How to be an Author: Let’s discuss how to get the most out of your writing group
Are you in a writing group? In episode two, Georgia and Claire are joined by Deborah Hunn, co-author of How to Be an Author: The Business of Being a Writer in Australia for a chat about the ins and outs of workshopping manuscripts. Invisible Boys author Holden Sheppard shares his tips for finding your unique voice and the Comma Chameleon helps us ‘pick the dinkus’.
Topics include:
Where to find a writing group and how to start one from scratch
When is it too early to workshop your manuscript?
How to give and receive constructive feedback
When to accept feedback and when to discard it
Finding your best readers
The How to Be an Author podcast is an informal series of chats between publishing industry professionals. Co-hosted by marketing and communications manager Claire Miller and publisher Georgia Richter, it features regular guest appearances by editor Armelle Davies, as the Comma Chameleon, special publishing industry guests and top tips from contributors to the book How to Be an Author: The Business of Being a Writer in Australia.
Show notes
Extend your podcast
How to Be an Author: The Business of Being a Writer in Australia by Georgia Richter and Deborah Hunn is available in all good bookstores and online. Between its pages you’ll find everything you need to know about the business of being a writer from people who live and breathe books.
Connect with Georgia Richter and many of the contributors to the book and podcast in the Facebook group.
Guests
Deborah Hunn is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing in the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry at Curtin University. Deborah completed a PhD at the University of Western Australia and has taught for three decades at universities in Western Australia and South Australia. Her award-winning work has been published in a range of anthologies, edited collections and journals, and includes short stories, creative non-fiction, academic essays on literature, film and television, and reviews.
Holden Sheppard is an award-winning author born and bred in Geraldton, Western Australia. His debut young adult novel Invisible Boys won numerous accolades, including the 2018 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award and the 2019 Western Australian Premier’s Book Prize for an Emerging Writer. Holden’s writing has been published in Griffith Review, Westerly, Page Seventeen, Indigo journal, and the Bright Lights, No City anthology (Margaret River Press, 2019). He has also written for 10 Daily, the Huffington Post, the ABC, DNA magazine and FasterLouder. He serves as the Deputy Chair of Writing WA, and as an ambassador for Lifeline WA. Holden is a misfit: a gym junkie who has played Pokémon competitively, a sensitive geek who loves aggressive punk rock, and a bogan who learned to speak French.
Books and authors discussed
The Last Bookshop by Emma Young
The Little Boat on Trusting Lane by Mel Hall
Where the Line Breaks by Michael Burrows
Other topics
2021 Fogarty Literary Award
Original music
Title Music and Comma Chameleon Theme by Mo Wilson (© 2021)
Sound engineering
Aidan D’Adhemar, Fremantle PA Hire
Produced by
Claire Miller with Tiffany Ko and Chloe Walton, Fremantle Press Marketing and Communications
This podcast was produced in Walyalup in Whadjuk Boodja, on the lands of the Noongar people.