A few minutes after signing the publishing contract for my memoir, Ten Thousand Aftershocks, once the euphoria subsided, the reality of what I had done descended. The manuscript I had written at my kitchen counter and on my couch, …
A Beginner’s Guide to Biography: Guest post by Caroline Baum
When lockdown began in 2020, I was planning a trip to France to resume research on a biography I had been worrying away at for an embarrassing length of time, having won the Hazel Rowley Fellowship.
This was my first …
How to Maintain a Thriving Writers Group: a Guest Post by Barry Lee Thompson
During the final editing phase of my debut collection of fiction, Broken Rules and Other Stories, I decided to discuss a last-minute change of some character names with my partner while we were washing up after dinner. I described …
Writing My Truth as Fiction: A Guest Post by Dina Davis
When my children asked me to write the story of my early life, I put off the task for many years. Did I really want to revisit that traumatic time when, as an adolescent in the fifties, I suffered from …
Letting more readers in: A Guest Post by Cassandra Austin
I wrote my latest novel, Like Mother, in what I call a ‘white heat’. No plotting, no Proust-like interviews of characters to find out their favourite foods, and no research. Just the white page (or screen, let’s be honest I gave …
When doubt isn’t a small word: A Guest Post by Kim Lock
Allow me to get the irony out of the way first: in writing a piece about self-doubt, I am feeling a lot of doubt.
I have started this post several times. I’ve tried opening with a definition of doubt. I’ve …