Last year at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival I heard Charlotte Harper, founder of the digital press Editia, saying that as soon as she receives an author’s submission she searches for their online presence. As Editia only publish virtually, if the author can’t be found on...
When I heard that Richard Flanagan had won the Man Booker prize for his novel, The Narrow Road To The Deep North, I whooped and did a little dance. Since he was shortlisted I’ve been hoping that he’d beat the odds to become the third Australian...
When I was writing and re-writing my travel memoir Last Seen in Lhasa, the author Patrick French gave me some advice. 'Go into a bookshop and visualise your book on the shelves. Which section would it be in? Which books would it be between? Imagine it...
It’s always sobering when I meet a well-known journalist who once earned a decent salary tell me he’s really struggling. For many in the field, regular writing gigs have dried up and the rate per word has gone down. Or it hasn’t gone up in...
It’s literary festival season again. At the same time as Sydney Writers' Festival opens, Hay-on-Wye – UK’s biggest gathering of writers – kicks off. Yesterday I heard Alice Walker talk about writing and activism; today David Malouf revealed what’s at the heart of his novels. Despite all...
No-one likes rejection. But every writer faces it. Martin Green from Pantera Press recently wrote, ‘Virtually every best-selling author was rejected by every publisher they contacted except the one where they found their eventual home.’ I thought those words were worth repeating. Except in the rare...
Yesterday I met 4 writers – two Indian & two Australian – who were part of the 2012 Bookwallah tour, Asialink Arts’ roving international writers festival through India. This amazing literary tour covered 4000-km by train, beginning in Mumbai and ending in Pondicherry in Tamil...
Last week I was at the Walkleys Storology conference in Sydney. This brought international and national journalists, publishers, editors, ‘journo-preneurs’ and other creatives together. I was on a panel discussing the ‘Longform renaissance’ with Allen & Unwin publisher, Elizabeth Weiss, social media expert Steven Lewis &...
Writing something short can be as hard or harder as working on a long sprawling project like a novel. But in the process of whittling down your words, you get to the heart of your story. I realised this putting together my book trailer for The...
When my new novel was launched at Gleebooks in Sydney last Friday I had the chance to thank and acknowledge some of those people who’ve helped me along the way. Even though it’s just my name on the cover, when you write and complete a...