Fire and Bone Writing
My writing is forged from the raw elements of living and dying, shaped by memory, spirit, and silence.
These are stories that carry both the heat of transformation and the marrow of truth.
Ajanta | Stories of Fire and Bone
I am a writer, poet, and visual artist whose work lives at the crossroads of memory, spirituality, and the elemental world. My practice weaves together memoir, poetry, and hybrid forms that move between the formal and the experimental, the intimate and the universal.
As the founder of Ajanta’s Cave Press, I create works that hold space for truth-telling and transformation. Much of my writing engages with death and dying; not only as endings, but as thresholds, portals, and teachers. Through this lens, I explore legacy, grief, and the many ways love endures beyond absence.
I am also drawn to the spiritual and the esoteric: the subtle currents of silence, the unseen, the archetypal. My writing has long been nourished
by Buddhist philosophy, by contemplative practices, and by the conviction that the invisible is as real and formative as what can be named.
As a Witness of Quiet Truths, I give voice to what is easily overlooked: the textures of ordinary life, the patterns of history carried in families, the shadows and glimmers that live in personal story. My words invite readers into spaces where beauty and difficulty coexist, where reflection is possible, and where deeper ways of seeing can take root.
Ajanta | Writing Selection
Click a title to read
For a full list of Ajanta's writing with longer descriptions and links, please click here
Academic 2200 word creative essay written as lyrical prose. It examines historical happenings and related personal experiences which profoundly impacted my early life. The foremost occurrence was the abduction and disappearance of seven-year-old Linda Stilwell in 1968.
Academic 500 word exegesis. critical and theoretical interpretation and scholarly explanation of the lyrical prose essay, Foul Play. Includes references; primary
and secondary sources.
Academic 1600 word revisionary short story written
as a Coroner's Inquest Report Submitted to Deakin University Masters Creative Writing & Literature
ALL705 Vision and Revision: Short Stories Now.
Academic 500 critical reflection of Coroner's Inquest Report short story submitted to Deakin University Masters Creative Writing & Literature ALL705 Vision and Revision: Short Stories Now.
​​Coroner's Court of Experimental Short Form Literature Exhibit G - 'Lexicon of Lived Experience' slide show reel
Academic 1100 word serial poem submitted to Deakin University Masters Creative Writing & Literature ALL727 Sex, the Body and American Poetry. 'The poet seeks to convey what is often ineffable; to translate experience, thought, feeling and emotion through their poetry so the reader receives the full impact.
Academic 1000 word critical reflection of serial poem: These Hands, Extreme Presence and Other Minorities. Submitted for Deakin University Masters Creative Writing & Literature ALL727 Sex, the Body and American Poetry. Includes references; primary and secondary sources.
BISEXUALITY: THE GREAT DIVIDE | HONOURS THESIS | 1996 - COMING SOON
Academic 16,000 words thesis completed for LaTrobe University Double Major - Women's Studies & Social Sciences with a psychoanalytic stream.
Argues the innate bisexuality of women using theories
of the unconscious.​
Academic 2329 word critical essay
for Masters Creative Writing & Literature ALL748 Life Writing Now. Critique of Maggie Nelson's novel, The Argonauts in relation to a lyrical essay.
Academic 2146 word Women's Studies Feminist Theory essay submitted for LaTrobe University Womens Studies & Social Sciences Honours double major. It examines Mary Wollstonecraft and Simone de Beauvoir's constructivist accounts of gender identity.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF RESILIENCE |
OCTOBER 2025
5,000 word international competition entry writing to the themes of hope, courage and resilience.
Academic 813 word lyrical prose poem submitted to Deakin University Masters Creative Writing & Literature.ALL727 Sex, the Body and American Poetry. Last Journey is a contemplative and tender piece that explores the threshold between life and death, the moment of release, remembrance, and return.
Academic 842 word critical appendix to Last Journey prose poem submitted to Deakin University Masters Creative Writing & Literature.ALL727 Sex, the Body and American Poetry. It offers an analytical reflection on the poem’s themes of transition, release, and the sacred nature of dying in relation to academic writing.
Academic 1914 word analytic essay, submitted to Deakin University Masters Creative Writing & Literature for ALL748 Life Writing Now. Addressing the question: "How does Mina Loy represent free love OR motherhood in her poem, "Parturition?"
A 1570 word reflective essay about transforming the fear of death into calm, compassionate service. Through mindfulness, spiritual practice, and deep presence, I learned to accompany the dying with empathy, grace, and respect for their final wishes.
A 2800 word contemplative essay exploring the meaning of healing and the creation of a healing space
in the dying process. It weaves spiritual philosophy, Buddhist insight and compassionate presence to show how healing, distinct from cure, restores wholeness of mind, body and spirit, bringing peace to both the dying and those who serve them.
A reflective 1900 word essay examining truth-telling in the dying process, exploring how honesty, compassion and timing shape dignity and trust at the end of life. It considers ethical, emotional and spiritual dimensions of communicating truth with care.
A 1900 word reflective essay exploring what defines a good death, drawing on research, philosophy and personal insight. It examines control, dignity, preparation and acceptance, suggesting that awareness and inner work help transform dying into a conscious, peaceful experience.
A 4,000 word contemplative essay on mindfulness and mortality, exploring how awareness and acceptance of death can dissolve fear and deepen one’s experience of life. Drawing on Buddhist philosophy, psychology, and lived insight, it proposes mindfulness as a path to peace, equanimity, and spiritual freedom in both living and dying.
Coroner's Report into The Death of Innocence
Exhibit F Lexicon of Lived Evidence
Exhibit G: Lexicon of seven pieces of lived evidence with photos and sound (Aldo 2025).
Included in Coroner's Inquest Report into: The Death of Innocence
Submitted to Deakin University Masters of Literature and Creative Writing ALL705 Vision and Revision: Short Stories Now.