how age affects power and radicalism in women.
With the cost of living constantly going up, many renters are left wondering if there is any other way. Well, it turns out there is. Since February this year, Rowie Geraerts has lived in several inner city apartments, a mansion in St Kilda and a villa in Bali - all without paying a cent of rent.
Moving to New York City: it's a notion that figures in the wildest dreams of people the world over, but usually it remains just that - a dream. Not so for Claire Weller and Josh Evans, who made the move to the Big Apple two years ago.