Month: January 2016

Competitions and Opportunities
Australian Writers' Centre Team

COMP CLOSED: Win signed copy of Withering-by-Sea by Judith Rossell!

This week it’s your chance to get your hands on the much acclaimed young fiction novel Withering-by-Sea, written by Judith Rossell. (Judith is a talented illustrator and writer, who also presents courses at the Australian Writers’ Centre!) Set in Victorian times, the book is billed as a “Stella Montgomerie Intrigue”

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Word lovers
Australian Writers' Centre Team

An A-Z of brand new portmanteau words!

Portmanteau words are a common occurrence in the English language. They’re formed when you take two words and smash them together to make a brand new one – typically losing a few letters off one or both. There are hundreds of a real life examples across a range of areas.

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Alumni/Student success stories
Australian Writers' Centre Team

How part-time lawyer Libby Hakim carved out a successful career as a freelance writer

Libby Hakim had a simple goal: to see her byline in a magazine or newspaper. After completing a course at the Australian Writers’ Centre, she not only achieved that – she’s now been published in many top publications.

Working as a part-time lawyer, Libby first completed a five-week online course in Magazine and Newspaper Writing Stage 1. That changed the course of Libby’s life. “Before I started the course I actually had the goal of getting published, I wanted to see my byline in a magazine or a newspaper,” says Libby, who was working part-time as a lawyer.

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Podcast: So You Want to be a Writer
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Ep 93 Meet thriller author Jaye Ford, author of ‘Darkest Place’

In Episode 93 of So you want to be a writer:  What writers need to know about defamation when writing memoirs, win a writer’s residency in a bridge, a writer is arrested after winning illegal narcotics in a writing competition and a tax return is hailed as a masterpiece of contemporary

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Our famous Q&As!
Dean Koorey

Q&A: The Force Awakens vs Wakens vs Wakes?

Each week here at the Australian Writers’ Centre, we dissect and discuss, contort and retort, ask and gasp at the English language and all its rules, regulations and ridiculousness. It’s a celebration of language, masquerading as a passive-aggressive whinge about words and weirdness. This week, we’re in a galaxy far far

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Competitions and Opportunities
Australian Writers' Centre Team

COMP CLOSED: Win The Mapmaker Chronicles trilogy – signed!

We’re triply excited this week, with not one but THREE books to give away. They form the trilogy of The Mapmaker Chronicles – A.L. Tait’s hugely successful adventure series for middle grade readers (and older!). In a nutshell, the books follow the fate of Quinn, a reluctant player in a

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Alumni/Student success stories
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Catherine Rodie: overcoming dyslexia to become a successful writer

Catherine Rodie never thought she would become a writer. This limiting belief, coupled with her experience with dyslexia, meant that she hadn’t considered that writing could be a real career for her. But after completing a course at the Australian Writers’ Centre, that all changed. And now, she’s not only become one of the most prolific freelance writers in Australia, she’s laid the foundations to pursue a career in publishing, recently scoring a coveted part-time role at Bauer Magazines.

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Competitions and Opportunities
Australian Writers' Centre Team

8 writing competitions to enter in January and February 2016

The new year is the perfect time to stretch your creative legs and enter a writing competition. Perhaps you have a little extra time on your hands and a long list of writing goals to smash for the coming months. When we asked you, our community, a few months ago what your

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Build your profile and promote your book
Valerie Khoo

Don’t have a high profile? Well, do something about it.

This post is by Valerie Khoo, National Director of the Australian Writers’ Centre I’m a little bit cranky. Why? Well, I was talking to an author the other day and she was bemoaning the fact that her books aren’t selling to her expectations. I tried to explain to her that

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Alumni/Student success stories
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Rob Grant: From nine-to-five corporate cubicle dweller to exotic adventures as a travel writer

Rob Grant loves travelling. But it can be hard to satisfy your wanderlust when you’re consumed by a nine-to-five corporate career. That’s exactly the position Rob was in until he discovered the Travel Writing course at the Australian Writers’ Centre. Now he’s swapped his corporate job for his new path in life – working part-time as a travel writer and part-time as a marketing consultant.

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Competitions and Opportunities
Australian Writers' Centre Team

COMP CLOSED: Win Tony Cavanaugh’s Kingdom of the Strong

It would be a crime if we didn’t let you know about this week’s book giveaway. And it’s a crime that we have on offer – Australian author Tony Cavanaugh’s latest novel, Kingdom of the Strong, published by Hachette Australia. Cavanaugh is no stranger to writing, having been a screenwriter

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Podcast: So You Want to be a Writer
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Ep 91 How to achieve your writing goals in 2016

In Episode 91 of So you want to be a writer: How to know you’re dating a writer, look out for this fake Penguin publicist fishing for book reviews, how to craft a page-turning plot, and things to know about writing life. Plus our step-by-step guide on how to achieve your 2016

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Uncategorized
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Your writing goals for 2016 – do they sound familiar?

In December, Valerie asked the AWC community (via our newsletter and this blog) to let us know what writing goals they had for the coming year. We received a huge response – with the image above an actual word cloud of the most popular sentiments sent in from everyone. And

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Author Ellie Marney’s TOP 3 tips for YA writers

In a recent episode of our top-rating podcast So you want to be a writer, Allison Tait chatted with popular Young Adult (YA) writer Ellie Marney. (And when we say popular, we’re talking about her novel, Every Breath, being one of only two Australian novels on the 2015 list of most

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Competitions and Opportunities
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Licence to WIN Trigger Mortis – the new James Bond story!

Bond is back! No, not that Spectre movie – we’re talking about in print, and with considerably less singing by Sam Smith. The book is Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz and it’s our book giveaway for this week. Ever since Ian Fleming’s death in the mid-1960s, his estate has commissioned

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Alumni/Student success stories
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Elizabeth Farrelly’s journey to becoming a published children’s book author

It’s not only brand new writers who find worth in an Australian Writers’ Centre course. Elizabeth Farrelly is one of Australia’s most respected journalists and columnists, but she wanted to step outside her usual element and explore a new genre.

And that’s where the power of 21st century learning took centre stage. Elizabeth enrolled in the five-week online course Writing Books for Children and Young Adults. “I chose to do the course online – it suited my unpredictable days,” she says.

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Alumni/Student success stories
Australian Writers' Centre Team

How Susannah Hardy’s new year’s resolution turned into a new career

One new year’s day, Susannah Hardy made a decision that would change the rest of her life. She decided she wanted to earn money from writing. Already working as an actor, Susannah then enrolled in a course at the Australian Writers’ Centre. That set her on a path where she now has dual careers – as an actor, as well as a successful freelance writer, published in Australia’s top magazines and newspapers.

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

17 writing courses to do this summer!

Ahhhh summer – the sound of crashing waves, the gentle evening chirp of the cicadas, the sizzle of the BBQ, the tapping of the keyboard… Wait, what? That’s right. Summer is actually a GREAT time to learn a new writing skill, especially considering it coincides (here in the Southern Hemisphere

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Uncategorized
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Ground-breaking new project from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes

It’s no secret that we’re big fans of Downton Abbey and we love advancements in publishing. Downton Abbey’s creator Julian Fellowes is embarking on a brave new project that marries digital technology and Victorian serialised storytelling. From the press release: Ground-breaking new project will see story published in weekly chapters on

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