Typical — the darkest discussions I’ve attended as part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival were also the funniest. First thing Saturday morning was spent listening to Australian authors Steve Toltz, Chris Wombersley, and Michael Robotham as they talked about flawed good guys and sympathetic baddies in Heroes and Criminals, followed by Memory, a very frank discussion by Australian […]

Left: Antoni Jach, author of Napoleon’s Double
Thursday afternoon was spent in the company of the erudite Antoni Jach, who led the discussion on writing historical fiction. A senior lecturer at Melbourne’s RMIT, Antoni clearly knew his subject with three acclaimed historical fictions under his belt.
A range of issues were covered, from the motivations of authors to write […]

D.M. Cornish and his map of the Half Continent
I have raised the issue before of stifling a reader’s imagination by providing them with visual reference to what they are reading; it is an ongoing issue for me as I am yet to decide whether to provide illustrations to my manuscript. It was with great anticipation therefore […]

There are two kinds of creatives out there, at least from my experience: those who would keep their creative efforts under wraps, hidden from the world until their creation is perfect, and those who love to talk about their struggles while in the middle of try to bring their creations to life. Fortunately for this blog I’m […]

I made a few inquiries regarding yesterday’s VidLit discussion, and received a wonderfully quick response from Liz at VidLit.com. I asked about the viability of book trailers as a successful marketing tool for authors, and if they had any solid data about the effect book trailers have on sales.
This was her response:

It used to be we could track […]

“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” — Elvis Costello. Or was it Woody Allen? Either way its a useful thought to kick off this discussion about book trailers, part of the new media revolution in which a visual trailer is used to promote literary creations. 
I like trailers, and I like short animations. There is […]

At least the little guy thinks so. 
Actually it is a great read; the stand out article of the May 2008 Edition was Part Three of Ian Irvine’s series “The Truth About Publishing”. I look forward to traveling back in time far enough so that I can subscribe to Writing Queensland two months ago, just so I […]

The Sydney Writer’s Festival is kicking off next week. Flush with my new writing mission I feel obliged to attend. In typical fashion for a multi-venue program of 333 events, all the best ones take place pretty much at the same time on the same day, dammit. Oh to be gestalt.   
While it’s impossible to give […]

First post – scary.
So, why this blog? I’ve just come back from what I will probably look back on as a life changing event: I was one of ten “emerging authors” selected for the Queensland Writer’s Centre/Orbit Manuscript Development competition. I managed to throw down a 99,000 word manuscript over three months, working down to the wire (many, many […]