by Ian McHugh (writing at ianmchugh.wordpress.com) A common question that crops up at writing workshops is “How do you go about getting stories published?” So much so that I’ve started building the short version of the answer into my workshop introductions. The short answer goes like this: McHugh’s 3-step Guide [...]
A number of CSFG members provide editing, web, promotion and other services for writers. We've started bringing them together on our new Writers' Services page. Check it out (and watch this space, we expect to add more service providers in the near future).
by Dr Gillian Polack (writing at Queensland Writers Centre) Some days, it’s hard to think in sound bites. We work at it. We make our pitch perfect; we communicate a digest form of our grand idea. The idea is, of course, to lure readers. As writers, we’re trained to summarise [...]
Guest post by Ian McHugh The first drafts of stories tend to be turds. That can be a difficult thing to admit about your newly completed masterpiece, but it’s okay: Mythbusters have proved that you really can polish a turd. The easiest way to figure out how to polish up your [...]
by Phill Berrie (at Phill's Follies) Was Shakespeare really Francis Bacon? Or perhaps William Shakespeare was the name Christopher Marlowe used to publish his plays after secretly escaping death and fleeing into exile. These are both serious possibilities being studied by literature scholars(*) using computers and stylometric techniques like word [...]
by Phill Berrie (at Phill's Phollies) I shot my first handgun today... and no this is not a dragonborn diary entry, I still haven't had the chance to play any more Skyrim since my last entry. My current WIP, a rewriting of my novella 'The Changeling Detective', has a contemporary [...]
We've added a Resources page to the site that links to various blogs, webpages and online resources maintained by CSFG members on the crafts of writing, editing and storytelling. more...
Maxine MacArthur's story "The Soul of the Machine", Ian McHugh's story "The Wishwriter's Wife" and Kaaron Warren's story "All You Can do is Breathe" have been included in The Year's Best Australian Fantasy & Horror 2011. Maxine's story was one of two (the other was Jason Nahrung's "Wraiths") to make [...]
Alan Baxter is on the Ditmar Ballot for Best New Talent. Kaaron Warren's novel Mistification is on the Ditmar Ballot for Best Novel and her short story "All You Can Do Is Breathe" is on the ballot for Best Short Story. Nicole Murphy has launched the first issue of her [...]
Writer and editor (and CSFG member) Donna Maree Hanson is posting a series of interviews with novelists on beta reading (ie, having their draft manuscripts read and critiqued by friends and colleagues). The first interview, with Gillian Polack, is up now. Useful insights for the beginning novelist and, as Donna [...]