By Simon Collinson You’re a young writer. You have ideas and ambition, and even a few pieces of writing sitting in a drawer, but no idea where to send them. Sound familiar? Getting work published is a dilemma for writers of every age, but is particularly severe for younger writers […]
Archived content for the tag ‘writing’
Find Something in the Banal
By Piri Eddy As the saying goes, ‘Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.’ But for most of us, our lives don’t consist of car chases and explosions, or thrilling plot twists and tensely built narratives. Heck, most of us don’t even split our pants down the middle bending over for […]
The Urge to Tell
By Steve Evans We all form opinions, and more or less continuously. You finish reading a book and ask yourself, would I recommend it, and why? Perhaps you began to realise early on in which direction such thoughts were heading. On the other hand, maybe you got part way through […]
In Answer to Your Email
By Katrina Germein JOIN KATRINA FOR HER EXAMINING EXCELLENT PICTURE BOOKS WORKSHOP Dear Katrina, I want to write a picture book but I want to do it my own way. I’ve read that picture books should have repetition and I think repetition is boring. I’ve read that publishers […]
Here’s How You Do It…
By Steve Evans We are all creatures of habit. Sometimes we try to shuck those tendencies—give up smoking, be fitter, become a better friend, learn how to write a bestseller. Sometimes it seems we are offered, if not a miracle cure, then an easy way through. No-one is immune to […]
‘Metric’ Fiction Isn’t, Really
By Jennie Cumming Thanks to the proliferation of specialised websites and zines, short fiction has become more popular in recent years. Because of the time involved in providing feedback on each other’s work, the writing group I belong to restricts the monthly submission from each member to about 1500 words. […]
Writing to Do Good in the World
By Walter Mason I recently did an event with author, psychotherapist and healer Sharon Snir and I was struck by how she described her writing as a way of making peace in the world. I am used to the idea of writing as a form of therapy, or of social […]
Sharing Our Gifts
By Walter Mason Have you ever read any of the work of Steven Pressfield? He is very much the creativity guru of the moment, and I like him because he really deals in a type of tough love for artists and writers. No molly-coddling, no delicate nurturing of the creative […]
Beauty in Smallness
By Walter Mason I’ve never really been much of a one for big things. Even though I come from Queensland, the lure of big things, grand vistas and sublime moments has never really been felt. I have always focused firmly on the small, the domestic. It is this perspective which […]
One Woman’s Two and a Half Men (part two)
By Lia Weston Continued on from a previous post Nothing makes my heart sink like an ‘HILARIOUS LoL LoL OMG SO TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ email forward. Guaranteed to fulfil none of the subject line promises, it tends to fall into one of two camps: ‘women are smart and funny, while men are […]
The Life Writer’s Lamp of Art
By Threasa Meads In his memoir, Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov says: Neither in environment nor heredity can I find the exact instrument that fashioned me, the anonymous roller that pressed upon my life a certain intricate watermark whose unique design becomes visible when the lamp of art is made to […]
Tips for Young Writers
By Ben Brooker I don’t believe in giving advice to aspiring writers. I know this is a problematic way to begin a blog post in which I’ve been asked to dispense tips, but what else is one to say? Read. Lots. And write. Lots. There really is nothing else to […]
What Editors Do
This is a snippet from a brief talk I’ll be giving at the SA Writers Centre this Thursday on the subject of what editors do. Whenever I tell people I’m a book editor, and the conversation doesn’t swiftly move on, their first question is usually, ‘So what do editors do?’ […]
Plotter, Pantser, Necromancer (for teenagers)
By Vikki Wakefield One of the questions most commonly asked of a writer is: where do you get your ideas from? Short answer: ideas are everywhere. An idea is the brilliant start to everything, a comet of the imagination, a blazing possibility that will fizzle and die if you don’t […]
One Woman’s Two and a Half Men (part one)
By Lia Weston As writers, one of the few statements we can probably all agree on is that art is subjective. There’s wriggle room within that definition, too; you can appreciate (or learn to appreciate in some cases) the work that goes into a particular piece even if you can’t […]