In episode 15 of our top-rating podcast, So you want to be a writer, Allison Tait spoke with two authors at the same time: Kim Wilkins and Kimberley Freeman. But rather than talk over each other, it was all very orderly. That’s because it was the same person. Dr Kim
Laura Greaves’ Facebook page name says: “Laura Greaves Writes Books”. And actually, it’s pretty appropriate because she says that’s all that she has ever wanted to do. Her latest book is Be My Baby and we thought we’d sit her down and ask her precisely nine questions about that with
A few weeks back, we spoke with established author Elizabeth Farrelly on the release of her first young fiction book, Caro Was Here. Elizabeth completed a course at Australian Writers’ Centre that provided inspiration for this one, and she chats about that and the book right here… So, tell us
Earlier this year, in episode 4 of our top-rating podcast, So you want to be a writer, we spoke with internationally published author Allison Rushby.
Now, many writers begin self-publishing and end up with a traditional publishing book deal. However, Allison has done it the other way round – choosing after 14 years as an author to self-publish for the first time this year when the rights to four of her earlier books reverted to her. Then, on a roll, she chose to self-publish her new young adult novel, Being Hartley, at the same time.
Allison provided some valuable insights into the relative strengths of both of these two publishing methods, and writing in general – which we have summarised here.
If you think that manuscripts are judged solely on the merit of the story alone, we think you should be sitting down for this next paragraph.
It doesn’t matter how many on-trend zeitgeist-welding hipsters your story possesses, if a manuscript offends in some other way, it may never be read. We’re talking about things that distract a reader from delving any further.
You see, for editors, it’s hard work wading through countless manuscripts each week. And your goal as a writer is to not make that job any harder!
Once a lawyer, then an actor, now a writer, it’s fair to say that Australian author and playwright Sofie Laguna has worn plenty of hats over the years. And even within her writing persona, she has never been one to stick to the same thing – bouncing from picture books to plays, young reader series to adult novels.
With such an interesting journey to date, we figured she’d be an interesting person to chat with – especially with the release of her latest adult novel, The Eye of the Sheep. And we weren’t wrong.
Hugh Howey is the author of the best-selling book WOOL, which started life in the ebook jungles of Amazon as an online novelette. This was before it became a global sensation and the first instalment in a three-book series known as the Silo series. Hugh’s second book in this series,
Great news: our new half-day course, Writing Australian History is coming up in November! So to get the inside story, we asked presenter and historical guru, Pamela Freeman, a few questions around this fascinating genre…
Hi Pamela. There seems to be lots of Australian historical stories appearing in mainstream media currently (e.g. Gallipoli and ANZAC Girls etc). Why do you think they’re so popular at the moment?Historical fiction generally has become more popular worldwide, often due to television shows like The Tudors and Da Vinci’s Demons (although I wouldn’t call that history!).
In Australia generally, people are becoming more interested in history; the number of people going to the Dawn Service for Anzac Day, for example, has gone up and up over the last ten years or so. And then, of course, we had the 60th anniversary of World War II, and now the 100th year anniversary of World War I, which is sparking even more interest. The media are riding the centenary wave, but I think they’re being successful because people are genuinely interested in the past and, in particular, in the people from that past – how they differed from us and how they were the same.
We all do it. When writing our own work, we get so close to it that forests and trees blur into one, and it can be very hard to be objective. That’s why workshopping can be such an important part of the manuscript writing process.
Writing workshops are a valuable tool that even published writers swear by. They’re usually simply a weekly meeting of a small group of writers, designed to critique their work. Feedback is given, and a forum for discussions is opened on how to improve key skills.
A workshop could theoretically operate much like a book club, being as serious or as social as its members allow. But to work effectively, it really needs to be work, not play – allowing writers to analyse and test what’s working – especially things such as a character believability or and plot pacing.
Kylie Mason is a Sydney-based freelance editor with a long history of working with Australian publishers, both on staff and on a freelance basis.
Despite having a master’s degree in creative writing, it’s the editing that gets her up in the morning. “I love getting involved with stories, I love getting involved with writers, and I love the way writers think,” she says.
We had a chat with Kylie about being a paid pair of eyes in episode 7 of our top-rated podcast So you want to be a writer. And here’s what we discovered.
Many people might get to the age of 50 and look at their successful career, grown-up kids, stable life – and happily put their feet up. But not Sara Donovan. In fact it was this rather domestic alignment of the planets that saw her come to revisit a lifelong feeling.
Belfast, 2am, Tomb Street. A young man lies dead in an alley. Cracked ribs, broken jaw, fractured skull. With the Celtic Tiger purring and the Troubles in their death throes, Detective Sergeant John O’Neill is called to investigate. Meanwhile O’Neill’s partner, DI Jack Ward, a veteran troubled detective, is receiving death threats from an unknown source…
You’ve just read the synopsis for When Sorrows Come – Belfast-born author Matt McGuire’s second novel in his DS O’Neill series. It’s a follow up to his debut 2012 novel, Dark Dawn, and further explores the brutal criminal underworld of new Northern Ireland.
Matt currently resides in Sydney, so we thought we’d chat to him as a he launches his book and we launch our new Crime and Thriller Writing course.
Dr Anita Heiss is a busy woman. As the author of non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women’s fiction, poetry, social commentary and travel articles, she’s never far from a well-shaped word or two. Her books include Am I black enough for you? and Tiddas, and she is on the list of Booktopia’s favourite Australian novelists.
In 2001, Anita was the first Aboriginal student in the history of the University of Western Sydney to graduate with a PhD in communications and media. And despite being so busy, she’s always willing to connect with her loyal readers to help grow the voice of Aboriginal writers. “I like meeting my readers,” she says. “I think festivals are a great way to do that. It’s a great way for readers to engage with you and learn about why you do what you do.”
They say that you should write about what you know. So it’s quite comforting to look out of Australian “rural fiction” writer Fleur McDonald’s window and not see high rise buildings. Or any other houses for that matter.
Instead, a rural scene is the backdrop: her 8,000 acre farm in the southeast corner of Western Australia. It has certainly provided plenty of inspiration for her novels to date, debuting with the extremely successful Red Dust back in 2009. Her fifth novel, Crimson Dawn, was published earlier this year, and we did the sums and worked out that’s around one new book every 12 months.
So what’s her secret? How does she balance a family and a farm with knocking out a new novel every calendar year?
Do not adjust your sets. Yes, we really did just say that you can be a productive writer without actually writing a word. At least that’s how Graeme Simsion (author of the ridiculously popular 2013 smash hit, The Rosie Project) sees it.
Well, kind of anyway. It’s true that The Rosie Project does indeed have words – around 75,000 of them, and that Graeme actually did write them himself. In fact, when we spoke to him in Episode 1 of our top rating podcast So You Want to Be a Writer earlier this year, he also had some interesting things to say about the evolution of the story from screenplay to novel.
Writing any kind of fiction, purely by definition requires an element of suspended disbelief. After all, it’s a ‘made up’ story. And Kate Forsyth knows a thing or two about the subject, having written many fantasy novels over the years, often with a fairy tale angle or inspiration.
When we had a chat with Kate recently – in episode 21 of our top-rating podcast So you want to be a writer – we asked her about her fantasy novels, and what the most valuable lessons were that she’d learned creating her own worlds?
Blaise van Hecke is the publisher and co-owner of Busybird Publishing. She is also the author of The Book Book: 12 Steps to Successful Publishing and a contributing author to Self-Made: Real Australian Business Stories. For more information visit www.busybird.com.au or contact [email protected]
It wasn’t long ago that if you wanted to be published, there was only one route: submitting to what’s known as a commercial (aka ‘traditional’) publisher. Of course, this was during an age where you banged out your work on a typewriter and had to mail out submissions. After all, this was before computers became as common to households as toasters.
Then vanity publishing (now known as self-publishing) came into vogue, but it was an expensive endeavour and lacked credibility. If the book couldn’t make it with a real publisher, then it couldn’t be any good, could it?
Eli Glasman is an author based in Melbourne, Australia. His first book The Boy’s Own Manual to Being a Proper Jew explores the complications of being a homosexual boy in the Melbourne orthodox Jewish community.
We caught up with Eli to discuss his writing process and the blurred lines between real life and fiction.
To get published these days you don’t just need an amazing book — you often also need an amazing and hardworking agent to go along with it.
But when Therese Creed wrote her first novel, Redstone Station, she submitted it to the first big publisher that would take her unsolicited manuscript. To her surprise, she received a formal offer on the book not long after.
Charlotte’s Creek is her second novel released by Allen & Unwin, and we sat down with Therese to chat about her love of writing and outback adventures.
Su Dharmapala is an author, social media commentator and blogger. Her debut novel, The Wedding Season, was published in 2012 by Simon & Schuster and she’s just released her follow-up, Saree. Set in Sri Lanka, India and Australia, Saree is the story of a young saree maker, whose creations transform
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