Advice for writers.
A client’s email was down the other day. I had trouble sending to and receiving from them – there was no knowing if a message had arrived or would arrive, and several ‘missing’ emails sent to me suddenly arrived in a bundle ten hours after they were sent. It made…
These school holidays I got booked in to teach 10 creative writing classes to young writers aged from 5 to 18 years old, at a plethora of Northern Beaches Council libraries and at Mosman Community College, where I usually teach adults. The classes ranged from 1½ hours to full day…
Children – they’re precious, innovative, exciting, cute and annoying all at the same time. I’m so grateful to be a parent (though I do complain *sometimes*), and cherish having a career that enables me to work from home – so I get to be there when my kids get home…
They say you never stop learning and, whoever ‘they’ are, I hope they’re right. I love studying, extending my understanding of the world and those in it. So when the opportunity came along last month to apply for a scholarship for a five-week ‘Writing Inclusive Fiction’ course, I jumped at…
Stephen King (horror writer extraordinaire) says that a story’s opening lines should “invite the reader to begin the story”. “It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.” Of course what one person wants to know differs tremendously from what another person wants to know. So…
Today I’m over on Leife Shallcross’s blog talking about my writing touchstone – the one thing that has inspired and will always inspire me to write. I reveal how I first found that source of inspiration and where, why the experience resonated so strongly with me, how my touchstone reflects…
February in Australia means the start of a new school year, and new opportunities to learn. For me it also means new opportunities to teach! Here are some of the courses I’m teaching this term: The Year Your Book Gets Written Creative Writing Essentials Story Structure Introduction to Creative Writing…
