Rising Tide Books

26/10/2024

We had a Fairfax reunion from the 1980s and 90s on Friday night. It was great to reconnect with another era in my life. Like a school reunion with so many fond memories. The way we got our news was so different then.

22/06/2022

All Russell Carter wants to do is live on the far north coast of New South Wales and surf, but when the woman he can’t live with or without comes asking for his help, he has no choice. A terrorist cell are planning an attack on Sydney Harbour and they are the only ones who can stop it. To read more - https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Land-Russell-Carter-Thriller-ebook/dp/B00K5ODR7Y/ref=la_B00BXSSGQI_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401405690&sr=1-4

27/02/2021

40 Year Cadet Journalist Reunion

I heard Dr Phil once tell Oprah how, as he got older, he tried to maintain a connection to all parts of his life.

Lady Thursday, I got the chance to connect with my fellow journalism cadets from John Fairfax 40 years ago. The group included journalist from the Sun, Sun Herald, Sydney Morning Herald and the Financial Review.

We all felt very grateful to experience working as print journalists before the digital age changed everything. In those days newspapers and the four television channels were how everyone got their news.

10/06/2016

Kathleen and I went to see the gut wrenching and inspiring movie - Be Here Now - about actor Andy Whitfield’s battle with lymphoma.

He was diagnosed for the second time after starring in the first season of the successful television series, Spartacus - Blood and Sand. His wife, Vashti, and he decided to make a film about his journey not knowing what the final outcome would be. They wanted to give the experience meaning and to share the lessons they learnt.

Unfortunately, after a long battle, Andy succumbed to the disease leaving Vashti and their two beautiful children. After the film ended, she spoke about how they made a commitment to experience the journey together wherever it led them and to have the view that life doesn’t happen to you, rather it happens for you. And it is our job as human beings to find meaning in everything that occurs whether we like it or not and grow through the experience.

Andy and Vashti dealt with the grim reality of the treatment, diagnosis and bad news with grace, dignity and love. Vsshti said it was a privilege travelling the world showing the film and sharing what they learnt.

“‘Be Here Now’ is all about being present, and not fearing what you don’t know.” - Andy Whitfield

An inspiring feature documentary and love story, about the actor Andy Whitfield, who was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins lymphoma

18/05/2016

NO MAN'S LAND – DON'T GET CAUGHT THERE

“A plot ripped straight from today’s front-page headlines. A Muslim extremist group based in Indonesia plans to launch devastating attacks on Sydney on New Year’s Eve – and only one man can stop them: special operative Russell Carter, an Australian version of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher – a man of few words but much action.“ Sunday Age

Carter has turned his back on everything he ever believed in and is living the good life, surfing every day and trying to forget his past. However, when an Indonesian terrorist cell tries to kill him - and every other member of the order, he is sucked straight back into the violent world he left behind, and forced to team up with Erina - the only woman he has ever loved, and who he abandoned without saying goodbye.

No Man's Land - A Russell Carter Thriller - Kindle edition by Roland Fishman, Elizabeth Cowell. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading No Man's Land - A Russell Carter Thriller.

27/10/2015

Love this story about the All Black culture. As much as I hope the Wallabies beat (smash) them, I really admire their core values and ethos. Particularly how they deal with the "twin imposters of triumph and defeat." Let's hope they get a profound opportunity to deal with the later. Roland Fishman

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen will seek out Heyneke Meyer after the semifinal clash tomorrow and the respective coaches will have a beer and reflect on 80 minutes of physical carnage - New Zealand Herald

25/10/2015

THREE CHEIK(A) POINTS FROM RUGBY WORLD CUP

To me Australian Coach Michael Cheika is the Steve Jobs of Rugby with his philosophy about playing the game. What he says applies to anything in life.

Yesterday I spoke with an old team mate just back from watching the early games in the World Cup. To loosely paraphrase him, he made three Cheik(a) points that made an impression on me and apparently the players:

1. Try and learn and improve every day.

2. Winning is important, but don’t focus on it, rather listen to the music inside and express yourself.

3. Put the team first and do everything you can to serve the group.
He says what the players and coaches do isn’t a job, rather a passion.

All the above points apply to writing as well as anything else we care about.

Having said that, life is full of paradoxes. When it comes to having a team you follow in a World Cup semi final, "Winning isn't everything, it is the only thing."

Go the Wallabies. Roland Fishman

17/10/2015

RUGBY WORLD CUP AND STORYTELLING

The image is from the weekend intensive of our 10 Month Novel & Script Course where we are exploring the dynamics of classic storytelling. And as some of you may be aware it is also the quarter finals of the Rugby World Cup.

So it was gratifying to find someone articulate the similarities between a classic story and a memorable Rugby Game.
In a classic story, it is important that the writer push their main character to the edge of failure, because that is how they grow and change and what makes a story compelling.

The former Australian Rugby captain, John Eales, in his column in the Australian newspaper was writing about Rugby, but it could have been about a good story.

“Rosbeth Moss Kanter, the Harvard academic," , a typically well rounded Rugby player, said, "postulates that all change looks like a failure somewhere in the middle. How true. In fact, more than just change, all achievement looks like a failure somewhere in the middle.”

Fiction is all about characters facing challenges and opposition and figuring out how to overcome them.
Same with Rugby.

“Performance,” Eales said, “at the top level will always be a balance between creating problems for the opposition and solving problems of your own. Some of those problems, like the Wallabies’ scrum, can be anticipated in advance, whereas others, like defending your line with only 13 men, are extreme moments that mightn’t be as easy to anticipate.

“Sport is more compelling at the extreme than it is in the routine, and as you progress through a tournament your ability to solve problems in moments where things look like a failure becomes more valuable. If you freeze, an exit is imminent.”
And not to be outdone, one of the players, Matt Gitteau, playing his 100th test said.

“When you lose a game then you learn the most about the team, whereas when everything’s going well, you can go over the cracks a little bit. We learn most when things go bad.”

And this is an article about the similarities between elite athletes and the main character of a thriller.

http://www.rolandfishman.com.au/action-character-russell-carter/

19/06/2015

NON-STOP ACTION THRILLER FROM DOWN UNDER
Best Seller #7 Thrillers, Terrorism

"Several of the action sequences are portrayed in such granular detail that often time dilates ... As it draws to its conclusion the conflict explodes like a display of fireworks."
Nic Lathouris, Co-Writer, Mad Max - Fury Road

“A plot ripped straight from today’s front-page headlines. A Muslim extremist group based in Indonesia has plans to launch devastating attacks on Sydney on New Year’s Eve – and only one man can stop them: special operative Russell Carter, an Australian version of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher – a man of few words but much action... enigmatic and lethal.

"A thriller that has all the elements for success; a surfing, martial-arts proficient and taciturn hero and a beautiful sidekick with whom he still has unresolved issues.

“Fishman sets a fierce pace over almost 400 pages with the action (and violence) seldom slowing."
Melbourne's Sunday Age

"A plot ripped straight from today's front-page headlines. A Muslim extremist group based in Indonesia has plans to launch devastating attacks on Sydney on New Year's Eve - and only one man can stop them: special operative Russell Carter, an Australian version of Lee Child's Jack Reacher - a...

03/06/2015

From Roland Fishman. One of the things I loved about being a journalist was that you could interview practically anyone who interested you and ask them all those questions you couldn't necessarily ask a friend. So it was great to sit down with Michael Connelly and discuss the workings of his main character Harry Bosch, whose been a real source of inspiration for my own writing and the creation of Russell Carter and No Man's Land. Click the link below if you want to read the interview.

Having read practically all of Michael Connelly’s books and being very much inspired by his character, Detective Harry Bosch, when writing my novel No Man’s Land, it was great to return to my roots as a journalist, sit down with him at the Wharf during the 2015 Sydney Writers’ Festival and interview…

22/05/2015

From Roland Fishman. Having read all of Michael Connelly's books and being very much inspired by his character, Harry Bosch, it was great to sit down with him at the wharf today and interview him. He's a real master of the craft and I felt very fortunate to be able to ask him all those questions that have been bubbling away in my unconscious for years. And I'm pleased to say he seemed like a very decent bloke.

25/04/2015

This is the kind of wave Carter rides tandem with Erina in Indonesia in No Man's Land before they get smashed by the giant lip.

From the scene in the book before things turn ugly. "This sense of dancing on the edge of oblivion made surfing big waves a profound and soulful experience. It was addictive, driving surfers to travel the world seeking the next adrenalin-fuelled high. And just when he thought it couldn’t get any more intense, it did.

The lip curled over them, encasing them in a cylindrical tube of water – what surfers called a stand-up barrel – big enough to stand upright and stretch your arms out wide.

Their world became eerily quiet and pitch-black. They’d entered the zone known as the “green room.” The mystical place every surfer longed to be. Like being suspended inside Mother Nature’s womb. A moment of holy stillness surrounded by the surging power of nature, a fragile snapshot of perfection."