Talking Writing. 50 Contemporary Writers on Novels, Short Stories, Non-Fiction, Poetry,... PDF
Preview Talking Writing. 50 Contemporary Writers on Novels, Short Stories, Non-Fiction, Poetry,...
Talking Writing: 50 Contemporary Writers on Novels Short Stories Non-Fiction Poetry Playwriting Digital Fantasy Sci-Fi Blogging Criticism Comedy Erotica Crime Young Adult Screenwriting Picture Books Memoir and Much, Much More Published by the NSW Writers’ Centre www.nswwc.org.au PO Box 1056 Rozelle NSW 2039 This collection is an online archive of articles originally published in Newswrite, the NSW Writers’ Centre magazine. Reproduced with permission. First published in 2013 by the NSW Writers’ Centre. This collection is © the NSW Writers’ Centre. Copyright for each individual piece is retained by the author. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book. ISBN: 9780957973510 Editor: Kirsten Krauth Designer: Xou Creative (www.xou.com.au) Cover illustration: Marc Martin (www.marcmartin.com.au) Project managers: Sam Twyford-Moore + Rose Powell CONTENTS Preface by Julia Tsalis Introduction by Kirsten Krauth Inspiration: Writer On Writer Emily Maguire on Graham Greene Nikki Gemmell on Michael Ondaatje Melissa Lucashenko on Helen Garner Fiona McGregor on Anna Akhmatova Fiona Wright on Patrick White Sam Cooney on David Foster Wallace Benjamin Law on Zadie Smith Kate Forsyth on Susan Cooper Vanessa Berry on Janet Frame Adrian Deans on Irvine Welsh Mandy Sayer on Ernest Hemingway Jon Bauer on Ray Bradbury The First Time: How to Learn the Ropes ‘Seek My Facebook: A Writer Comes into View’ by Sam Twyford-Moore ‘Dodging or Embracing the Gatekeepers? Defining the Emerging Writer’ by Pip Smith ‘The First Timer: From Manuscript to Three-Book Deal’ by Jacqui Dent Interviews Novelist Van Badham ‘The Beginning and the Middle: A Debut Novel’ by Jessica Au ‘Writing for Kids: The YA Market’ by Angie Schiavone Interviews William Kostakis and Aleesah Darlison ‘On Young Indigenous Writing: Reconciling Two Worlds’ by Ricky Macourt ‘Three Novelettes: Growing Up Out West’ by Kirsten Krauth ‘The Importance of Being Rejected: An Incentive to Improve’ by Adrian Deans ‘The Late Bloomer: Emerging Later in Life’ by Jane Sullivan Mixtape: How To Do Genre ‘Forced at Gunpoint: Advice for TV Writers’ by John Safran ‘Turning on Lights at Night: Writing and Watching Horror’ by Sonya Harnett ‘High Watermark: Nature Writing After Climate Change’ by Rebecca Giggs ‘How to Handle Big Ideas: The Differences Between Writing for the Stage and Screen’ by Hilary Bell and Keith Thompson ‘Earth, Blood, War and Dust: Collaborative Theatre from South Sudan to Australia’ by Ian Meadows and Awek B Akech ‘New Ground: Creating a Performance Space Between the Physical and Verbal’ by Sally Richardson ‘Flowing Like a Song: Connections Between Words and Music’ by Linda Neil ‘Steampunk in Steel City: How a Regional City Became a Sci-Fi and Fantasy Hub’ by Laura E Goodin ‘She’s Watching the Detectives: Uncovering a New Breed of Crime Writers’ by Pam Newton ‘Confronting Strangeness: From Illustrating Books to Animating Films’ by Sam Twyford-Moore Interviews Academy Award Winner Shaun Tan ‘Drawn to the Dark Side: YA Fiction’ by Angie Schiavone Interviews Margo Lanagan ‘Public Poets: Capturing Communities’ by Sheryl Persson and Kate Middleton ‘Tasty Morsels: Food in Children’s Literature’ by Angie Schiavone Nuts and Bolts: How to Get Your Manuscript Moving ‘The Likeability Problem: Do We Need to Relate to Characters?’ by Charlotte Wood ‘When Movement Stills, Sexiness Enters: Let’s Talk About (Writing) Sex’ by Kate Holden ‘Something Borrowed, Something Blue: The Challenges of Writing a Second Novel’ by Kirsten Tranter ‘Editing Fiction: Anxiety and the Manuscript’ by Mandy Brett ‘Audacity of Vision: How to Best Develop a Screenplay’ by Kirsten Krauth interviews Veronica Gleeson ‘Feeling for Light Switches: The Art of the Short Story’ by Kathryn Lomer and Cate Kennedy ‘Go Back to Where You Came from: Writing Memoir’ by Patti Miller ‘The Fine Line Between Pleasure and Pain: Writing a Good Love Poem’ by Judith Beveridge New Horizons: How to Go Digital ‘The Comfortable Rising of Shorts: A New Trend in Digital Publishing’ by Sam Cooney ‘A New Conversation: How Blogging Can Reshape Your Writing’ by James Bradley ‘Digital-Era Criticism: How Print and Online Worlds Have Shaped the Art of Reviewing’ by Geordie Williamson and Angela Meyer ‘News with Nipples: Blogging and Mainstream Media’ by Kim Powell ‘Video + Book = Vook: Emerging World of Blended Media’ by Linda Carroli ‘Which Way to Jump? Literary Journals Moving Online’ by Sophie Cunningham ‘The Story of Choice: Interactive Storytelling’ by Paul Callaghan ‘The iPad for Writers: Apps to Shape Your Work’ by Kirsten Krauth ‘Crowdsourced Editing: Entrusting Your Words on the Web’ by Linda Carroli ‘Brave New World: High-Tech Words’ by Kate Middleton Expansion: How to Reach an Audience ‘Shut Up and Publish: Starting Up a New Magazine’ by Alice Grundy ‘The Literary Equivalent of a Garage Band: Short Fiction Publishing’ Angela Meyer Interviews Bronwyn Mehan ‘How to Build an Online Audience: Know Your Community’ by Lisa Dempster ‘A Fate Worse Than Death? The Terror of Public Speaking’ by Jen Breach ‘The Touchy Subject of Reviews: An Exchange’ by Patrick Lenton and Adam Norris ‘Breaking the Silence Barrier: Women Writers Going Global’ by Lisa Dempster ‘A Generation of True Writers and Readers’ by Lili Wilkinson ‘Pioneers in the Digital Snow: The Lines Between Art and Being a Critic’ by Mark Mordue Recovery: How to Start to Heal ‘Black Saturday: The Power of Writing in the Aftermath of the Bushfire Tragedy’ by Arnold Zable ‘Don’t Get Me Down: Writing, Identity and Depression’ by Sam Twyford- Moore ‘Is There an Art to Falling Apart? Narrative and Healing in the Medical Memoir’ by Keri Glastonbury ‘Bringing the Letter Back: On the Lost Art of Letter Writing’ by Angela Meyer ‘The Café Poets Society: A Poem with Your Espresso?’ by Carly Jay Metcalfe Contributor Biographies Acknowledgements Inspiration: Writer On Writer Emily Maguire on Graham Greene In Graham Greene’s memoir Ways of Escape he wonders ‘how those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation’. It’s a quote that resonates with me on a personal level — I’ve written my way through many anxious, sleepless nights — but it also demonstrates why I am so attracted to Greene as a writer. Even as he admits to writing as an escape from personal suffering he is wondering about the suffering of others. This reflexive compassion and curiosity about the lives of others infuses all of his work, from the lightest adventure romp to the darkest examination of human despair. I first came to love Greene through his travel writing, which documents his experiences of visiting the most dangerous and desolate places he could get to. Like writing, travel is a ‘way of escape’ and, like writing, it’s not an entirely pleasant or uncomplicated one. Greene moans constantly about insects, dirty water, uncomfortable beds and unpleasant locals, but never implies that these are reasons not to travel. Indeed, he writes in The Lawless Roads that: ‘You couldn’t live in a country in a state of preparedness for the worst — you drank the water and went down to bathe in the little stream barefooted…in spite of snakes.’ It’s great travel advice, but as with most of Greene’s travel writing, it’s also much more than that. Of course, Greene is best known for his fiction and it’s that which has been most important to me. I lost my religious faith in my early 20s, the same age that Greene converted to Catholicism. As a recovering believer, Greene’s complex explorations of imperfect faith fascinated me. When I started my second novel The Gospel According to Luke I thought it was about a man of God who loses his faith when he falls in love with a non- believer. But as I was writing the first draft I re-read Greene’s The End of the Affair, The Power and the Glory and The Heart of the Matter, each of which features a man who acts contrary to his religious beliefs because the pull of human love is stronger. I began to understand that my character didn’t need to abandon God in order to give himself up to human love. Then, as I was re-drafting the novel, I came across a stunning letter from Greene to one of his mistresses. ‘Did I ever love God before I knew this place?’, he wrote, and right there I had the essence of how my character Luke comes to feel about his own illicit affair. If God is love then how can this not be of God? How can this be anything other than the most perfect expression of God?
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