Brandon VanOver began his career in New York at the literary agency Curtis Brown on the switchboard before becoming an assistant to the legendary children’s book agent Marilyn E. Marlow. He then moved to Sydney and an opening eventually came up as an editorial assistant at Random House. He progressed through the ranks
Nicky Pellegrino was born in Liverpool but spent her childhood summers staying with family in southern Italy. So when Nicky started writing fiction, her memories of those summers came flooding back and flavoured her stories: the passions, the feuds but most of all the food. Nicky now lives in Auckland,
In a recent episode of our weekly writing inspiration and information podcast, So you want to be a writer, Allison Tait spoke with Suzanne O’Sullivan – associate publisher of children’s books at Hachette Australia. With the book world exploding with children’s and young adult fiction over the past decade, Suzanne
Recent winner of the 2015 Ned Kelly Award for her second crime novel, Eden (following up her 2014 win for first book Hades!), author Candice Fox sat down for a chat with Valerie Khoo earlier this year for our So you want to be a writer podcast. Candice is the
In a recent episode of our weekly podcast So you want to be a writer, Valerie chatted with author Nicole Hayes. Among the various questions were three we thought we’d share with you. (To listen to the interview in full, go here.) Why she chooses to write about teenagers in her books:
We interview some great thriller authors on our So you want to be a writer podcast – and they graciously let us into their world (and mind!). Luckily, Michael Robotham is far more pleasant than some of the scenarios he paints on his pages. Here’s one from the vault –
What’s most important in your writing is to get the reader to care – about the main character, the story, the idea. In fiction you don’t necessarily need to like the hero but you do need to care about him or her. That’s what keeps you turning the pages. After
If you’ve ever heard the term “someone who wears many hats” to describe a multi-skilled person, then you may need to be an expert milliner to fathom Matt Nable. Notably he has played top level rugby league for Manly and earned his keep as an actor in a number of high
We love this quote from a 2014 interview we did with author Kim Wilkins (who also writes as Kimberley Freeman). It’s such an important thing to remember in this ‘busy’ world we live in. Thanks Kim! “If you’ve ever found yourself waiting for five minutes somewhere, just five minutes, just
This post is by Pamela Freeman, author of more than 30 books and director of the creative writing faculty at the Australian Writers’ Centre. After a recent class where I discussed my ‘four-colour printing process’ approach to writing scenes, one of my students asked me to do a blog post
Author Sylvia Day has sold more than 16 million copies of her romance novels in just over a decade. But the story of how she first got published goes all the way back to her childhood… “I knew I wanted to be a romance novelist when I was 12. It
Sylvia Day is the #1 New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of over 20 award-winning romance novels sold in more than 40 countries. Her books have topped lists in 23 countries, with 16 million of copies in print. (That was a lot of numbers, wasn’t it?) Her Crossfire series
The Miles Franklin Award for literature has been handed out in Australia almost every year since 1957. Stella Miles Franklin herself stipulated that the prize was “to be awarded for the Novel for the year which is of the highest literary merit and which must present Australian Life in any of
In our interviews with authors, we often like to end on a question that is a little outside the box. And that question is: “What is your writing superpower?” Writers can be rather humble beasts, but by putting a mask and cape on the question (and putting its underwear on
This post is by Pamela Freeman, author of more than 30 books and director of the creative writing faculty at the Australian Writers’ Centre. I’ve been thinking a lot lately, for family reasons, about how and why someone makes the decision to follow a creative life, rather than one more
Deborah O’Brien is a teacher, visual artist and author of non-fiction books, articles and short stories. Her debut novel was the 2012 bestselling Mr Chen’s Emporium and her fourth novel, The Trivia Man, will be released in June 2015. In episode 16 of our top-rating So You Want to be
Gabrielle Tozer is a journalist, author, editor and former 18-year-old, among other things. Her second book, Faking It, came out in January, and we thought now was the perfect time to bombard her with a stack of questions and see how she holds up. Oh, shhh, here she comes now.
Fleur McDonald is one of Australia’s leading authors of rural fiction and her first novel, Red Dust was the highest selling debut in 2009. In March 2015 she released her sixth book, Emerald Springs, but it was last year that she caught up with Allison Tait for our top-rating podcast,
Judith Rossell has been involved in children’s books for more than 12 years – having written a dozen of her own books and illustrated more than 80. She teaches the course Writing Picture Books for the Australian Writers’ Centre in Melbourne. Her latest book, a beautifully illustrated junior novel called
Author and journalist Allison Tait talks about her passions for feature writing and fiction writing. Her novel The Mapmaker Chronicles: Race to the End of the World is making waves in the world of middle grade fiction. Our top-rating podcast So you want to be a writer features a regular
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