Category: Fiction writing

Great news: our new half-day course, Writing Australian History is coming up in November! So to get the inside story, we asked presenter and historical guru, Pamela Freeman, a few questions around this fascinating genre…

Hi Pamela. There seems to be lots of Australian historical stories appearing in mainstream media currently (e.g. Gallipoli and ANZAC Girls etc). Why do you think they’re so popular at the moment?Historical fiction generally has become more popular worldwide, often due to television shows like The Tudors and Da Vinci’s Demons (although I wouldn’t call that history!).

In Australia generally, people are becoming more interested in history; the number of people going to the Dawn Service for Anzac Day, for example, has gone up and up over the last ten years or so. And then, of course, we had the 60th anniversary of World War II, and now the 100th year anniversary of World War I, which is sparking even more interest. The media are riding the centenary wave, but I think they’re being successful because people are genuinely interested in the past and, in particular, in the people from that past – how they differed from us and how they were the same.

Belfast, 2am, Tomb Street. A young man lies dead in an alley. Cracked ribs, broken jaw, fractured skull. With the Celtic Tiger purring and the Troubles in their death throes, Detective Sergeant John O’Neill is called to investigate. Meanwhile O’Neill’s partner, DI Jack Ward, a veteran troubled detective, is receiving death threats from an unknown source…

You’ve just read the synopsis for When Sorrows Come – Belfast-born author Matt McGuire’s second novel in his DS O’Neill series. It’s a follow up to his debut 2012 novel, Dark Dawn, and further explores the brutal criminal underworld of new Northern Ireland.

Matt currently resides in Sydney, so we thought we’d chat to him as a he launches his book and we launch our new Crime and Thriller Writing course.

Dr Anita Heiss is a busy woman. As the author of non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women’s fiction, poetry, social commentary and travel articles, she’s never far from a well-shaped word or two. Her books include Am I black enough for you? and Tiddas, and she is on the list of Booktopia’s favourite Australian novelists.

In 2001, Anita was the first Aboriginal student in the history of the University of Western Sydney to graduate with a PhD in communications and media. And despite being so busy, she’s always willing to connect with her loyal readers to help grow the voice of Aboriginal writers. “I like meeting my readers,” she says. “I think festivals are a great way to do that. It’s a great way for readers to engage with you and learn about why you do what you do.”

Do not adjust your sets. Yes, we really did just say that you can be a productive writer without actually writing a word. At least that’s how Graeme Simsion (author of the ridiculously popular 2013 smash hit, The Rosie Project) sees it.

Well, kind of anyway. It’s true that The Rosie Project does indeed have words – around 75,000 of them, and that Graeme actually did write them himself. In fact, when we spoke to him in Episode 1 of our top rating podcast So You Want to Be a Writer earlier this year, he also had some interesting things to say about the evolution of the story from screenplay to novel.

Writing any kind of fiction, purely by definition requires an element of suspended disbelief. After all, it’s a ‘made up’ story. And Kate Forsyth knows a thing or two about the subject, having written many fantasy novels over the years, often with a fairy tale angle or inspiration.

When we had a chat with Kate recently – in episode 21 of our top-rating podcast So you want to be a writer – we asked her about her fantasy novels, and what the most valuable lessons were that she’d learned creating her own worlds?

Eli Glasman is an author based in Melbourne, Australia. His first book The Boy’s Own Manual to Being a Proper Jew explores the complications of being a homosexual boy in the Melbourne orthodox Jewish community.

We caught up with Eli to discuss his writing process and the blurred lines between real life and fiction.

Su Dharmapala is an author, social media commentator and blogger. Her debut novel, The Wedding Season, was published in 2012 by Simon & Schuster and she’s just released her follow-up, Saree. Set in Sri Lanka, India and Australia, Saree is the story of a young saree maker, whose creations transform

Josephine Moon is an Australian author whose debut novel, The Tea Chest, prompted a hotly contested auction between several publishers. The manuscript was eventually published my Allen & Unwin. Josephine describers her novel as “like a chocolate brownie – indulgent, comforting, a treat for the senses, but filling, and with chunky nuts to chew on.”

Josephine started her writing career as a journalists but had always wanted to write fiction. She also spent time teaching English and working as an editor. For many years she experimented with a number of genres, writing and publishing a number of short stories. She began work on her first novel in 2007 and is now working on a second for Allen & Unwin. She lives on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland with her husband and young son.

It’s 5.30am. Gabrielle Tozer, 28, shuts the door to her study and sits at her desk. Sydney’s concrete jungle is quieter so early in the morning and Gabrielle likes to write in silence. A gumtree stands outside her window – the only greenery among the nearby buildings. It’s a reminder