by Kerryn Goldsworthy JOIN KERRYN FOR THE WORD FOR WORD WORKSHOP IN JANUARY. * Remember that ‘place’ is an elastic term: it could mean ‘Australia’ or  ‘Adelaide’ or ‘the Beehive Corner’ or ‘the place I came off my bike when I was ten’. * When describing a place, try to emphasise the features that are […]

By Stephen Atkinson About a quarter of the way through his workshop on creative non-fiction, renowned writer and teacher of writing Robin Hemley revealed the six questions he gets all of his students to ask of their work: 1)    What is it about? 2)    What is it really about? 3)    What is it about? 4)    […]

 By Jillian Schedneck Robin Hemley approached this masterclass by giving the nine experienced nonfiction writing students specific and applicable advice on their nonfiction projects. In various stages of conception and completion, each class member spoke in turn about their projects, from a family’s experience organic farming in Italy to an errant expatriate writing from but […]

Hi peeps, Cassandra Dean here, with a few hints and tips for online promotion and marketing as a writer! 1. Have a website. Make the design of it simple and easy to use. Update it regularly. 2. Blog. Blog regularly. Blog often. Blog about random shizz you’re convinced no one wants to read about – […]

By Stephen Lord Our regular volunteer, Stephen Lord, discusses his most valuable resources for writing. The most important resource I have is my writing group. Writing is a wretched, solitary and miserable business even on good days, and I couldn’t be without a support network of like-minded souls. They are beta testers, fact checkers, idea […]

By Sarah Tooth, SAWC Director I’ve followed the rebirth of the Tasmanian Writers Festival quite closely over the last year, watching it being pulled together by the amazing Chris Gallagher, who also doubles as the Director of the Tasmanian Writers Centre. I was very fortunate to attend the TWF in April, which featured a number of […]

By Lucy Clark 1. If you don’t write your story, who will? 2. Procrastinate… but then write. 3. You make time to go to the gym, work, sleep, socialise, so why not make time to write? 4. Research is MASSIVE and time consuming and from all the info you collate, you’ll condense it to two […]

By Ben Brooker One of our recent Writers in Residence, Ben Brooker, discusses his residency. In the first two decades of the 20th century, James Joyce used one of the upstairs rooms at the now legendary Shakespeare and Company bookshop on Paris’s Left Bank as his personal office. There, he wrote Ulysses, universally regarded as […]

By Alan Baxter You’ve heard the old adage, I’m sure. Write what you know. That’s all very well, but it’s actually a terrible piece of advice. After all, we all know some stuff, but not much in the grand scheme of things. And if we only write what we know, we’ll soon run out of […]

By Jane Turner-Goldsmith In the late 80s, psychologist James Pennebaker posed the question: ‘why do people throughout the world seek to tell their stories?’ In his original study, participants were asked to reflect on their deepest thoughts and feelings about a traumatic event. They then had to write for 15 to 20 minutes per day, […]