- TIP: An hour or a hour?
- Learn online: The art of writing feature articles
- Writenow! Short Story Competition for kids
- Writing and your business
- 70's or 70s - which is correct?
- Inspiring journeys - write your travel memoir
- What we’re reading: Freedom
- WEBPICK: Australian Poetry
I was glued to my TV last night for the first episode of Park Street on Foxtel. Park Street is the behind-the-scenes look at the women's magazine industry within ACP Magazines. It's been a while since I've worked there during my days at CLEO but much of it looks the same. The women's magazine world can indeed be cut-throat. Just look at the number of editor's heads that have hit the chopping block over the last year! But the good news is that Australians are the biggest consumers of magazines per capita in the world. And while some magazines do indeed fold (like Ralph did last year), many new ones come on to the market.
This is great if you're a freelance writer because there are plenty of opportunities to get published, and get paid. If you want to fast track getting published in magazines and newspapers, you can do that this weekend:
Weekend Intensive Feature Writing for Magazines and Newspapers with Sue White
When: Saturday 26 & Sunday 27 February 2011 (two-day workshop)
Time: 10.00am - 4.00pm
Cost: $395
Click here for more information or to enrol online.
This weekend workshop is the result of your requests. We always love your feedback and many of you told us that you can't always make it to our evening courses. So this year, we're giving you even more choice than ever ... we're including more weekend and daytime courses in the mix.
If you can only make it to a course during the day, you can enrol in DAYTIME Creative Writing Stage 1 with Jeni Mawter. This is a great course if you want to explore the world of fiction and short stories - or perhaps even write a novel one day.
DAYTIME Creative Writing Stage 1 with Jeni Mawter
When: Tuesdays starting Tuesday 1 March 2011 for five weeks
Time: 10.00am - 12.00noon
Cost: $395
Click here for more information or to enrol online.
TIP: A historic or an historic?
Do you say “an hour” or “a hour”? Is it “a historic” or “an historic”. Here’s what the Australian Editing Handbook suggests:
All our dictionaries and style guides give a historic/historian as the preferred form. If you feel you must write an historic/historian, remember that it is an archaic form left over from the time when it was pronounced an ‘istoric/‘istorian; if you continue to use it, it follows that, for consistency, you should write an hotel, an holiday and an horrible experience as well.
However, we suggest that you follow the rule used by most reputable newspapers. That is: Use “a” if the next word starts with a consonant sound, and “an” if it starts with a vowel sound.
Therefore, an hour, an honour, an heir, a historian, a hotel.
What’s new this week at the Centre:- NEW! We’ve finalised details for our creative writing mentoring program.
- We’ve revamped our creative writing graduate’s forum. Email courses [at] spindriftmedia [dot] com [dot] au if you don't have login details.
- Check out our new videos to tell you all about Writing in Bali.
- Write your Oscar-winning movie! Screenwriting with Tim Gooding starts Monday 14 March 2011.
Learn Online: The art of writing feature articles
Even if you don’t live in Sydney, you can still join us for our online course: Feature Writing for Magazines and Newspapers. We currently have students from all over the world and Australia learning how they can write great features and get published.This course is ideal for anyone interested in exploring the world of freelance writing. You’ll learn how to generate story ideas, how to research, structure and write a feature, and how to approach editors to get your writing published – all from wherever you happen to be! As long as you have an internet connection, you can join us in our online classroom.
Here’s what some recent participants had to say about the course:
“The ability to listen to the modules at my own leisure was fantastic. I looked forward to them every week! The structure was brilliant and I have gained confidence in approaching publications. The Sydney Writers' Centre is a great place to learn the ins and outs of a career in writing. They're professional, very friendly and have a wealth of experience in the field. I highly recommend it!”
- Veya Seekis
“It was an excellent course that contained everything you need to know to get straight into feature writing. It didn't contain any unnecessary information – everything was useful.”
- Janis Love
Online Course: Feature Writing for Magazines and Newspapers with Sue White
When: Week beginning Monday 28 February 2011 for five weeks
Time: Whenever suits you
Cost: $395
Click here for more information or to enrol online.
Writenow! Short story competition for kids
We get so many parents calling us for advice on how to encourage their kids’ writing talent. Many of them have been trying in vain to find suitable courses or competitions, so we’re always on the look out for the best ones. One of our favourites is the Sydney Writers’ Festival’s Writenow! competition, which is on again. They’re now accepting entries from high school students in years 7 to 9.Students are asked to write a short story of no more than 1,000 words based on one of the story starters suggested by this year’s authors - Belinda Jeffrey, Bernard Beckett and Michael Pryor. There will be prizes awarded for each year, and winners will have their stories published on the Sydney Writers’ Festival website. Judging by the stories from last year, there are some incredibly talented young writers out there.
For more details and an entry form click here.
Improve your business writing
Are you confident that your business communications are clear and concise? Good business writing could impact your company in so many ways - after all, almost all your communication with potential clients or customers is in writing.Ensuring your reports and proposals are up to scratch doesn’t need to be an expensive or time-consuming process. Our one day seminar in Professional Business Writing will give you the tools you need to write polished and professional documents, every time.
Here’s what our most recent participants had to say about the seminar:
“The presenter was engaging and easy to follow. She referred to all of our working backgrounds and linked it into the work we were learning, which made it more interesting. The course was easy to follow and provided good resource material to take home.”
- Marisa Sfirse
“Mel was very engaging – she got everyone talking, and basically made everyone feel smart and like they had something to contribute.”
- Stephanie Oley
Professional Business Writing with Mel Wilkinson
When: Thursday 10 March 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.00am – 5.00pm
Cost: $450
Click here for more information or to enrol online.
A challenge ...I recently came across a great blog post on Daily Writing Tips that I just have to share with you.
Here you’ll find 100 words that are rarely used in writing or speech, but wouldn’t it be nice if they were? I challenge you to find a way to use at least one of them in your writing this week. Here are a few of my favourites:
- cantankerous: irritating, difficult
- doohickey: gadget or attachment
- flummoxed: confused
- hornswoggle: to dupe or hoax
- pettifogger: quibbler; disreputable lawyer
- skulduggery: devious behavior
TIP: Another apostrophe conundrum
Yesterday, we received a tweet asking if you need to use an apostrophe before the “s” when you write decades. For example:
70s, 80s, 90s.
The answer is NO.
You wouldn’t write seventie’s, or seventy’s because that would be wrong. So when you’re referring to a decade with numbers, you don’t use an apostrophe before the ‘s’.
The same rules applies when you are referring to a person's age.
For example:
The man was in his 20s. The man was in his twenties.
No apostrophe is needed here either.
Inspiring journeys - turn your travels into a memoir
The best travel experiences are inspiring and life-changing. So many of us have amazing travel stories to tell and it seems our thirst for travel stories is insatiable, with travel memoir being one of the most popular genres around. Just look at: Eat, Pray, Love; Holy Cow; and Almost French – their success proves we’re just as happy to read about travel as we are to do it ourselves!
No matter where your journey has taken you, if you dream of turning the experience into a book our Travel Memoir course can show you how. Over two days you’ll learn how to make your journey unique from the very first page.
Here’s what recent participants had to say about the course:
"I found this course extremely useful. It has provided me with some very useful tools and a good insight into travel writing. Claire has such a wealth of knowledge and experience in writing. Claire was very helpful in providing advice and good feedback during the course."
- Kirsty Cameron
"Claire was an excellent facilitator, obviously knowledgable about her subject, and also gave us lots of examples from well known authors to help illustrate her points."
- Nina Genikis
This course is presented by Claire Scobie, the author of Last Seen in Lhasa, winner of the Dolman Best Travel Book Award. So far, it has been translated into German, Dutch and Korean. She writes for numerous publications including the Daily Telegraph and the Observer Magazine in the UK, and is a contributor to the Sydney Morning Herald, Sun-Herald, Marie Claire Australia and the Qantas in-flight magazine, The Australian Way. She’s gone on the trail of rhino poachers in Assam, done heli-fishing in Patagonia and crossed the Tanami Track in Australia.
Weekend Intensive Travel Memoir with Claire Scobie
When: Saturday 5 & Sunday 6 March 2011 (two-day workshop)
Time: 10.00am - 4.00pm
Cost: $395
Click here for more information or to enrol online.
What we’re reading this week ...
This week our communications coordinator Rose is reading Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen. Rose writes:Freedom is Jonathan Franzen's latest fiction work since his award winning third novel, The Corrections. I started reading Freedom because it consistently topped the Best Books of 2010 lists.
Freedom is a long, hard look at the quintessential liberal middle-class family. Touching on the woes of modern parenting, the confusing role of sexual attraction in love and love in sex, the environmental movement in America and the dysfunctional patterns that families and friendships create, this book is understandably being heralded as a key book of this decade. Franzen's effortless prose belies the fury at the centre of the novel, which makes for an eerie reading experience.
I actually put the book down within the first few chapters because it was too unnerving. But I'm glad that I did pick it back up because the slow unravelling of the main characters is fascinating. Franzen manages the characterisation superbly, you care deeply about all of the key characters, yet you can witness their demise and questionable recovery without feeling too devastated. That said, I wouldn't recommend reading this book if you're not having a good week. I found the several shifts of narration hard to stay on top of, from the neighbours point of view to Patti’s autobiography to a close third person.
Overall, I loved this book. It’s not hard to see why it was the most praised book last year. Freedom is a potent combination of subtle writing, strongly rendered characters and topics that set off deep ripples in the readers mind.
We want to know what you’re reading! If you’d like to submit a short book review (no more than 200 words) send it to courses [at] spindriftmedia [dot] com [dot] au and we’ll consider it for publication in our newsletter or blog.
WEBPICK: Australian Poetry
Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre, home of all things literary, has a new tenant - Australian Poetry Ltd. A merger of the Australian Poetry Centre and the Poets Union, this new organisation will act as the industry body for poetry and poets, promoting Australian poetry nationally and internationally.
So naturally, they have a brand new website. Australian Poetry is the place to go for news, information on poetry events and competitions, and resources including a beginner’s guide to getting published by poet and teacher, Ron Pretty.
Check it out here.
Other upcoming courses
Seminar: Edit with Confidence with Deb Doyle – 1 PLACE LEFT
When: Friday 25 February 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.30am - 4.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Weekend Feature Writing for Magazines and Newspapers Stage 1 with Sue White
When: Saturday 26 February 2011 and Sunday 27 February 2011 (2 day workshop)
Time: 10.00am - 4.00pm
Cost: $395
Online Course: Feature Writing for Magazines and Newspapers with Sue White
When: Week beginning Monday 28 February 2011 for five weeks
Time: Whenever suits you
Cost: $395
Online Course: Creative Writing Stage 1 with Pamela Freeman/Cathie Tasker – NEW DATE
When: Week beginning Monday 28 February 2011 for five weeks
Time: Whenever suits you
Cost: $395
Course: Daytime Creative Writing Stage 1 with Jeni Mawter
When: Every Tuesday starting Tuesday 1 March 2011 for five weeks
Time: 10.00am - 12noon
Cost: $395
Seminar: Grammar and Punctuation Essentials with Deb Doyle
When: Friday 4 March 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Cost: $450
Course: Travel Memoir with Claire Scobie
When: Saturday 5 March 2011 and Sunday 6 March 2011 (2 day workshop)
Time: 10.00am - 4.00pm
Cost: $395
Online Course: Creative Writing Stage 2 with Pamela Freeman/Cathie Tasker
When: Week beginning Monday 7 March 2011 for five weeks
Time: Whenever suits you
Cost: $395
Online Course: Writing Books for Children and Young Adults with Laurine Croasdale
When: Every Monday starting Monday 7 March 2011 for five weeks
Time: Whenever suits you
Cost: $395
Course: Creative Writing Stage 1 with Pamela Freeman
When: Every Tuesday starting Tuesday 8 March 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Seminar: Professional Business Writing with Mel Wilkinson
When: Thursday 10 March 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Cost: $450
Course: Feature Writing for Magazines and Newspapers Stage 1 with Marina Go
When: Every Thursday starting Thursday 10 March 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Seminar: How to Get Your Book Published with Geoff Bartlett
When: Thursday 10 March 2011 (two-hour evening seminar)
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $85
Seminar: Writing for the Web with Grant Doyle
When: Friday 11 March 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.30am - 4.00pm
Cost: $395
Course: Life Writing with Patti Miller – FULL
When: Saturday 12 March 2011 and Sunday 13 March 2011 (2 day workshop)
Time: 10.00am - 4.00pm
Cost: $450
Course: Screenwriting Stage 1 with Tim Gooding
When: Every Monday starting Monday 14 March 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Seminar: Self Publishing - How to do it with Geoff Bartlett
When: Wednesday 23 March 2011 (two-hour evening seminar)
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $85
Seminar: PR and Media Releases that Get Results with Catriona Pollard – NEW DATE
When: Thursday 24 March 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Cost: $495
Course: Writing about Interiors, Style and Design with Nigel Bartlett – NEW COURSE
When: Thursday 24 March 2011 and Thursday 31 March 2011 (2 evening classes)
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $175
Seminar: Perfect Your Proofreading with Deb Doyle
When: Friday 25 March 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.30am - 4.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Boost Your Creativity with Laurine Croasdale
When: Monday 28 March 2011 and Monday 4 April 2011 (2 evening classes)
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $175
Seminar: Writing Letters and Emails with Deb Doyle – NEW DATE
When: Wednesday 30 March 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.30am - 4.30pm
Cost: $395
Seminar: Introduction to Travel Writing with Geoff Bartlett
When: Wednesday 30 March 2011 (two-hour evening seminar)
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $85
Seminar: Blogging for Business with Steven Lewis
When: Friday 1 April 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.30am - 4.30pm
Cost: $395
Seminar: Sell your ebook on Amazon with Steven Lewis – NEW SEMINAR
When: Tuesday 5 April 2011 (two-hour evening seminar)
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $85
Course: Travel Writing: Get Paid for Your Adventures with Sue White
When: Every Wednesday starting Wednesday 6 April 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Writing Books for Children and Young Adults with Judith Ridge
When: Every Wednesday starting Wednesday 6 April 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Weekend Travel Writing: Get Paid for Your Adventures with Sue White
When: Saturday 9 April 2011 and Sunday 10 April 2011 (2 day workshop)
Time: 10.00am - 4.00pm
Cost: $395
Course: Daytime Intensive Creative Writing Stage 1 with Jeni Mawter
When: Monday 11 April 2011 - Friday 15 April 2011 (5 days in a row)
Time: 10.00am - 12noon
Cost: $395
Course: Creative Writing Stage 2 with Pamela Freeman
When: Every Tuesday starting Tuesday 3 May 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Daytime Creative Writing Stage 2 with Pamela Freeman
When: Every Wednesday starting Wednesday 4 May 2011 for five weeks
Time: 10.00am - 12.00noon
Cost: $395
Course: Magazine Writing Stage 2 with Gayle Bryant
When: Every Wednesday starting Wednesday 18 May 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Plotting and Planning with Kate Forsyth – NEW COURSE
When: Thursday 19 May 2011 and Thursday 26 May 2011 (2 evening classes)
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $175
Course: Your Story Structure with Kathryn Heyman
When: Friday 17 June 2011 and Friday 24 June 2011 (2 half-day classes)
Time: 9.30am - 12.30pm
Cost: $215
Course: Life Writing Masterclass with Patti Miller
When: Every Friday starting Friday 1 July 2011 for eight weeks
Time: 10.00am - 12.00noon
Cost: $650
Course: Novel Writing Workshop with Pamela Freeman
When: Every Tuesday starting Tuesday 5 July 2011 for six weeks
Time: 6.30 - 8.30pm
Cost: $495
Course: Life Writing with Patti Miller
When: Every Friday starting Friday 9 September 2011 for six weeks
Time: 10.00am - 12noon
Cost: $450
WRITING TOURS
Writing in Bali with Patti Miller
When: Saturday 18 June to Saturday 25 June 2011
Writing in Paris with Patti Miller
When: Thursday 20 October to Saturday 5 November 2011
Travel Writing in Italy with Sue White
When: Friday 16 September to Friday 30 September 2011
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