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The Writing Life

Information, inspiration and insights into the writing life

APRIL: Melanie Cheng

Melanie Cheng is a writer and general practitioner of Chinese-Australian heritage. Her short story collection Australia Day won the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript and was shortlisted for the 2017 Reading Prize for New Australian Fiction and the 2018 Indie Book Award for debut fiction. The short story ‘White Sparrow’ was published in the collection Shibboleth and Other Stories, which contains the best stories from the 2016 Margaret River Short Story Competition.

Combating Crisis in Crime

Jarad Henry

Cops and Robbers

CC: You studied Criminology and now work for Victoria Police. What came first, your interest in crime and policing or a desire to write crime fiction?

Setting the Mood with Location

Toni Jordan

Refine Your Novel

Reading for Writers

Writing into the Inspiration

Erina Reddan

Pitching Bootcamp

CC: You won the Holding Redlich pitching competition awarded by the South Pacific Association of Film and Television. As an author you’ve appeared on Bert Newton's 'Good Morning Australia' and Margaret Throsby's 'Desert Island Disks', as well as being extensively profiled in all major newspapers. To what, in broad terms, do you attribute your success?

Fighting with Sentences

Ellena Savage

Shaping an Essay Collection

CC: Congratulations on your forthcoming essay collection 'Blueberries'. Can you tell us a little bit about the ideas that shaped the collection?

Applications Open - 2019 Regional Small Grants

Regional writing groups, literary organisations and arts organisations in Victoria are able to apply for grants of $880 to subsidise literary activities in their area, thanks to the support of the Grace Marion Wilson Trust.

AGM Wrap Up

The 2018 Annual General Meeting was held on 27 March.

The Chair, Director and Treasurer all presented their reports on 2018 activity, which can be viewed in the annual report. In addition, four members were elected to the Committee of Management: Donata Carrazza and Noe Harsel, both existing Committee members, and we welcome Bryan Keon-Cohen and Amy Maddison, who are joining us for the first time. Thanks to Andrew Bush and Sarah Jensen for also standing for election.

Hazel Rowley Fellow launches her biography with Scribe

Mary Hoban smiling

Writers Victoria and the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship are delighted to announce that Mary Hoban's biography 'An Unconventional Wife: The Life of Julia Sorell Arnold' has just been published by Scribe. The book was launched by Ellen Koshland on 3 April at Avenue Bookstore, Melbourne, and is now available in bookshops.

First, Picture the Forest

On writing place so your reader will go anywhere with you.

The Bitter Lie

Let us sing our praise of the bitter lie,
Dismiss the stolen children’s cry.
Favour fallacies and fairy tales, 
Worship thieves blown in by hearty gales. 

Let us sing our praise of the bitter lie, 
Deny bloodshed under deathly skies. 
Reject sovereign clans of noble grace, 
Elect foolish pawns of a ‘higher race’. 

Let us sing our praise of the bitter lie, 
Watch glibly as democracy dies. 
The traumatic scars of colonial lore, 
Weep on now and forevermore.