By Max Anderson I got paid $1200 and $500. There. I told you. Who paid it? Not telling. But I will say the $1200 payment was for a story published in a highly regarded overseas magazine. And that sounds a lot, right? Well yes and no. For one thing the payment was for 2400 words, […]

By Louise Pascale Sounds narcissistic doesn’t it? But in actual fact Googling yourself is something you should do quite often, especially when you are approaching agents, publishers or trying to raise your online profile. If you don’t Google yourself, they certainly will. It is the quickest way for people to find out about you without […]

By Carla Caruso In real life we all want a smooth ride in our relationships: endless sunshine and rainbows from the day your gazes first lock and he/she asks what your poison is. Drama is best kept for that thing you watch when you’ve had a hard day at the office and just want to […]

By Elizabeth Hutchins I’ve just made apricot jam, stirring memories with my worn wooden spoon as it drags through the tacky meld of glorious fruit and an obscene heap of sugar. The aluminium pan of cauldron dimensions that was my grandmother’s and then my mother’s could tell a tale or two. Yet this week, after […]

Crowdfunding your book isn’t rocket science, however, it requires a real commitment in time and effort. Crowdfunding is an amazing tool for authors to professionally publish their work, and it’s a great way to build publicity leading up to your book launch, however, the most successful authors don’t expect crowd-funding to magically happen for their […]

Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category. Some self-described markets for flash fiction impose caps as low as three hundred words, while others consider stories as long as a thousand words to be flash fiction. So states […]

By Raelke Grimmer Twitter is great, but let’s be honest, it can also be a jealousy-making machine. Especially when it feels like everyone on your Twitter feed is live-tweeting from the most incredible Writers’ Festivals around Australia, and you’re missing out because you’re not there. This is, partly, the person’s own fault. If you really […]

Sarah Gates recently interviewed our current writer in residence, Raelke Grimmer. You speak quite a few different languages. How do you find creative writing in languages other than your first? Does it give you a greater understanding or appreciation for language? I really love trying to write creatively in other languages. There is a greater […]

Emily Palmer, Administrative Unicorn If you could be a super hero, what power would you like to have? I would love the power to keep my room tidy, without trying, so I didn’t continually drive my partner crazy. Basically, I would be the world’s most boring superhero – I could keep the headquarters neat, while […]

By Kevin O’Brien Why not join us for the Fiction Feedback focus group? I should start this blog post by saying that good editors will ask you more than five questions about your novel, but I’ve chosen the following issues in particular as they can be the hardest to fix if left until the end […]

By Lynette Washington This year I embarked on the biggest editing job of my career. In the past I’d edited individual stories, mammoth technical manuals, small magazines, brochures and websites, but I’d never edited a collection of short stories, and this task felt different. More important. The collection, which came to be called Breaking Beauty, […]

By Gillian Dooley Three years ago I sent a fan email to a writer I’d just discovered. She had written an amazing novel and I was reviewing it for Radio Adelaide’s Writers’ Radio program. But I wasn’t content with just writing a rave review. I had questions. I wanted answers. So I invited her to speak at […]

By Amy T Matthews It’s Adelaide Writers’ Week and I’m chairing two panels, featuring four writers. I only arrived back in the country a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been flat-out trying to read the books, as well as get two new courses up and running at Flinders University, where I teach. I’ve had […]

By Ben Brooker There is no single way to write a review. These days, a work of criticism can be anything from a 140-character tweet, to a 200-word capsule review in a newspaper, to a 10,000-word essay on a blog. Each of these formats has its own requirements for length and style. But, assuming you’ve […]

By Vanessa Jones Do you want to write your memoir or life story but don’t know where to start? In September, thanks to Australia Council for the Arts, we were fortunate enough to have Benjamin Law teach a Writing Memoir masterclass. Here are some valuable words of advice on how to get your story started […]