Category: Tips for writers
Chemutai Glasheen is a teacher and a sessional academic at Curtin University. She writes fiction for young people and her work is influenced by her upbringing in Africa and the duality of growing up between two different cultures. In this piece Chemutai shares the behind-the-scenes of her first book I am the Mau and Other […]
The Map of William was the unintended outcome of a general curiosity about my own family history. As I became embroiled in the past lives of my forebears, my curiosity soon turned to something else. Not quite an obsession, but close. It became a search for details and evidence—the gathering of little snippets of information […]
Laurie Steed is a writer living and working in the Wadjak region on the traditional lands of the Noongar people. He is the author of You Belong Here and recipient of the 2021 Henry Handel Richardson flagship fellowship. His short story anthology Greater City Shadows was shortlisted for the 2022 Dorothy Hewett Award for an […]
I’ve long been a fan of a series of articles called ‘How I Get It Done’, where impressive people with seemingly unlimited abilities (and resources) detail how they go about their day-to-day lives. Often this involves waking up at times that, until I had a baby, I thought were hypothetical numbers, pure maths proofs. Since […]
When I finished my creative writing degree, I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to write again. I had half a collection of short stories that I couldn’t bring myself to finish. Obsessed with the idea of a ‘real’ job, but working a part-time/shitty retail gig, I looked back at university as a fun but largely […]
When I signed my publishing contract with Fremantle Press last year, my partner immediately started joking about resigning from work – to wave celebratory pompoms at my book events and writers’ fests, soothe my perpetually poetically-furrowed brow, and make sure my favourite brand of poetry-inspiring beverage is always close to hand. Show me the money […]
In One Wrong Turn Chenée Marrapodi has made all the right turns (of phrase that is). It’s a great book for middle readers and a wonderful retelling of the traditional ballet story. Told with subtlety and honesty, she replaces the ballet clichés with a realistic portrayal of the grit, determination and teamwork required by our […]
On a morning exploding with pigeons, I fall into a phone conversation with my old friend Kiera as I walk to work. ‘Can we talk about historical fiction?’ I ask. ‘I don’t write historical fiction,’ she says. ‘I write speculative biography.’ Isn’t that the way of writerly research, I think with a sigh: you push […]
During my thirty-five years as a published writer and thirty years as a teacher of creative writing at various universities, I’ve read several articles by creative writers, writing teachers or editors who say that starting to write a new story is the hardest part. But for me, beginning a story comes relatively easily. Almost always, […]
One of my favourite features of novels – and one that makes the art form different to many others – is their ability to take on the perspectives, words and thoughts of a fictional character. As readers, we feel the intimacy of being told a story and enjoy the benign voyeurism of having a window […]
On leaving home When I left Melbourne at the age of twenty-one, I left behind the squelching autumn leaves that fell from the big European trees along the Yarra. I left behind bracing clifftop walks on Phillip Island with my two best partners-in-writing, and the salami we placed where the phone handset should be. I […]
On the surface, it seems as though Chemutai Glasheen’s short story ‘The Debt’, in Unlimited Futures, and Maria Papas’ award-winning novel Skimming Stones, don’t have much in common. However, as the second panel at Fremantle Press’s Great Big Book Club got underway, it became clear that Chemutai’s and Maria’s stories and writing processes share quite […]
If you’re like me when you enjoy a thing, you want others to share that joy. The drunk bellowing over your shoulder at the football game might be irksome, but doesn’t it beat being an audience of one? This is particularly so if you’re a writer. Sure, we should write for ourselves (goes the advice), […]
People ask me: Where do your ideas come from? Each of my books has a different genesis, but often the starting point is me saying,`I want to write a story that does X’. Sometimes the inspiration is no more than an image or scene that sparks in my brain. Or it might be a big […]
Nadia Rhook is a historian and poet, born in Naarm / Melbourne and currently living in Boorloo / Perth. Her new poetry collection examines birth and parenthood with a consciousness that spans centuries. Second Fleet Baby draws on the energies of 18th century English convict women, including her own ancestors, to open raw questions of […]
Andrew Sutherland’s brilliant debut book examines Queer and HIV-positive identity from the point of diagnosis to the point of openness, resilience and transformation. In this piece Andrew reflects on writing the collection. The Events Here is a poem, failed or unfinished: I was in the waiting room of a clinic in Boat Quay, Singapore. It […]
Bron Bateman’s latest collection of poems, Blue Wren, is structured around a suite of Frida Kahlo paintings that provide a powerful way of healing, of reclaiming the past and of embracing the beauty of now. But in this article, Bron shares how the collection might never have been without some key advice from a friend. […]
I am not a reluctant reader. Quite the opposite, in fact. For as long as I can remember, given the choice between just about anything and a good book, the pages always win. And yet somehow I write books that engage reluctant readers. I didn’t set out to do this – I didn’t even realise […]
Synchronicity – it’s a ‘thing’ for many authors. During the research and writing of each story in my historical ‘Light’ series I’ve experienced delightfully unnerving coincidences, making me wonder how books come about. Do I choose the story or does the story choose me? In the case of The Last Light Horse, perhaps it’s the […]
Chosen as Apple’s Book of the Month in April, one reviewer described Brigid’s book, A Year of Loving Kindness to Myself, and Other Essays, as ‘an exquisitely unembellished Zen lesson in the art of attention’. As Brigid explains below, cultivating that attention can be a key source of inspiration for students in creative writing. Lists […]
He’s over there! I recently finished reading How to End a Story, Helen Garner’s third volume of her edited diaries. I read it as my daughter was studying Monkey Grip for her VCE. In a captivating February session at the Perth Festival Writers Weekend, Garner told interviewer Gillian O’Shaughnessy that some reviewers complained that Monkey […]
Ethics of Representation panellist Rashida Murphy.
Sharron Booth had been working on her novel The Silence of Water years before it was shortlisted for the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award in 2020. In this post she shares a deep dive into the research techniques she learned along the way.
Surrounded by books and authors at the gorgeous Fremantle Arts Centre, the Perth Festival’s Writers Weekend kicked off with the much anticipated ‘The Business of Being a Writer’ event. Emerging authors spent several hours hearing from industry professionals on topics from marketing tips to building your profile to business advice for those just starting out. […]