Category: Fiction writing

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Australian Writers' Centre Team

Getting Published: What are my options?

Blaise van Hecke is the publisher and co-owner of Busybird Publishing. She is also the author of The Book Book: 12 Steps to Successful Publishing and a contributing author to Self-Made: Real Australian Business Stories. For more information visit www.busybird.com.au or contact [email protected]

It wasn’t long ago that if you wanted to be published, there was only one route: submitting to what’s known as a commercial (aka ‘traditional’) publisher. Of course, this was during an age where you banged out your work on a typewriter and had to mail out submissions. After all, this was before computers became as common to households as toasters.

Then vanity publishing (now known as self-publishing) came into vogue, but it was an expensive endeavour and lacked credibility. If the book couldn’t make it with a real publisher, then it couldn’t be any good, could it?

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

I sent an unsolicited manuscript – and got published!

To get published these days you don’t just need an amazing book — you often also need an amazing and hardworking agent to go along with it.

But when Therese Creed wrote her first novel, Redstone Station, she submitted it to the first big publisher that would take her unsolicited manuscript. To her surprise, she received a formal offer on the book not long after.

Charlotte’s Creek is her second novel released by Allen & Unwin, and we sat down with Therese to chat about her love of writing and outback adventures.

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Su Dharmapala on the power of kharma and writing from the heart

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

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

7 Questions: Josephine Moon on her ‘foodie fiction’

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.

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Author Profile: Gabrielle Tozer

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

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CBCA Shortlisted author Barry Jonsberg on writing and keeping young readers happy

Barry Jonsberg is a former lecturer and high-school teacher and author of books for young adults and kids. He has published eight books for young adults and the latest, My Life As An Alphabet, has been shortlisted in the 2014 Children’s Book Council Awards Book of the Year for Younger Readers.

Barry moved to Australia from the UK in 1999 and wrote his first novel in 2001. In 2004 his first book was published, The Whole Business with Kiffo and the Pitbull. That book was his first CBCA shortlisted novel – it made the list in 2005 list in the Older Readers category. Since then he has published 10 more books for young adults and younger readers including It’s Not all About YOU, Calma (which won the 2006 South Australian Festival Award for Children’s Literature), Dreamrider (shortlisted for the 2007 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards) and Being Here.

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At My Desk: Australian author Karen Viggers

Melbourne-born Karen Viggers is the author of three novels, the latest of which is The Grass Castle. Karen grew up in the Dandenong Ranges spending her free time riding horses and writing stories. Her love of creative writing was put aside in high school in favour of maths and science after being told it was too hard to make a living from writing. It was only after she completed vet school that she began writing again, though those works were mainly poetry and were not published. After years of working, studying and family life, Karen finally began writing fiction and, two years (and many drafts) later, her first novel, The Stranding, was published. The novel was well-received and Karen followed it up two years later with The Lightkeeper’s Wife.

Her third novel, The Grass Castle, has just been released. It follows the stories of two women in the Brindabella Ranges and their struggles to free themselves from long-buried family secrets.

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Chris Muir: Ad man writes action thriller

For author and AWC graduate Chris Muir, writing the fictional adventure thriller A Savage Garden, set in Africa, was a natural progression for the life-long passion he’s had for the country. But when you read this book, you realise that Chris’ experiences in Africa are anything but ordinary. And on

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AWC graduate Tamsin Janu on writing and publishing her first book

Australian Writers’ Centre graduate Tamsin Janu completed the Writing Books for Children and Young Adults course in 2012 and immediately afterwards started work on her book Figgy in the World. That book is now being published by Scholastic Omnibus and will hit bookstores in June 2014.

Despite feeling she was ‘too young’ to write for children, Tamsin undertook her Australian Writers’ Centre course while also studying law. She had spent some time in Ghana on a volunteer program and it was that experience that inspired her to write for children. She now works in a remote community in the Northern Territory as a youth worker.

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Jessica Shirvington: Living her dream

A true example of turning a writing dream into reality, Jessica Shirvington’s career continues to go from strength to strength. Author of the popular young adult series, The Violet Eden Chapters, Jessica has also delved into the world of picture books recently with Just the Way We Are (HarperCollins, 2015). Her

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Fiction writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

At My Desk: Bestselling action thriller novelist Matthew Reilly

International best-selling author Matthew Reilly began writing his first novel at 19, while still at university. That first novel, Contest, was rejected by all major publishers and Matthew self-published it in 1996, printing 1000 copies and selling it himself to bookstores across Sydney. In early 1997, he was contacted by

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