Writers, editors, agents, publishers and more share their thoughts, experiences and stories.
I am thirteen. My best friend since prep, Zoe, has gone away for five months to Europe and America. I get postcards from Spain, Italy, New York. In the meantime, I need friends, quick; a flock I can conceal myself in at recess and lunch, somewhere between the soccer oval and the flat grey river. Protective colouration. Failing that, I will kiss boys.
We’re on the 13th floor of a glass tower in Elizabeth Street, Sydney, a couple of kilometres as the crow flies from where white settlers first set foot on the Australian continent.
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, the Yolngu singer and composer, famous – these days – all over the world, is standing beside a long table on which 60 copies of a big, glossy book are stacked in piles of five.
Six years ago, after several years of working on a novel I’d provisionally titled The Russian Book of Lost Love, I discovered that it is possible to kill your own book. If you, too, contemplate murder, here are some strategies I’ve found helpful.
The writing life is a strange and rollercoastish thing. This time last year I was about to put my first adult novel, 'The Things We Tell Ourselves', away and concentrate on my new book.
It was a hard decision to make after 2011, when I felt I was getting somewhere. I’d been awarded a mentorship through the ASA and an Asialink Writer’s Residency to Cambodia and, while there renewing my love affair with the country and undertaking research, had been contacted by a publisher who was interested in seeing the completed manuscript. Publication didn’t seem an impossible dream.
When internationally renowned Israeli novelist Aharon Appelfeld was barely nine years old he escaped a Nazi concentration camp in Romania, surviving by moving from one hiding place to another for the next three years. As an adult, still haunted by wartime horrors, he couldn’t work in confined spaces and wrote his novels in cafés of Jerusalem to where he moved in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
Indeed, Appelfeld used cafés not only as work spaces, but also as sources of inspiration.
Suzanne McCourt orders a lemongrass tea and takes in the glistening sea from our sun-drenched spot on the deck of Brighton Baths Café.
Her first novel, contracted with Text Publishing, is due to be launched in February 2014; she is currently working on her second and she has recently released two self-published books – an anthology of her own poetry called The Lost Men, and a photo-gift book called Old Dogs: Lessons in Loving & Aging.
As we watch the dotted boats sailing out to sea, she reflects on her writing path. “I’ve now learned to get out of my head and listen to my...
In the autumn of 2008 I was approaching the 5th anniversary of my writer’s block. During those years I never stopped writing and sometimes even produced publishable works. However, writing had become much harder than it used to be and the ratio of bad work to good was incredibly high. I felt I’d lost my writing voice.
Many writers, particularly the confessional ones to whose clan I belong, depend on people in their lives to inspire their work. But what makes a good muse? “Nice” people would rarely stimulate art. Art demands a complex character and often such complexity has something to do with force, intensity. In short, Kerouac nailed it.
When famous writers decide to get grumpy with their fans, one of their popular complaints is being asked supposedly ridiculous questions, such as whether they write with a pen or a pencil, or nowadays – a keyboard.
As more authors move into publishing their own ebooks, the sometimes confusing implications of their decisions are becoming more and more important. In the lead-up to his new Digital Makeover for Writers in March, Euan Mitchell explains the truth behind some common misconceptions in digital publishing.
Euan is a former senior editor for a major publisher. As a writer he has three novels and a range of non-fiction books to his credit. He has also successfully published other writers in a range of genres. Euan has taught writing, editing and publishing at Monash University, Victoria...
