One of the biggest challenges facing writers in 2011 is choice.
Almost as loud as the voice that asks are we going to write today? are new accompanying (and irritating) voices asking who are we writing for?, what format should we write in?, which word processor?, what genre is this?, how should we publish? and finally: do we have the right font to start with?
This saturation of choice can be debilitating at any stage of writing, as it often feels that it’s no longer as simple as deciding to bunker down and ‘just write’ (as if that were easy to begin with!).
Increasingly, the craft of writing is linked to the business of writing, with new pathways to success and collaboration open to writers able to diversify away from ‘just writing’ and instead acquire skills such as HTML coding, search engine optimisation, video editing and social media. Skills that no writer would have likely ever heard of prior to a few decades ago.
At times this new state seems daunting. The expansion of choice can add a new layer of weighty, and potentially useless, overhead to the more primal task of getting words to the page.
But understanding the landscape, checking your compass (choose the more appropriate metaphor), can be just as… Read more
The 2011 Emerging Writer's Festival made a solid case this weekend as "the writers' festival for writers", with a solid two day lineup of workshops and conversations with local, national and international writers.
With topics ranging from podcasting to typecasting, there was plenty to digest and way too many sessions for a single person to sample everything. Luckily, the EWF11 hashtag was pumping all day, featuring a healthy lineup of tweeters chiming in with highlights of each session.
The ultimate value of a writer’s festival is often greater than the sum of its parts – and a large part of EWF is the interaction between writers, both on and off the panels.
So rather than a personal summary of the events I managed to attend, below is a curated view into some of the best tweets of the weekend, stripped from the now rather lengthy #EWF11 stream. Full credit goes to all the authors mentioned.
My main thought bubble from EWF11 was to realise that it is a great time to be a writer, as now more than ever writers’ have the agency to influence their futures and the futures of their industry, whatever ultimate shape that may take.
Such agency comes with responsibility, and hence to earn our voice writers’ need to continue to work collaboratively, inside and outside the familiar creative spheres, to reach and develop new… Read more
I may not have mentioned it yet, but this week I'm extra excited to be posting as part of the 2011 Emerging Writers' Festival blogging team.
The festival opened last night with the gala First Word event, which featured songs, comedy and readings from a bunch of writers featured in the festival including Meg Mundell, Alan Bisset and Anna Krien.
For those who couldn’t attend last night, the EWF crew were kind enough to let me bring along my camera, above is the condensed 1 minute version of First Word.
The exhaustive (in a good way) festival program is a real boon for writers in and around Melbourne, featuring workshops and panel sessions that span pretty much every angle of the writing and publishing life.
The festival weekend pass is a bargain at just $49, available online through the Emerging Writers’ Festival website.
Hope you enjoy the video, and if you’re at the festival, please say hello.
Going strong now for over six years, for the first time the Emerging Writers Festival has produced The Reader, a humble collection of insightful dispatches and advice from their 2009 lineup.
Not a reader in the oft-experienced university “photocopy a bunch of articles and bind it with a plastic comb” fashion, the design of The Reader contains more thought and creativity than most novels. The focus on design is consistent throughout, from the striking minimalist cover right through to the interior page layout which is carefully considered for each article.
Contributors range from ‘emerging’ to established writers, poets and journalists commenting on topics such as the ups and downs of freelancing, self promotion, writing practices, editor etiquette, book reviews, research methods, and how to cultivate the perfect author profile pic.
Of all the ‘how to write’ texts I’ve been exposed to (I think I read more how to write books than actually write), this is the first I have come across that specifically deals with the challenges of the emerging writer. Not just a ‘how to book’, but a venting and steady unveiling of familiar frustrations and triumphs by a collection of writers in positions not too dissimilar from our own.
Each article unfolds as an individual experience of the author’s interaction with the subject matter. So when Clem Bastow talks freelancing, she structures her thoughts via a series of… Read more
15 minutes with Linda Jaivin
Last night I had the chance to sit down with my fellow Emerging Writer's Festival bloggers and talk with novelist and translator Linda Jaivin, currently in town for the racy Dirty Words event on June 1.
Among many topics covered – Chinese Kung Fu, the art of bluffing your way through an interview, Renaissance art and French New Wave cinema – I was particularly interested in Linda’s vast catalogue of book reviews. As Linda is both a successful novelist and a critic, I wanted to find out how her position as an author influenced her approach to critquing other authors’ work.
I’ll admit that I have a pretty ignorant view of what a book review actually sets out to achieve. As a pure summary of a text, it seems a paradox that a book of 100,000 words can be explained in 150. If that were possible, all books are in dire need of more ruthless editors. And if reviews are pure opinion, how does that wash when books are such personal objects of affection? I was keen to get a more informed perspective from Linda, who has been reviewing books since before I was born.
Linda explained her approach to a review was less about like/dislike and whether to recommend a purchase, and more about giving the reader an understanding of the work itself, leaving it up to them whether they should read it or not.
She said her… Read more