Category: Fiction writing

Competitions and Opportunities
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Scarlet Stiletto Awards shortlist announced

Sisters in Crime have announced the shortlist for the 30th Scarlet Stiletto Awards, and we’re so thrilled that a whopping 13 out of the 25 writers on the shortlist are AWC graduates! Here are the details from the Sisters in Crime website: Sisters in Crime Australia is proud to announce

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Lucy Lever’s journey from aspiring writer to published author

Lucy Lever had been writing on and off for years, but could never quite finish the novel she dreamt of writing. That all changed when she discovered the Australian Writers’ Centre. “Stumbling across AWC was like discovering a treasure trove of wonderful courses, and I wanted to do them all,” Lucy told us. “I realised that I should have started rather than finished here, given that AWC offered a step-by-step guide to novel writing and many other wonderful courses with lots of workshopping along the way and highly skilled teachers.” Lucy went on to complete several courses with the AWC and her debut novel, Mystic Ridge, has now been published by HarperCollins HQ.

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Alumni/Student success stories
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Apsara Baldovino’s picture book ‘The Lucky Shack’

“I sent one of my stories to Cathie and she told me that she felt that I should consider starting with the foundations first and recommended the Australian Writers’ Centre Writing Picture Books course before taking on a mentor,” Apsara told us. “It was the best advice I could have ever received. Cathie had designed the course so, in a way, I was able to learn from the best in a structured way with a group online.”

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Three writing tips from Katherine Rundell

Katherine Rundell is a bestselling author whose novels for children include Rooftoppers, The Wolf Wilder, The Explorer and The Good Thieves. She has won the Costa Children’s Book Award, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, amongst many others. Her books have sold millions of copies worldwide.

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

The creative magic of the mundane

“The best time to plan a book is while you’re washing the dishes.” You don’t have to wander too far across the wild plains of the internet to discover this quote from acclaimed mystery writer Agatha Christie, and it’s one I’ve used myself in author talks for many years –

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

The 70-20-10 formula used by author Vikki Marmaras

By Vikki Marmaras For the past few years I have immersed myself in the world of children’s literature. I started writing when my eldest son was born, at a time when I was looking for a change but didn’t want to commit to long term study. Naively, I thought writing

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

5 short stories to read right now to make you a better writer

Short stories are the perfect reading solution for our time-poor era. With an average word count of 2000-7000 words, a short story encapsulates everything readers love about storytelling – compelling characters, conflict, setting, theme and plot – in a compact form that packs a wallop. This means that, for writers,

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Alumni/Student success stories
Australian Writers' Centre Team

How Alli Parker’s tweet resulted in her book deal

Alli was worried that she hadn’t written prose for over a decade, having been focused on screenplays. She decided to follow the novel writing path at the Australian Writers’ Centre, starting with Creative Writing Stage 1, then moving on to Novel Writing Essentials and capping it off with Write Your Novel.

“I wanted guidance, I wanted to learn and grow and be better so I could hone my craft and write a beautiful book to do justice to the story of my grandparents. The AWC had a range of courses, it was accessible and didn’t cost a fortune. I figured it was a good place to start.”

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

5 ways to keep your reader guessing in a crime novel

Crime writing in Australia is having a big moment, and the best crime novels are the ones that keep readers guessing right to the very end. My new novel The First Summer of Callie McGee is a middle-grade mystery novel set in a seaside village on the south coast of

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Ned Kelly Awards shortlist nominations announced

The Ned Kelly Awards shortlist has been announced and we are so thrilled to see AWC graduate Kerryn Mayne on the list! Here are the details from the Australian Crime Writers Association website: We are proud to report that Aussie crime writing continues to grow in strength and identity, as

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Alumni/Student success stories
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Chenée Marrapodi goes from hobby writer to published children’s author

“Writing news stories is very different to writing a children’s book!” Chenée told us. “I knew if I tried to find all of the information myself, I’d end up falling down the ‘Google rabbit hole’ and I’d waste even more time – yet another excuse to stop me from actually writing the book!”

Instead, she dove into the course Writing Children’s Novels and, as she says, hasn’t looked back. Chenée’s debut book, One Wrong Turn, is out now with Fremantle Press.

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Alumni/Student success stories
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Anna Spargo-Ryan on writing beautiful sentences

Anna Spargo-Ryan is known for her beautiful way with words. Her novels The Paper House and The Gulf received critical acclaim, while her memoir A Kind Of Magic, released in October 2022, was shortlisted for the Nonfiction Book Award in the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards.

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Alumni/Student success stories
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Heidi Walkinshaw’s new career as a picture book author and copywriter

After the birth of her first child, Heidi Walkinshaw knew she wanted to try a new career, so she enrolled in a psychology degree. However, it didn’t quite scratch her creative itch, so she turned to the Australian Writers’ Centre.

“After procrastinating for a little while, I took the plunge and enrolled in the Writing Picture Books course with Cathie Tasker and suddenly all those notebooks of ideas that I had been scribbling in for years made sense,” Heidi told us.

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Shankari Chandran The Barrier Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens
Alumni/Student success stories
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Shankari Chandran: From lawyer to award-winning author

When Shankari Chandran took time out of her career as a lawyer to have her fourth child, she turned her hand to writing in between baby feeds and family demands. This pastime has turned into a new career and Shankari has now released her first novel The Barrier, a futuristic fast-paced thriller that has been compared to the works of Michael Crichton and Matthew Reilly.

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Competitions and Opportunities
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Davitt Awards shortlist nominations announced

The 23rd Davitt Awards shortlist has been announced and we are so excited to see AWC graduates Dinuka McKenzie, Fleur Ferris and Louise Bassett on the list! Here are the details from the Sisters in Crime website: Crime alert: Sisters in Crime has announced its shortlist for its 23rd Davitt Awards for the best crime and

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

How to write your book’s acknowledgements page

The world is divided into two types of people – those who pore over the acknowledgements page at the end of a book and those who don’t even glance at it. If you’re an aspiring author, whether of fiction or non-fiction, prose or poetry, I recommend you join the first

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