The 22nd of November 2018 was a good day. It was the day Allen &Unwin signed me up for my third novel, The Deceptions. Many years earlier, I had lived next door to Fred and Eva Perger, Czech-Jewish Holocaust …
Events
How music can help writers: A guest post by Indigo Perry
Before I wrote my second memoir Darkfall, I didn’t think I’d ever write much about my adolescence in a country town in the eighties. My memories from that time were painful to think about. They included intense episodes of …
Writing under influence: A guest post by Thuy On
Literary influences are an odd thing, these nebulous depositories where we pick up random ideas and then mix them with our own flavour. My influences, when I write are a weird brew. For example, my collection of poetry, Turbulence, …
What’s the point? Writing in the time of Corona. A Guest Post by Katherine Collette
While in quarantine for the plague, Shakespeare not only wrote King Lear but, according to some sources, also Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. Meanwhile, Isaac Newton, forced into isolation to avoid the same disease, used his time to hone …
Writing Emotions
One of my earlier jobs, before I moved onto writing and teaching writing full time, was working in a mental health organization. Among all else, I ran there a writing therapy group. The majority of participants shared a diagnosis of …
How I wrote myself into my non-memoir book: A guest post by Melanie Dimmitt
My debut book, Special, is not a memoir. As a self-help, special-needs parenting title, it shares shopping carts with taglines to the tune of: ‘A Mother’s Journey of Hope and Healing’, ‘A Mother’s Story of Grief, Hope …
Going the Indie Route: A Guest Post by Pamela Cook
In September 2019 I self-published my fifth novel, Cross My Heart. Having had four books traditionally published before that, going down this path was not a decision I came to lightly. My writing career began in 2012 with the …
Journaling the Novel: A guest post by Kate Mildenhall
Journaling the new book
Daylesford – Musk House Nov 11, 2016
5.26 and close to knock off time. Splendid sun shining on the deck before me and the sheep and the grape vine and I’m all chilled and stretched and …
Writing against redemption
By nature, I am a confessional writer. The more difficult, dramatic, my life is – the better I actually fare. Artistically that is. And yet… It has taken me twenty years to dare to tell one of the most transformative …
Writing Violence: A Guest Post by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
It was only after several years of studying the Armenian genocide, in an effort to write about my family’s history, that I learned about the terrorist groups. There were two – the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, …