Six Square Metres: reflections from a small garden

Life lessons from the ground up. Sometimes you reap what you sow. Sometimes you reap what other people sowed. Sometimes you haven't got a clue what you are sowing, and sometimes you just get lucky, or unlucky. All these things are true of life, as of gardening. In this thoughtful and beautifully observed book, journalist and gardening enthusiast Margaret Simons takes readers on a journey through the seasons, through her life, and through the tiny patch of inner-urban earth that is home to her garden. Over a course of a year, within the garden and without, there are births to celebrate and deaths to mourn; there are periods of great happiness and light, and times of quiet reflection. There is, in other words, all the chaos, joy, sorrow, and splendor of being alive.

Margaret Simons is a freelance journalist and author and director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne. She writes about the media for a number of publications and has published eleven books including The Content Makers and more recently, Malcolm Fraser: the political memoirs, written with the late former prime minister. This won book of the year and best non-fiction book at the 2010 NSW Premier's Literary Awards. Her most recent book before this one was Self Made Man, a biography of media proprietor Kerry Stokes, which won the history prize in the WA Australian Premier's Literary Awards. In the past Simons has worked for The Age and The Australian newspapers. As a freelancer, she has had work published in dozens of magazines and newspapers in Australia and overseas.