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 …
Events
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 …
Writing the Painful Body: A Guest Post by Josephine Taylor
In my novel Eye of a Rook, modern-day Perth writer and academic Alice Tennant researches the history of hysteria and gynaecological pain to make sense of her own mystifying disorder, coming up with the idea of two bodies:
One, …
Choosing a (fictional) point of view: A Guest Post by Jim McIntyre
Two thirds of the way into structural editing of my novel Nikolai the Perfect, my publisher summoned me to her office. This wasn’t a routine meeting. As soon as she opened the door I could tell she was psyching …
Building Metaphor & Symbol Into Fiction: A Guest Post by Dmetri Kakmi
My novella The Door is inspired by my friend Shane Jones’s painting of a very realistic door. It hung in the stairwell of his home when I went there for dinner one evening. At first, I thought he had added …
The Uncertain Critic: A guest post by Tali Lavi
It took me some time to find my way into this profession. There was the business of a certain letter which I wrote in my thirties asking for reviewing work, which was addressed to the editor of a prestigious literary …
Conflicted About Conflict: A Guest Post by Monique Mulligan
In real life, conflict makes me anxious. It’s more than discomfort, a natural by-product of conflict, but a deep-down anxiety: a rat nibbling the insides of my gut.
I don’t run from conflict and I’m not a pushover. But when …