Guest Bloggers Deborah Hunn & Georgia Richter on How to Be an Author

Guest blog post: introducing an indispensable new book for writers

Between the pages of How to be an Author is everything you need to know about the business of being a writer, from people who live and breathe books. In this guest post, co-authors Deborah Hunn who is a lecturer in creative writing, and Georgia Richter, a publisher and editor, talk about how the book came about, what you might learn from it and the joys they find in their everyday working life.

Deborah Hunn says:

When Georgia and I began to discuss writing our book How to be an Author, I  remembered how a former Curtin colleague was fond of saying she’d rarely met a creative writing student who didn’t have a great idea for a story; the real problem was with what came came next: taking that great idea and transforming it into a viable, well-crafted, fully developed piece of writing. In short, what makes an author is not just (perhaps not even) some magical innate streak of creativity. It’s putting in the work, doing the business.

Georgia and I aimed to provide our readers with help and advice in understanding that business when we drew on our varied experiences in teaching, writing and publishing, and when we decided to include the voices of an additional 18 authors in this book. Whether the apprenticeship of young and emergent writers (for not all new writers are young) is through a university or one of sundry other pathways, they must learn and sharpen through practise – developing skills with language and syntax, with structure, plot and characterisation as well with voice and point of view; building an awareness of the possibilities of genre, an eye for observational detail and other modes of creative research, and an ear for how to pitch to their target audience. However, doing the work of a writer also requires persistence and a willingness to be open to advice and critique. It means developing a workable routine, managing to write through the bad days as well as the good, and committing oneself to editing and redrafting, dealing with rejection and finding a way through when imagination runs dry.

As well as cultivating persistence, the developing writer needs to find their tribe. For some who start outside established educational or community networks, it may mean locating like-minded others to share writing, information and ideas with; for all it will mean learning to recognise and take on constructive criticism through peer workshopping and editorial feedback, and then making good use of that in refining a draft.

Then of course there’s the next big step towards being a writer: understanding and utilising the mechanics of pitching and publication.

 

Georgia Richter says:

Some people write as an end in itself – for them, the satisfaction of laying down words on a page, like bricks on a path, is enough. There is the joy of the hard, exacting slog of it, and the satisfaction of looking back and seeing a path that has been shaped, travelled and wrought.

For others, finding an audience for their work is an essential component of their sense of themselves as a writer – and so publication is a necessary part of their practice. If it is an audience a writer seeks, then there is much to think about. A writer can ask questions like:

  • What is an author brand, and how do I authentically create my own?
  • What’s in a contract and do I need an agent to get one?
  • What takes place during the editing process?
  • What are the important relationships I need to work on before and after publication?
  • What is success and what is reasonable to expect?
  • How will I bear the bumps and setbacks and rejections and learn to carry on?

Deb and I, and the contributing authors, provided as many insights and practical suggestions as we could to help emerging writers answer questions like these.

There are lots of things I love about my job as a publisher.

One is the feeling of reading a submitted manuscript and experiencing the affirming excitement of being in the hands of an assured storyteller who knows what they want to say and who has found exactly the right vehicle to say it.

Another is building a relationship through the editing process with an author as together we hone and refine the submitted work so it is as perfect as it can be.

A third is placing a book, fresh off the printer, into the hands of an author. Here is the hard, beautiful proof of all they have worked on – here is the moment when they are on the brink of sharing it with the world!

A fourth is when authors tell me about reader responses – conversations with strangers who have told the author how they were touched or moved or consoled or entertained by a book.

I derive huge satisfaction from having been a part of a writer’s journey to publication. Deb and I hope that this book will serve a similar purpose. We know that the greater work is always with the creator – from the clearing of the path and the placing of the first brick to the invitation to others to come walk that path too.

The book is available in all good bookstores and online

To connect with Georgia Richter, Deborah Hunn and other writers, join the How to be an Author in Australia Facebook Group.

Georgia Richter has also launched a new podcast series How to be an Author which features interviews with passionate members of the Australian publishing industry. You can listen on your favourite podcast app or using one of the players provided here.

 

Thanks for visiting, Georgia and Deborah. 

 

 

Guest Blogger: Josephine Taylor author of Eye of a Rook

Guest blogger Josephine Taylor hopes her historical novel will shine a light on a condition many women have but most don’t discuss

I’m always reassured when I hear other writers advise, write what you feel passionate about, because that’s why I wrote Eye of a Rook.

I was angry. Angry that so few people knew about a condition that was so debilitating and that affected so many women, including me: vulvodynia. And I felt frustrated and helpless – at least at the beginning, way back in 2000. Then, in 2003, I started writing about my experiences, and I began to feel more in control, more an agent in my own life. I researched and wrote and eventually began a PhD, which turned into a memoir – a kind of embedded sociological detective story that delved into the history of vulvar pain and hysteria, and that explored more recent understandings of pain that won’t leave, from psychoanalysis, psychiatry, neurophysiology, feminist studies… The resulting investigative memoir, Vulvodynia and Autoethnography, won several awards, but it was an unwieldy beast from a publisher’s perspective. So, while I continue to draw material from it for my personal essays, with many published, I’ve left a full-length memoir to one side – for the moment at least!

After I finished my PhD in 2011 the pressure inside me remained. I knew that somewhere between 10% and 28% of all women would experience vulvodynia in their lifetime, so how could I contribute to beneficial change for them? What was I to do about the BIG story I wanted to get out into the world? I had no conscious idea. Fortunately, my creative life had its own plans, and at a writing workshop in 2013, two Victorian men came to life in response to a writing prompt. One was a man called Arthur, with fine brown hair and dressed in a frockcoat, and the other was a real-life surgeon I’d been researching, Isaac Baker Brown. It seemed that Arthur was consulting Brown about his wife, Emily, and contemplating the surgeon’s radical ‘solution’ to hysteria. This initial scenario turned into a short story which now also included a scene with a contemporary Perth couple driving tensely to an appointment. It seemed that the modern-day Alice had the same pain as Emily – the same pain as me – and both women needed answers. The short story, published in an anthology as ‘That Hand’, became the first chapter of Eye of a Rook.

I wrote my novel in timelines separated by almost 150 years because I wanted to show how little has changed since 1866. In fact, my research had shown that the understanding of chronic pelvic pain and specific pain states like vulvodynia has stayed largely stuck for many centuries. It’s men who have, until very recently, studied, written about and treated mystifying female complaints across recorded history, and medical understanding has been based on a male model. Knowledge skewed even further in the twentieth century, as the theories of Sigmund Freud were taken up by psychiatry then gynaecology, especially in the US. Under this influence, vulvar pain was interpreted as psychosomatic, a woman’s way of acting out unresolved unconscious conflict, a ‘defense mechanism’ against intercourse. The onus was placed upon the woman, rather than the limits of medical knowledge, with women generally told or made to feel that the pain was ‘all in her head’.

Both Alice and Emily come up against this kind of ignorance and dismissiveness, enduring harmful treatments and worse. Both reach out for help, with Alice finding community in a support group and Emily relying on her husband at a critical moment. I hope that readers will be able to relate to or empathise with Alice and Emily’s pain and the decisions all the characters make, for themselves and their futures.

My biggest hope is that my book will be read by women with vulvodynia and that it helps them in tangible ways. More, I hope that the people these women depend on read it: family, friends, GPs, physiotherapists, gynaecologists, dermatologists, urologists and psychologists. I hope that those who live with chronic pain, who may have been made to feel that they could be doing more for themselves or that they are exaggerating their symptoms, read it. I hope that Eye of a Rook will shine a light where one is so desperately needed and bring this conversation into the public domain.

Eye of a Rook is available in all good bookstores and online.

Thanks for visiting, Josephine. You  can learn more about Josephine, and connect with her

At her website here.

On Twitter.

On Facebook.

And on Instagram .

 

Guest Blogger: Author in the Wild – Cristy Burne

Author Cristy Burne shares her top six survival techniques for touring authors.

So, it’s been a while since you’ve been on tour. In this new-normal, COVID-19 world, we’ve all grown used to the comforts of home: skyping in your PJs, talking to yourself, not wearing pants.

If you’re like me, it’s been a while since you’ve packed your Meet-The-Author bags to head into the [Big] Wide World.

Well, that’s about to change. This month I have a new book out (YAY!!!), and that means, COVID-19 lockdowns permitting, I may need to actually leave the house.

The book, Beneath the Trees, is a junior fiction adventure about teamwork, family and survival.

It’s based on the true story of a 2019 hike my family went on in Eungella National Park, Queensland. A hike I’m really glad we all survived! (Spoiler alert?)

Eungella is one of the best places in the world to see wild platypus, and that’s how everything really started … In the book, Cam and her little sister, Sophie, are looking forward to seeing a platypus, but when they finally spot one, something is wrong.

And then things just get worse. Soon they’re lost in the rainforest with their bossy older cousin, Jack. And they need all their resilience and courage to survive …

Just like you’ll need when you step out the front door on your next author tour.

So, because I’ve been thinking loads about survival, I’ve written up a list of top tips totally recommended if you want to make it through your next author tour alive …

  • Find water

Dehydration leads to headaches, lethargy and hallucinations. Only one of these things will serve your career as a children’s writer. So it’s essential you secure a source of water early. Your voice will last loads longer if you’re sipping all day. Also, your brain needs water for proper functioning. Just saying.

Score additional points if you bring along your own reusable bottle.

  • Signal to rescuers

If you’re drowning, not waving, you have an issue with communication.

If you’re an author on tour, it’s essential that you master the basic skills of effective signalling. Personally, I practise survival signalling every day, before I even leave the house. Techniques such as ‘I’d love a flat white, please’ may just save your life.

  • Navigate to safety

We all get lost at some stage. I usually get lost on the way to the venue. Or on the way home from the venue. Or on the way to the bathroom at the venue.

The point is, if you find you’re losing your way, don’t panic. Just pause, get your bearings, and then strike out in a better direction. If you get lost onstage, the pause is your friend. It’s a survival tool you can use. Any. Time.

  • Build a shelter

Protect yourself from sweltering heat, bitter cold, buckets of rain and billions of fans by ensuring you have shelter. This could take the form of a green room, staff room, hotel room, even the inside of your car. It’s way more fun if you actually build your shelter, so feel free to use library furniture, cushions, cardboard boxes and BYO mattress.

  • Pack basic medical supplies

Throat lozenges, headache tablets, dark chocolate, instant coffee. Your melt-down bag should provide a strong sense of safety. Whether you’re suffering from a blister, bruised ego, or muscle cramp from signing so many books, packing some basic emergency supplies is always a good idea. Include a second thumb drive. And a second shirt.

  • Make fire

Fire helps us cook, keeps us warm, and burns inside our souls for the rest of our lives.

Fire drives us forward, even when our slides don’t work or there’s an unexpected evacuation drill.

As children’s authors, our job is to start fires. A spark here, a spark there. Starting fires is the reason I get out of bed in the morning. It’s what drives me out of my front door. So make books, find your pants, and practise these survival techniques. Let’s start a fire in the hearts of children everywhere.

Cristy Burne’s new book, Beneath the Trees (Fremantle Press), is available from all good bookstores and online. It’s one of a trio of junior outdoor adventure stories that includes To the Lighthouse and Off the Track.

 

Thanks for visiting, Cristy.. You can find out more about Cristy at her website