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• TIP: When to mind your P’s and Q’s or Ps and Qs?
• Kick-start your writing with Creative Writing stage 1
• New daytime seminar for Travel Writing
• Cheri movie ticket giveaway
• Join us in Paris for our first international writing tour this October!
• Allen & Unwin Iremonger Award for non-fiction – win $10,000
• WEBPICK: Fantasy Magazine  

It’s been head down, bum up this week at the Sydney Writers’ Centre with so many activities going on. I’m particularly excited about our new course Marketing Your Book with brand expert Amanda Falconer. It’s just the sort of course I wish had existed when I was writing and marketing the five books I’ve authored! I’m so thrilled we’re able to bring this course to you.

Find out more here.

I’m also looking forward to the course I’m leading next week, Online Feature Writing. This course has helped hundreds of students get published in magazines and newspapers. I’ve also been reading Christine Fogg’s book Release the Hounds, a guide to research for journalists and writers. Christine uses many of the same techniques I use when researching articles and I can’t wait to share them with you in the course!

Find out more here.

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TIP: When to mind your P’s and Q’s
Do you mind your P’s and Q’s or your Ps and Qs?

You should never use an apostrophe when writing plural abbreviations – for example CDs, PJs, ATMs. However, both Grammar Girl and grammar guru Deb Doyle agree that if you come across an abbreviation of one letter only, you should use an apostrophe.

Here’s an example from Deb’s Grey Areas and Gremlins: A grammar and punctuation refresher.

WRONG: Noah’s animals came in 2s but the people came in 8s.

RIGHT: Noah’s animals came in 2’s but the people came in 8’s.

Our Creative Writing stage 1 course is one of our most popular, and it’s no wonder with great teachers like Dr Pamela Freeman and Kate Forsyth.

If you’d like to see your words in print or get that book going that you’ve always known you had in you, this course will help kick-start your writing journey. It’s ideal for anyone who wants to write short stories, a novel or turn their journal into something more. This creative writing course will teach you how to:

• tap into your imagination
• draw from everyday experiences and memories
• examine different types of creative writing
• give structure to your writing
• use characters and dialogue

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Travel Writing – new daytime seminar
You can get paid to travel, and our Travel Writing seminar is the perfect introduction to how you can do it. And, to make it easier for you to attend, we’ve now scheduled a daytime seminar (for those of you who can’t make it at night) as well as an evening one.

So, if you love travelling and want to combine that with writing, come along and learn how you can write travel features for magazines and newspapers, or contribute to guide books. The seminar will cover:

• Publishing opportunities (newspapers, magazines, electronic publishing, travel literature, guidebooks, other avenues)
• Types of travel stories (service stories, destination stories, personal essays)
• What it takes to be a travel writer
• Some straight talk about earnings
• Getting published and making contacts (including tips on joining professional associations such as the Australian Society of Travel Writers)
• Writing for travel guidebooks

This seminar is presented by Geoff Bartlett, he has worked as a freelance travel writer and photographer for magazines and websites for the last six years. His current areas of focus are the islands of the South Pacific and Asia. He is a regular contributor to Pacific Island Paradises and Asian Paradises.

MORNING session: Travel Writing with Geoff Bartlett
When: Friday 4 September 2009 (one morning seminar)
Time: 10.00am – 12.00pm

Cost: $75


OR

EVENING session: Travel Writing with Geoff Bartlett
When: Wednesday 30 September 2009 (one evening seminar)
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $75

Click here for more information or to enrol online.

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Movie ticket giveaway
Only a couple of months now until our first Writing in Paris trip kicks off, so we thought we’d get you in a French mood this week with free tickets to Cheri. Based on Colette’s 1920 novel about a Parisian courtesan and her young lover, the film stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Friend and is directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen, Dangerous Liaisons).

Thanks to Icon Films, we have ten double passes to give away. Here’s a little more about the film:

Set in the luxurious demi-monde of pre-First World War Paris, CHÉRI is the story of the love affair between the beautiful retired courtesan Léa (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Chéri (Rupert Friend), the son of her old colleague and rival, Mme Peloux (Kathy Bates).

Léa has educated the spoilt and callow boy in the ways of love, but after six years Mme Peloux has secretly arranged a marriage between Chéri and Edmée (Felicity Jones), daughter of another rich courtesan, Marie Laure (Iben Hjejle).

As the inevitable moment of parting approaches, Léa and Chéri try to come to terms with their imminent separation, but the roots of their life of ease and pleasure reach deeper than even they imagine and they begin to understand, too late, how much they mean to one another.

If you’d like to win a double pass to Cheri email courses@spindriftmedia.com.au the answer to this question:

What location in Paris do you think is the most romantic?

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Writing in Paris
Our very first Writing in Paris trip begins on 23 October – and we have only two spots left on this trip of a lifetime. Imagine living in your own Parisian apartment, sipping coffee on the Champs Elysee, wondering the Louvre, exploring the bookshops and walking the streets once walked by Victor Hugo and Marcel Proust. You’ll also take part in a Memoir Writing course with one of Australia’s best known writing tutors, Patti Miller.

This really will be the experience of a lifetime and a trip you’ll never forget!

Writing in Paris with Patti Miller
When: 23 October to 7 November 2009

Click here for more information and to receive a brochure.

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Allen & Unwin Iremonger Award for non-fiction
Entries are now open for the annual Iremonger Award for writing on public issues. The winning entry will receive $10,000, guaranteed publication, royalties on book sales and editorial support to develop the proposal into a finished manuscript. So, if you have an idea for a book that tackles a contemporary Australian political, social or cultural issue, then get your proposal together before 1 September 2009.

For full details and an entry form, click here.

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WEBPICK: Fantasy Magazine
This one is for lovers of fantasy fiction and also for those who are dabbling in writing some fantasy themselves. Fantasy Magazine is an online weekly magazine of all forms of fantasy fiction. It has book reviews, author interviews, articles, and also publishes short stories and holds competitions for micro-fiction.

High fantasy, surrealism, magical realism, science fantasy, folktales - it’s all here.

If you’re interested in submitting a piece of fiction or non-fiction, visit their submissions page first. Or click here for interviews, reviews and short stories.

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