Are you looking for professional support and a strong peer network to finish your draft, or turn your finished manuscript into a pitch-ready product for publication? Other Worlds, a masterclass program, will guide you through the process of self-editing and structural rewrites to make your stories shine.

Isobelle Carmody is an internationally-recognised Australian author and illustrator with a PhD in Creative Arts and over forty published books to her name. Her stories venture through many unfamiliar and dystopian lands, however they are always anchored by familiar questions relating to the human condition and its challenges. Within their pages you may be borne up by dreams, sink into mythology, follow interspecies friendships and bear witness to environmental destruction and its after effects. Join Isobelle Carmody for a foray into the realms of speculative fiction and fantasy writing in this upcoming Masterclass.

This program provides the space, skills, guidance and knowledge you need to refine your manuscript into a publishable, marketable product. Each fortnightly session with Isobelle will be a combination of theory and discussion, with writers expected to be actively working on their manuscripts in between.

By the end of the program you should be ready to query agents and submit to publishers, or even be thinking about self-publishing. We’ll cover topics such as finding your voice, fully developing characters, exploring setting and world-building and refining the weak points in your manuscript to develop a strong and engaging story.

Fortnightly sessions outline:

• Session 1 - Introduction to Fantasy & Science Fiction
• Session 2 - Characterisation and finding your voice
• Session 3 - Setting/world-building A and using your world
• Session 4 - Setting/world-building B and using a timeline
• Session 5 - Planning the story, beginnings and Deep Time
• Session 6 - The problem of overwriting
• Session 7 - Spotting your weaknesses and the value of knowing your genre
• Session 8 - Getting on with it / endings

This program is most suited to people writing speculative fiction, science fiction or fantasy of novella or novel length (upwards of 40,000 words).

Other Worlds: Isobelle Carmody Masterclass includes:

• Eight fortnightly group meetings (dates are below)
• Access to a wide selection of workshops with 6 credits to use across Writers SA's online and in person events. (T&Cs apply)
• An expert critical reading of your first three chapters (max 10,000 words) and an in-depth consultation about your writing project with a Writers SA staff member
• One Work Space writing intensive day
• Access to a private online space to share work and ideas with your peers.

Meeting dates: Wednesdays 7pm to 8pm (Adelaide time), July 19, August 2, 16 & 30, September 13 & 27, October 11 & 25.

About Isobelle Carmody

Isobelle Carmody (b. Wangaratta, Victoria, Australia, 1958) is an Australian writer of science fiction, fantasy, children's and juvenile literature. She divides her time between a home on the Great Ocean Road in Australia and her travels abroad. Isobelle began work on the highly acclaimed Obernewtyn Chronicles when she was just fourteen years old. The first two books in the Obernewtyn series were short listed for the CBC Children’s Book of the Year in the Older Readers category; Scatterlings won Talking book of the Year.

The Gathering was a joint winner of the 1993 CBC Book of the Year Award and the 1994 Children's Literature Peace Prize. Greylands won an Aurealis Award and a White Raven at Bologna, while Billy Thunder and the Night Gate was shortlisted for the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature in the 2001 NSW Premier's Literary Awards. Both Little Fur and A Fox Called Sorrow received BAAFTA Industry Awards for design. Alyzon Whitestarr won the coveted Golden Aurealis for overall best novel at the Aurealis Awards. The Red Wind which she wrote and illustrated, won Book of the Year in the CBC awards, in the Younger readers category. In 2020 she completed her PhD at the University of Queensland and then did a doctoral fellowship with the Creativity and Human Flourishing Project at UQ. Her most recent published novel is the final book in the Kingdom of the Lost series, The Velvet City.

She is currently completing a graphic journal playfully dealing with the journey of Art through the strange land of Academia and a new book titled Comes the Night to be published in 2024.

Members $890*/ Non-members $1390

This program will be held online via Zoom. Instructions will be emailed to you, please be sure to check your spam folder.

*Payment plans are available to Writers SA members for this program with a $300 deposit and fortnightly payments of $150. Please email [email protected] to discuss options.

—Not a Writers SA member? Members receive more than 30% off the full price of this workshop, you’ll also get a free 20 minute consult, expert advice about your career and your work, and join a community of like-minded creatives. Join now for as little as $60! 

—If you are a member of another state based writers centre or a member of SCBWI SA, please contact [email protected] at least five working days before the program commencement date to get a code for the member price. Our staff don’t work full time and we don’t want you to miss out!

Program Terms and Conditions

-The six workshops refer to both digital and in-person sessions and include: 3 1.5-hour workshops, two 3-hour workshops and one 6-hour workshop. The workshops may be selected of your choice or by recommendation from Writers SA. You must use these credits in 2023. Outstanding credits will not be held over. These cannot be exchanged for any other service or refunded. There will be a maximum of two credit-holders at each event until a minimum number of paid participants is reached and will be on a first-come-first-served basis after emailing [email protected] to lodge your request. If the workshop is at capacity for credit-holders, you can opt to pay for the workshop or join a wait-list until the event reaches the minimum number of paid participants.

-Participation in this series does not guarantee publication.

-In depth consultations and First Feedback will be carried out by a relevant staff member of Writers SA (not by Isobelle Carmody)

Meeting dates: Wednesdays 7pm to 8pm (Adelaide time), July 19, August 2, 16 & 30, September 13 & 27, October 11 & 25.